Well it’s September, and the beginning of a new school year for kids. That and a couple of other things got me to thinking about certain themes that seem to run with the practice of Shotokan Karate-Do. One thing that seemed to distinguish the Shotokan senseis that I read about and got to practice under throughout the years was in the area of higher education. Perhaps it’s a minor thing, but the founder of our style, Master Funakoshi Gichin was not only a master of karate-do, he was also a….schoolmaster. Yes, he spent most of his days as a school teacher, practicing and teaching his beloved karate at night. In fact, one of the stories I’ve heard is that he gave up an opportunity to become a school principal to travel over to Japan proper at age 54, to answer a calling to spread the art to others. Whether that’s true or not, he certainly was the pebble that has created great ripples across the ocean. Today, there are millions of Shotokan practitioners around the globe today. His successor in spreading the art world-wide and guiding the JKA during its first thirty years was Master Nakayama Masatoshi. Interestingly, Master Nakayama [...]

Where does the time go? It’s July already, and the 4th of July or Independence Day here in the United States of America. On this day, the average person is thinking about hot dogs, barbecues, beer, fireworks, holiday sales, picnics, the beach, and so on. The purpose of the day, as we all know, is to celebrate the birth of our nation, from its humble beginnings some 233 years ago, when we declared our independence as a collection of 13 colonial states on the eastern portion of North America from what was then, the most powerful nation on the earth, Great Britain. Each of us starts our life, totally dependent upon others, primarily our parents. Unlike so many other species, we’re rather weak and helpless when we enter this world. I used to watch my pet fish (guppies) giving birth, and no sooner had the little curled up ball of a fry (baby fish) dropped from its mother like an aircraft dropping bomb, when it would suddenly uncurl into a tiny version of its mother and immediately swim away. It did this so quickly, that the “fry-ball” hadn’t even had time to touch the bottom of the tank. Similarly, colts [...]

Well, these days I find myself a bit more inclined to writing my occasional note to you all… nope, not retired yet, but we did just upgrade to a new computer, which (until videos, photos, additional programs, and malware degraded its responsiveness) brings up the internet so fast, I don’t waste most of my time waiting and waiting, like in the TV commercials, haha. Anyways, I’m sitting here in the “CatRoom”, so called because it’s the cats’ home here on the second floor. They spend their evenings here and their days in the garage, feeling so secure that they often remain asleep even when I walk right past them, en route to the computer. Simba’s awake and lying next to my chair, mostly because I shooshed him off of his “throne” so I could access my email. We joke about the CatRoom, much as we used to joke about Batman and Robin’s BatCave, BatCar, Batphone, etc…and that we wanted to see how they decorated the BatRoom (bathroom, get it?…juvenile humor from the sixties). Anyways, as I look around me, I realize that this room not only contains the cats and their belongings; it serves as our office (with attendant computer, [...]