First of all, there’s no training for Saturday, 23 May. That day, the Shotokan Karate International Federation (SKIF) will be holding its yearly karate tournament at the old Manoa gymnasium. Senseis Trisha, Peter and I will be helping out with judging at the event. If any of you are interested in participating in the kata competition, please come see me for application forms…it costs $15 to enter.
The SKIF in Hawaii is headed up by my friend Sensei, Victor Takemori. Sensei Vic has been a life-long student under Shotokan great, Kancho Kanazawa (Kancho is a title). As most of you know, Kancho Kanazawa is the founder and leader of the world-wide SKIF, which has hundreds of thousands of members. Many years ago, Kancho (former JKA champion) began his overseas teaching career right here in Hawaii….and Sensei Vic became one of his first students. Both men are not only great and knowledgable karate instructors, but possess fine, humble characters. Sensei Vic is in his late seventies, but still actively sharing the art of karate-do.
Ironically, as you know, I never mention tournaments, nor do we do any training that is related to tournaments in our ministry. Personally, I think that tournaments and the whole sports-component of karate are well and good, but not the end-all of karate-do. This aspect of Shotokan started in the late 1950’s, soon after the founder’s passing in Japan. It has its good points and its bad points, which I’ll share my thoughts on, at another time. Suffice it to say, that if I had to compare our normal training here at the ministry to a sport, it would be like an eternal spring training…with no game scheduled. If you’re a real sportsman, that might sound kind of boring, eh?
The kicker is, if it weren’t for tournaments, I – and our ministry might not be here today. It was while I watching a karate tournament (supporting one of my friends who was a participant) that I accepted a dare from my wife (who was my girlfriend at the time). I was not a karateka then, and when my friend won a trophy for the blue-belt division, I made the mistake of saying, “I could do that!” She quickly exclaimed, “Prove it!.” And, I have spent the last 40 years doing that, haha. Of course, along the way, I did enter my share of tournaments and garnered my share of wins. However, participation in tournaments ended up being only a miniscule part of what I did and where I learned about karate-do. In case you’re wondering, that blue belt tournament participant was my old friend, Sensei Peter.
Anyways, the only tournament that I have attended to help out in the last 15 years, is the one that’s run by the SKIF. It’s certainly not the largest, nor does it attract the professional-level karateka from the IKF or Butoku-Kai schools (their best students travel world-wide to win titles). However, I think that this small tournment does manage to capture the good aspects of the tournment world: good sportsmanship, character development for the youth, striving to do one’s best, etiquette, etc. It’s not about developing world-class athletes, but a means of further developing the average child or adult through karate-do.
One of the great impacts that tournament competition did have on our ministry are the jyu-kumite kihon syllabus that we share with the brown and black belts. While the basic and intermediate kihon has a direct relationship to kata movements, the jyu-kumite kihon are directly related to tournment style movements. In our ministry, we use these techniques, not to enhance our chances of winning in a tournment, but to strengthen our bodies and speed up movement through a different type of body dynamics. So I must admit that we have derived many benefits from the the advent of tournament karate. Remember that cowboy movie in Austrailia starring Tom Selleck? In “Quigley Down Under”, Selleck is a true American western cowboy, hired by a rich Austrailian rancher for his long-range rifling skills. There’s a falling out, when Selleck realizes the rancher wants to use him for evil purposes. The rancher, an expert quick-draw with a Colt pistol, relishes a shoot-out with the rifleman. After Selleck surprisingly outdraws the bad guy, along with two of his henchmen, he tells the surprised and dying rancher, “I said I never had a use for pistols, I never said I didn’t know how to use ’em.”