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, printer, files, papers, pens, stapler, etc), our music room, and last but not least, our karate room. Sure, we threw away the old dusty trophies many years ago, but we did keep a few things, for which the CatRoom has become the designated place. I can see my most prized mementos, one of the Dan certificates that I received from the old JKA, signed by the late Tetsuhiko Asaki. He was the examiner, chief instructor of the JKA at the time, and the most amazing karateka that I ever got to train with. There’s also a large poster that the church made when we kicked off the karate ministry – it was entitled “Self Defense – Strategies for Personal Safety”, the title of a sermon our pastor gave based upon Psalm 23. The poster is a nice black and white of Sensei Trish executing a uchi-ude-uke. Below it, on the CatTable, is a faded black and white photo of our son Matt, as an eight-year old blue belt in the classic opening movement from Heian Nidan. We got that one from the old Sun Press, as they had printed it in an article on karate in Mililani some 25 years ago. And next to that is a Gopher?/Groundhog? doll, dressed in a karate gi, holding a nunchaku?/mace? in his hand?/paw? that used to feverishly swing the weapon when it contained a working battery. The toy was purchased when our son was able to purchase his first home some ten years ago. And that’s it…

Strange, the odd cherished items that we elect to keep after nearly four decades in karate. There are a few other things I keep which are not in the room; some of my old belts (don’t know what I did with the first two black belts I owned), some paraphernalia given to me by a friend who had permanently left budo years ago – he had a number of weapons as a student of famous kobudo expert Tadashi Yamashita, as well as being an assistant aikido instructor under another well known sensei in California. And surprisingly, my old bokken from aikido training, which I, in turn, gave to my daughter.

These, of course, are material things that we decide to keep. Most of what we retain, however, are often not by choice…the scars and old twinges from years of practice or an injury that took a split second to receive and stays with us for the rest of our lives. Most often, we see these as negative things such as a permanent loss of flexibility or a twinge of pain whenever you move a certain way. On the other hand, an old twinge is often the best reminder that you’re not Superman and to exercise some care and judgment in everything you do (something we learn by the time we’ve reached our fifties). But the most valuable things we keep with us from a lifetime of training aren’t necessarily visible. Our memories from thousands of hours in the dojo…Let’s see, I started doing the martial arts some time in 1963; around 46 years ago. However, like most martial artists, I had several breaks in training adding up to about six years in total. So if you net it out to 40 years and do the math: 40 X 52 = 2,080 weeks…2,080 X 3 times (average) = 6,240…6,240 sessions X 3 hours = somewhere around 19,000 hours spent in the training hall. All those thousands of hours leave an indelible mark on one’s body, mind and spirit. The gifts you gain are intangible and often unrealized until years later. When you think about it, you really don’t need the dusty trophies, faded certificates, or shredded old belts. Everything good you gained from practice remain here (point to your head) and here (point to your heart)…and you carry these gifts with you, where ever you go. Hmmm….that I think about it, I wonder why Lynne keeps that gopher/groundhog nuchuk-swinging doll on the sacred Karatetabl…er, CatTable anyway?