The passing of kings

I was just thinking about everything in the news this week, commemorating the passing away of “The King” Elvis Presley, back in August of 1977….thirty years ago. I heard the news when I was attending a small dinner in my honor, at my boss’ home in Vandenberg AFB. Yes, I was leaving the Air Force and we were getting ready to come back to Hawaii. Everyone at the dinner table was in shock, as we were all children of the Rock and Roll era. As a little kid in elementary school, one of the first taunts I can recall was some innovative girl yelling at me, “Wesley-Pesley, Elvis Presley.” Elvis’ career ran the gamut from young, shocking-pelvis Elvis…to gold record Elvis…to G.I. in Germany Elvis…to Has-Been Elvis (thanks to the British Invasion)…to B-Movie Elvis…to Re-Invented in Vegas Elvis. The last incarnation of Elvis is how we most like to remember him; huge side-burns, cool sunglasses, white gem-studded jump suit with the collars up, white boots, stretching into his long, stylized zenkutsu-dachi and kokutsu-dachi and vibrating “karate hands”, sweating profusely and tossing out scarves to his admiring fans. He was a kenpo practitioner who received his black belt from the late [...]

Bunkai

My wife and daughter are hooked again this season, on the tv show…”So You Think You Can Dance.” Out of all the thousands of dancer-wannabees who entered the tryouts in the various cities, it’s now whittled down to just a handful of extremely talented, hard-working young dancers. I marvel at their work ethic, at how they hold up under intense stress that seems to bring out their best. I can’t believe that, whatever their individual dance background, they successfully learn different styles and routines every week…sometimes two routines with partners…and still come through dancing like pros. Then I wonder…if I had these dancers as karate students, would I be able to teach them karate, especially kata so that they could perform like experts and how long would it take for them to pick it up? What is it that separates kata in karate-do from skillful dance? Well, here are my thoughts: 1) All of the movements in kihon, and therefore, the sequences and combinations in the kata of karate-do are meant to generate purposeful focused power. Not for the sake of generating power, but to generate and impart force into selected targets on an opponent’s body. In addition to the [...]

Fellowship

The topic of this note is “Fellowship”, but let me begin by saying that among all people, some are more blessed with individual self-motivation than others. This may be at work, at home projects, in academics, in daily exercise, in eating a balanced diet, in avoiding excess of any kind, and so forth. For folks such as this (Sempai James comes to mind), coming to training whenever possible is a no-brainer. James is a retired supervisor of social workers, but at 70 years old his retired life is anything but relaxed. He is up and doing his daily five mile walk long before the sun comes up. Each day, he meditates, stretches, lifts weights, punches the heavy bag and does work around the house. Later in the day, he does a second walk (this time with his wife) of three miles. And until recently, he spent much of his day helping care for his father-in-law (nearly 100 years old), who passed on earlier this year. And he still finds time to come faithfully to karate training and pitching in where ever he can help and training as hard as anyone. We’ll miss his presence for three weeks in August, when [...]