There are many great martial arts instructors in the world. The best of these have that rare gift of being able to display astonishing technique coupled with great insight. Once in a while, we come across a fascinating and seemingly fresh interpretation of the art, and it can give one’s mind a lot to think about. Below is video of a Shotokan instructor whom I hadn’t really heard about before – Sensei Rick Hotton. If you take a look at him, you’ll note that his karate techniques are very good – yet, his interpretation of movement is distinctly different from what most karate classes teach. He talks about the sine wave, emphasizes (and demonstrates) hip motion and connectivity in far more detail than the basic hip snap/thrust/rotation, and pushes his Shotokan audience to learn to relax. These are concepts I recall from my early years in Aikido. Glancing into Sensei Hotton’s background a little, I found out why – he is also a student of Aikido Sensei Matsugi Saotome. Sensei Saotome was an uchi-deschi of the art’s founder, Ueshiba Sensei. Some 25 years ago, I truly enjoyed reading his book, “Aikido and the Harmony of Nature”. It was so interesting [...]

As you know, we don’t place emphasis on jyu kumite in our group, although, we do share the many jyu kumite kihon combinations that your sensei’s learned as part of the KAH syllabus. From the time we were white belts, we were immersed into the practice of free-style and tournament sparring. To a great degree, our parent organization, the Japan Karate Association was responsible for introducing jyu kumite and tournaments t the world, beginning shortly after the Founder’s passing in 1957. The 5-step, 3-step and 1-step pre-arranged kumite you practice were developed to gradually introduce students to gauging distance, speed and power in coordination with another student, versus the usual “air” training. As brown and black belts, over half of our usual training was devoted to some aspect of jyu kumite in the dojo. When we were young, we received most of our many minor injuries from this type of training. Since this has always been the sports aspect of the art and in order to avoid injury to our students, we have not made this a part of your training. Ironically, this is what most people associate with the art of Karate-Do. Since its introduction some 60 years ago, [...]

It’s Father’s Day weekend, so since I’m both a father and a grandfather, the kids/grandkids are taking me to bowl a couple of games and then eat the good food available at Aiea Bowl tomorrow.   I really enjoy such outings, but in the midst of the fun, I also reflect (not often enough) on fond memories of my own father Melvin, gone some seven years ago.  Above is a pic of dad from Father’s Day, 1965.  He had just returned from fishing and when he emerged from his shower, we surprised him with his favorite beverage (Primo) and a Father’s Day gift….a happy moment caught by a Kodak instamatic.  In memory of him and Father’s Day, I’m resending something I wrote for dad back in April 2011, before most of our active members ever joined our group.  I hope it honors both him and the special fathers in all our lives. Well, he’s left the building and gone on to new adventures, I’m sure.  He was one of a kind and had a winning smile that could light up the room.  My earliest memories of him are as a kind of Superman/Charles Atlas, able to carry me and five of my cousins; one on [...]