A while back, I shared a story entitled “Karate in Strange Places”, describing the surreal experience of observing from a mile away, a solitary figure performing the familiar Shotokan kata, Kankudai on the isolated beach of Kalalau Valley, while the early morning sun was rising. \u00c2\u00a0By the time we reached the beach, he was long gone. Years later, while talking story with a fellow seated next to me at a mutual friend’s wedding reception, I was to discover that he was the unknown karateka who performed the kata – on the same beach where he was married, shortly thereafter. \u00c2\u00a0I have always thought about what a coincidence that was and that it was a fitting end to a mystery that had bothered me for years. \u00c2\u00a0Well, it turns out, that wasn’t quite the end of the story.<\/p>\n
Last weekend, my old mentor, Sensei Ed was guest instructor at our place as he does once a quarter. \u00c2\u00a0Afterwards, over lunch, we were discussing the recent passing of a mutual karate friend, Sensei Richard Lovell. \u00c2\u00a0Anyways, that reminded Ed that one of Richard’s assistant instructors was the first karateka that he had ever promoted to black belt many years ago. \u00c2\u00a0His name was Michael Knight – no, not the Michael Knight of “Knight Rider” TV fame, haha. \u00c2\u00a0He is Dr. Michael Knight, with PhDs in Geology and Geophysics and owner of a successful consulting business. \u00c2\u00a0I’m a retired environmental planner and Sensei Peter is a soon-to-be retired environmental planner. Coincidentally, Dr. Knight works in a related field, a scientific expert specializing in highly technical studies related to environmental remediation. Anyways, when Ed mentioned Michael’s name, I instantly realized that he was talking about….Kalalau Kankudai man! \u00c2\u00a0In confirmation, Ed remembered that he reluctantly declined Michael’s invitation to his wedding – to be held on the isolated beach at Kalalau, on the island of Kauai. \u00c2\u00a0The main reason being – he didn’t think he could make the 13 mile hike in and out of the valley…one of the more challenging hikes in Hawaii. To think, if he had accepted the invite, I would surely have recognized him, and the three of us would have been talking story together and enjoying one of the most beautiful places in the world…and possibly performing Kankudai on the beach in unison! \u00c2\u00a0And that’s the rest of the story….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A while back, I shared a story entitled “Karate in Strange Places”, describing the surreal experience of observing from a mile away, a solitary figure performing the familiar Shotokan kata, Kankudai on the isolated beach of Kalalau Valley, while the early morning sun was rising. \u00c2\u00a0By the time we reached the beach, he was long gone. Years later, while talking story with a fellow seated next to me at a mutual friend’s wedding reception, I was to discover that he was the unknown karateka who performed the kata – on the same beach where he was married, shortly thereafter. \u00c2\u00a0I have always thought about what a coincidence that was and that it was a fitting end to a mystery that had bothered me for years. \u00c2\u00a0Well, it turns out, that wasn’t quite the end of the story. Last weekend, my old mentor, Sensei Ed was guest instructor at our place as he does once a quarter. \u00c2\u00a0Afterwards, over lunch, we were discussing the recent passing of a mutual karate friend, Sensei Richard Lovell. \u00c2\u00a0Anyways, that reminded Ed that one of Richard’s assistant instructors was the first karateka that he had ever promoted to black belt many years ago. \u00c2\u00a0His name [...]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=392"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1678,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions\/1678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiskarate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}