This past Saturday, we had a really great potluck immediately following training.  It was an informal little gathering such as we haven’t had in years, and was due to the planning and hard work of Sensei Trish and Roxanne.  Each of the five sensei’s were able to attend, along with Sempai’s Dave, Kevin and Robert (Sempai James and Helen had a conflicting engagement).

Predictably, the black belts all congregated on one end of the long tables while the rest of the group filled in the other end.  If we were on a ship, we’d probably have tilted one way and capsized :0…haha.  The good food and small talk made for a very relaxing and enjoyable time and without their gi’s and belts, the senior members actually looked like the regular folk that they are.  The sunny, cool weather and nice ambiance of the new enclosed area at the center combined for a perfect setting.

The anagram game and like-a-charade game (drawing pictures or using play-doh) to figure out the underlying karate terms proved to be difficult, fun, and “untilted” the ship by mixing all of our club members together.  Craftily designed by our potluck planners, the activities served to bring out the competitive spirit in the children and parents and certainly brought out the child in the old sensei’s and sempai’s, haha.  Having a chance to interact with each other outside of regular training really makes one realize that we have a great ohana that just happens to also practice karate-do together.

I still recall the occasional get-together with our aikido ohana a looong time ago…like a picnic way back in the early 1960’s, at a beach somewhere on the west side.  One of the teenage students had brought his surfboard along.  Those were the first days of the surfing craze in the US.  As a young twelve or thirteen year old, I can still feel the embarrassment for myself and another neophyte, who spent 15 fruitless minutes trying to get up and stand on the board (laughing hysterically as it kept turning over and we kept falling back into the water)…which I now realize, is pretty much impossible to do as a tandem –  especially when the board is floating still, in waters that are totally calm and glassy 🙂  It would have made a great America’s Funniest Videos entry, haha.  How were we to know?  It would be like trying to balance on a bicycle that wasn’t rolling forward.  Aside from our slapstick comedy routine in the ocean, what stands out most to me, is the wonder of seeing my venerable sensei’s and seniors as ordinary fellows, all of us, young and old, enjoying the day and the camaraderie together.  Ironically, out of all of the time I spent training with that old club in that old dojo over 50 years ago, memories from that picnic remain among the sharpest in my mind.

50 years from now, when the punching, kicking, katas and kihon have all merged into hazy memories of a long ago era, perhaps a few of our youngsters – by then, in their 60’s or 70’s – will still recall the fun, food and friendship of the occasional potluck, and think about the old club.  Wouldn’t that be something?