Rough Year

This year has been a rough hard year for traditional budo; we have seen the loss of several of the older generation of traditional karate and Kobudo sensei.

Koshin Iha Sensei - Gojuryu

William Dometrich Sensei - Chitoryu
Taika Seiyu Oyata Sensei – Ryukyu Kempo/Ryute Oyata Shin Shu Ho Ryu
Kensei Taba Sensei - Shogenryu
Takayoshi Nagamine Soke - Matsubayashiryu
Giyu Gibo Sensei – Shorinryu Shorinkan
Tatsunori Azuma Sensei - Kobayashiryu
Seikichi Gibu Sensei – Shorinryu Butokukan
Masayuki Shimabukuro Sensei – Seito Shitoryu/ Muso Jikishin Eishinryu

I am fortunate that I have been able to train with several of these great men over my lifetime. We are quickly approaching a time where there will be no pre WWII students that became teachers left. The founders are gone and shortly their first generation will have passed through this life too (a large part of the second generation as well), I am afraid that with these great losses, many of the old ways of karate will also cease to exist in the next decade.

I am approaching the 19^th anniversary of my dojo (January 1st), and 45 days after that I will have my 36^th anniversary of budo training. I have practiced karate every day, with very, very few exceptions, since I began training and I have taught either at my own dojo or my fathers for the last 22 years.  This year has been a challenge for me, not in my training or in my private dojo, but in the politics of commercial dojos,  I have grown tired of teaching people who want everything handed to them, I have done my best to pass on the older ways of karate as I have learned them, but again I fear people may not want to learn them. It may not be the passing of all these great men, but also the attitude of the current generation that is the downfall of true budo.

I recently had a conversation with a with a man that I feel is a good (and old friend) with whom I talked about the very same fear, we discussed the difference in what was being done when we were younger, versus how things seem to be going now. My friend does not have his own dojo, but he visits other people’s dojo for training and teaching. I had discussed with him that even though I had just spent a great deal of time remodeling my dojo that I was at a place in life where I was tired of trying to teach, that I wanted to simply stop. Use the dojo for my own personal training and nothing else, train with the occasional guest and offer advice and corrections to my yudansha level students, but that was it, no more kyu grades. He confided in me that he wanted a dojo, but it would probably have to wait until he retired. We had a lengthy discussion throughout the two day period. One thing that he said to me was “If people like us do not teach, people that have trained with the masters, and have studied traditional karate, then it will die, if we do nothing, and others feel the same way, then it will die and maybe we could have stopped it”. This has really got me thinking and while I have made no decision one way or the other, none the less, he has a great point.