Over the last three Saturdays, we have enjoyed training with Sensei Ed Fujiwara, and I know everyone (myself included!) has learned so much from these sessions; especially his famous lines, “Easy training today!”, or “More down in your stances!” Sensei always has had an ironic/sardonic sense of humor.

Anyways, he finally gets to teach at the NHM karate ministry’s new location at Mililani Ike School, Building E. I understand that similar to Momilani Rec, it’s an outside covered area. We are all invited to bless his new location on Saturday and train with him there for his inaugural session. Sensei and I will share teaching duties like we did today. Training will start at 09:00 am, just like usual. I will be sure to send out a map later this week so no one gets lost. You’ll find that just like training with a different instructor, training at different location is…different! And that, in itself, is a learning experience.

I learned an interesting thing from Sensei Ed these last couple of weeks. First, he switched from a different martial art to karate many, many years ago, because of a chance visit to his high school friend’s house. His friend’s older brother was in the back, whacking away at a makiwara board. Curious, Ed went over and asked his brother’s friend, Haji, “What are you doing?” And that is how Sensei Ed got involved in karate. On our small island, it turns out that this friend’s brother, who played a pivotal role in Sensei Ed’s martial arts journey…was my old friend and co-worker from IBM Corp, Haji Asato. It is this same friend (Haji’s younger brother), who brought Sensei Ed to New Hope Mililani some years ago, and which, in turn, led to his beginning the NHM karate ministry. Amazing, how the ripples of influence interact and inter-lap, in His great plan.

Another interesting coincidence. The first time I ever ventured to watch a UH Karate Kai training was actually a examination held for two white belts down in the old dance studio (torn down long ago) in the UH Quarry. The examination was given by Sensei K. Funakoshi. Watching the exam, I was amazed at how well the two white belts performed. They were rather spectacular for white belts. I wasn’t sure if I could match up to such high standards for mere beginners. Well, as it turned out, these two “white belts” were so much better than I could have expected because both were previous brown or black belts in other karate systems and were retesting to gain rank in the Shotokan system. Both were skipped to the purple belt level. Both of them ultimately made it to black belt and, in fact, trained alongside me some years later when I had also reached the dan level. One trained and taught for several more years, then moved on and left karate behind…he works today, in the same organization as Sempai Rodney. The other has kept on teaching till this day…he established and leads the Grace Bible Karate Ministry.

I firmly believe that there is a plan for each of us, a unique path that each of us is meant to take. If we are faithful to that path and to our walk, we’ll all get there. My fervent hope is that one or more of you take our place one day and help to share the Walk, the Do with someone else.