Perhaps unknown to others until now, I opened my first independent dojo in the winter of 1981. I thought my Sempai was one supremely cool-dude, and creating a backyard dojo for my fellow seventh graders was a pretty natural tribute and way to recreate a dojo environment where I got to try out his role as a teacher and leader.
I can't remember everyone who came over after school regularly to learn Karate from me, but here are the names I can remember tonight:
We trained as a group twice a week in my backyard, and I probably ran a fine imitation of our UCSD class, with material and emphasis conveniently borrowed from whatever had happened at the UCSD Wrestling Room the night before. I vaguely remember giving some inspired speeches during our line-ups, which is ironic--when I have opportunities to lead trainings today as a more-qualified and Sensei-endorsed adult, I'm often at a loss for words.
By the way, as a respectful little snot, I never turned the corner on the seiretsu, choosing the head-of-the line instead.
I had a fascination with kobudo weapons and was teaching bo, nunchaku, and perhaps other Kata from the books of Demura and Sakagami a mere five months into my own Karate training. That's pretty amusing too, since today I consider it more than enough to try to learn, understand, and appreciate the empty-handed Kata I've been taught. Only recently during my stay in Cuyamaca did I practice weapons again with interest--and most of that practice was an exercise in trying to remember.
Every other day of seventh grade, I'd head down the hill to nearby Rose Canyon with anyone who was interested and `train,' which has some blanks in my memory but I remember
There were memorable one-time activities too, such as
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As luck and karma would have it, years later, I ended up training, or at least going running, a few times with Sempai Neville when he moved into a condo on the other side of Rose Canyon. Some evenings we'd meet on the dirt road and run a few miles. Every time we passed the two areas of devastated anise stalks beside the path, I'd wonder if he would notice. I felt more than a little bit guilty. In 1988, I replanted some of these anise stalks as part of a Wilderness and Human Values course.
In eighth grade, two of us printed up membership cards for our backyard dojo, which we called the UCMAC--University City Martial Arts Club, and painted up some custom hachimaki. These may be in my closet at my parent's home if you need some incriminating evidence.
Shortly thereafter, I realized my responsibility to my friends and myself, and broke up the covert dojo, encouraging everyone to go over to the college and learn from a real Karate Sempai. The names of Eli and Jacob Glezer and David Applestein will probably ring a bell, they trained actively for several years. Most of the others persuaded their parents to bring them by at least once before moving on to other interests like MTV and girls.
With my own obligations as a premature young-sensei lifted, I was free to terrorize my community and butcher the concepts of the Menkyo system by taking on rock `n roll, which you can read all about in Section 3.
During the 1987-1988 year at UCSD, a small group of friends mistook me for ``enlightened.'' They came up with the idea themselves, and their feelings were reinforced after the section leader (we were affiliated with a class) had Sempai Neville over for a discussion of Karate. He got them fascinated with the fact that many Kata could masterfully express a profound theme. He used Annanko as his example, and the night ended with me doing the Kata as they observed from a balcony above, discussing three types of awareness.
Remind yourself that Sempai Neville is a very engaging and persuasive speaker. Particularly at selling people and concepts he believes in. Perhaps my classmates expected me to live up to the ideas and ideals shared in that discussion. I never purposefully encouraged it, and I think by the end of the year they had pretty much stopped wasting their time with the enlightenment routine. However, it sure was neat to have so much attention and respect from a group of senior university students.
It is a fascinating experience to have people in a group-discussion waiting for your opinion on something or adding their own `profound' interpretations to your off-hand remarks. It taught me not to waste words and made me try harder to think before I opened my mouth, probably contributing to the way I interact with some groups today.
Enlightenment is not a steady or conscious goal in my life,
although I wouldn't complain if we meet up with each other
someday.
In the Sheraton Lima Hotel in 1990 (1991?), after the first night of an exciting World-Championship competition, Sensei Castilonia started a discussion that has seriously influenced my life and the people in it.
While seated beside a coiled climbing rope that would assure our safe
escape from the 13th floor in the instance of an unfriendly visit from
any of several anti-US terrorist groups such as the Sendero Luminoso
or the Tupac Amaru something-or-others, Sensei asked us ``Why don't
you need a license to have children?'' He pointed out that our society tests and regulates a
number of other responsibilities such as driving, the medical
profession, marriage, you-name-it--but that any individual or pair
of frothing idiots can produce a child yet not every couple can create
the environment ideally suited for raising kids.
That led to a discussion of what makes a couple compatible, and Sensei had three points of compatibility in mind. Maybe he had been formulating these for a while, maybe he was just thinking aloud--he shared with us the key ingredients he believed successful partners needed to agree on...
A fourth point, a peripheral example, was waking and sleeping hours. Sensei mentioned two Aoinagi students whose marriage failed in part because the husband woke up early and went to bed early, and the wife had the opposite internal clock.
I'm not sure what Paul Schwartz and Sempai Neville were thinking about that night, but I was sitting there comparing this sage advice against my present long-term relationship, and getting awfully insecure. She and I disagreed on every point. I stayed up late afterwards writing a long letter sharing these ideas with her, and we split up amicably a few months later. I suppose this mini-essay could have ended up in the Negative Section under the title ``Sensei Spoiled My Love Life.'' But read-on for the happy ending.
Now it gets amusing (I think). By college I knew how to separate suggestions from Karate from literal action. If Sensei Castilonia talked about sleeping with prostitutes that night, I would not have followed up by heading downstairs to meet some gorgeous Peruvian prostitute to further my self-development in Aoinagi Karate. But I did apply this particular Karate discussion almost verbatim to my search for a life-partner.
Not being the most socially adept guy in school, and seriously hoping to find a longtime partner in Love before leaving college, I started having some strange, sincere, and very short conversations with the Women of UCSD. About three sentences short. You can imagine me at parties and between classes:
SEAN ``Hi I saw you were in my Photography 168 Lecture. Anyway, do want to be married and have kids someday? If you do, how many?'' WOMAN ``Yes. Just one baby and then maybe I'd adopt another.'' SEAN ``Hey great, me too. Please don't smack me, but how's your sex life? Do you like men? How often would you make love with the man of your dreams? WOMAN ``I'm fine, thanks. Yes, I like men, and I'd get together with Mr. Right as often as he could stand it.'' SEAN ``Mmm... He'll be one lucky guy. How much money do you want to have when you're a stable, married adult?'' WOMAN ``I want to be a millionaire or married to one before I'm twenty- five.'' SEAN ``Oh. Cool. Good luck. See you in Photo 168.''
And so it went for almost a year. Fascinating way to meet people, eh? Covers a lot of ground in the first minute. Unfortunately, It was hard to find people who agreed (with what I thought I wanted) on all four topics (I usually asked the waking-sleeping question too.) In the rare cases where there was more to talk about, another long-lost discussion from Karate often surfaced, on in which Sempai Neville canceled the workout to instead discuss a book by Erich Fromm entitled The Art of Loving.
One particularly attractive young lady with awesome body language had disappointed me years earlier in our first brief conversation when she told me her favorite music was `Depeche,' high-school-girl slang for a band of European losers ala Sprockets that played a kind of automated computer music I hate. (This also shows you what a crummy talent I had for getting to know people and pre-judging them.)
One day, during the Gulf War--a period of turmoil on campus that made it more comfortable to talk with complete strangers--she walked by and I stopped her and asked to visit her room. We went upstairs and I posed the four magic questions--to which she had fascinating and thoughtful answers that were most appealing to me. We talked for hours. Based on this memorable Aoinagi discussion held deep in the Peruvian night, we developed a friendship and then a sappy partnership in Love that has endured without setbacks to this day.