HIS Karate-Do

When I was in elementary school, meetings with the teacher at conference time weren’t the greatest time for my mom. For some reason, I struggled in academics, right on through the fifth grade. I was the classic underachiever…you know, high test scores combined with terrible work in the classroom. I don’t know why that was, I didn’t mean to do poorly in class, and always looked forward to going to school. I enjoyed the teacher, my classmates, even the school lunch. Yes, for 25 cents, I could indulge in culinary delights like Spanish rice, hot dog with beans, brown bread, green beans, peach halves, milk in a carton (with the serrated circle for the straw), and too many other courses to mention. But in the classroom, I don’t know why I hardly ever did my homework and usually drew pictures to entertain the kids around me. Fortunately, we live in a society that makes school mandatory up through the twelfth grade, and my parents never gave up on me. In the sixth grade, my mind suddenly locked into school and learning, and I did well through high school, breezed through college, and finished graduate school, even while putting in 60-hour [...]

When I first started training in Shotokan many years ago, it was conducted in an old wooden building next to the Otto Klum Gym. Located in the hot University of Hawaii quarry. I was surrounded by the newest batch of white belts. The group was all UH students, mostly males in their late teens/early twenties. Six months later, there were only a dozen left, and I think three of us made it to shodan out of our class. The training was really pretty grueling for us novices. I remember one particularly tough practice session when at least six beginners either fainted or had to be pulled out of line. Mostly, I think they were trying to test our perseverance and conditioning. Many of you are familiar with the quarry. Back when I first started at UH in the late sixties, it contained the gym, some basic track/field facilities, various portables, and some old buildings like our old dojo. Most of the huge area was dusty, white and devoted to parking for thousands of students’ cars. The quarry was significant to me for just three reasons: karate, parking, and the place where my Air Force ROTC classes were conducted. Knowing my [...]

I know that the title is an odd one, considering that tomorrow is Mother’s Day. However, I was just thinking about why I originally got into the martial arts, and as you would expect, there were a bunch of reasons. However, as it turns out, my initial foray into the arts (aikido) wasn’t really due to any initiative on my part. I remember that it was my dad who was the actual impetus. One day, after he had come home from work, relaxing at the dining room table with the newspaper and a cold beer (he favored Primo and Lucky Larger back then), he told me, “Wes, I’m going to take you someplace tonight.” Since this was a rare and unusual statement from him…actually, those days, any statement from him was rare, I looked up from the book I was reading and asked, “Where?” He said we were going to the local Hongwanji dojo where his friend from work practiced aikido. And that was the beginning… Looking back, I suppose dad’s unprecedented interest in getting me into a weekly activity was heavily due to dad’s interest in the martial arts, though his only experience was some judo as a kid [...]