Singing was a very popular pastime at the sayonara parties in the early days. The master of ceremonies would call on someone to start and then he would ask the next person to sing etc. Having lived in Japan I was aware of what was going on so I had a very simple song prepared just in case. But for some people it came as a little shock.
During my two years in Japan apart from the training there were lots of publicity photographs. At the time I did not appreciate them but now I value the memories they give me of my days at Honbu. Camps, grading’s and competitions.
Well by know everyone is back in their own countries after a hectic few days in Japan. The World tournament is only held every four years, but what a tournament, on the final day Tokyo metropolitan Gymnasium was sold out.
The atmosphere was electric, for those who had travelled from far away it must have been a great experience. The fighting was hard, but I thought that low kicks where not so popular this time, rather the kaiten or rolling kick seemed to be in favour. Low kick were used but I can’t remember seeing any scores from them, but we did get some spectacular knockouts with no injuries.
Anyway after the Tournament there was the usual Sayonara party, but for many it was not sayonara as we had our seminar and grading yet to come. The seminar was full, we had 420 participants from 49 countries and 109 who wanted to grade, this was the biggest so far. So you can see that the WKO Shinkyokushinkai organization is growing.
Trying to give as much knowledge to so many in such a short time was hard, but I did my best, after the seminar there was the usual grill party where the students who passed the grading was announced.
All in all a very successful trip to Japan, we should say thank you for all the work that was done before hand to make the event a tremendous success.
We are supposed to have a Budo style of Karate but sometimes we forget and become too familiar with our Semapi, calling them by their first name for example. Or when having a photograph taken with them and putting your arms on their shoulders and just hanging there, or just generally being a little too friendly.
Looking at the old photograph of Honbu brought back memories of my UchiDeshi days, not that I have ever forgotten them. Before I went to Japan, I had never heard the word UchiDeshi let alone understand the true meaning. When I arrived at Honbu, no one knew who I was or had any information about me, I had no place to sleep and very little money.
The first night I stayed in a hotel and then the Chief Instructor who was Yasuhiko Oyama Shihan (Now Oyama Karate USA) said I could stay with him. After one week, I moved into the dormitory and there I stayed for two years. Opening and closing Honbu every day, cleaning and training.
All these years later when I go back to Japan and meet my old Sempai´s I always show them the respect they deserve even though I may now have a higher grade.
Honbu 1971 consisted of a basement where there were changing rooms and showers. The first floor was the entrance and a small dojo, the second floor was the main dojo and then the office and finally Sosai’s living quarters. I lived behind Honbu at the uchi-deshi apartment.
During my two years in Japan apart from the training there were lots of publicity photographs. At the time I did not appreciate them but now I value the memories they give me of my days at Honbu. Camps, grading’s and competitions.
Sosai liked to see if you could do handstands. At the end of every training there were sit-ups, push ups and hand stands, seiken was preferred. In the end I was doing this on two fingers. Support my legs was a guy from Scotland, John Kerr.
Photographs from Honbu, there were always photographers at the dojo taken some kind of publicity photos and writing stories. These were used in a magazine to show how popular Kyokushin was becoming and that students would travel to Japan to train.