Friday July 15^th

We were awakened by a phone call from Takamiyagi Tetsuo Sensei and we touched base on trying to get together before we left on Sunday. We agreed to meet at the hotel for breakfast on Saturday.

The turtle was still sleeping so I made sure not to wake him up with any breakfast. :)

We had picked Saturday to go visit the Orion Brewery in Nago but there was a big festival on that day and knew that we would get caught up in traffic so we headed out the door.

It was a nice facility and it was amazing how many cans and bottles are produced each minute. We had lunch there, spent money in the gift shop and headed home so we could get some rest before our visit to the Ginowan Butokukan of Daigo Shimabukuro Sensei and then onward to the hombu for our final keiko.

Daigo Sensei had a number of the students demonstrate kata for us and also their acrobatic junbi undo. His stretching routines have a large Chinese influence and all of his students are incredibly limber.

Now we got the opportunity to watch him do kata. At only 4, he has learned Pinan Nidan, Pinan Shodan and Seipai.(yes, seipai). His father or his mother have never taught him any of these, but he has learned by watching the kids practice and following along. I can only wonder what he is going to be like when his father or mother actually work specifically on the kata with him. With his parents, I am sure we will be seeing young Taisei someday as a world champion.

We apologized for having to leave the Ginowan dojo but we had to be on time for Gibu Makoto Sensei's class at the hombu. I was making a prediction about what he was going to teach and we weren't disappointed.

Iri Kumite(free fighting) and Kunren(drills) were the topics of the class tonight and Makoto Gibu has quite a record in kumite. Not only that, anyone that had a chance to train with his father during the old Shorinkan days will attest to the ferocious drive that he possessed when training and training others. His son has the same focus when it comes to training as well and you better be prepared for it.

Here was the training in a nutshell:

Start off by everyone jumping rope 1000 times.

Then we did bagwork with hand combinations, rear leg shin kicks and front kicks, reverse hand combinations, triple hand combinations and all of these were from front and reverse positions.

He then brought out THE body shield(I have to get one of these for the dojo!) and each person had one round of full contact combinations with Makoto San behind the pad reacting/moving like an opponent would.

The humidity was definately ready to kill us all but then it was time for iri kumi and we all padded up for rounds of sparring with different partners. We all got the privelege to be paired up with Makoto Gibu Sensei and even though it is a great experience, he was playing with us like a lion that found a mouse to fiddle with. He is amazing to spar with and like all iri kumi on Okinawa, he doesn't move back, he just keeps coming towards you. A great time was had by all and we all boasted more weight loss than anything Jenny Craig can promise!

Henna Gaijiin(crazy foreigners)

The funniest moments of the trip were listening to the Okinawan Sensei laugh, sometimes hysterically, at the Western karate teachers that call themselves(and have their students call them) kyoshi, shihan, even more hilarious, renshi. Many thought we were kidding and didn't believe us.

By the end of the trip, some of our seniors would rib us constantly, calling us "Renshi", "Kyoshi" or the best one-"Crescent Renshi". Takamiyagi Sensei was beside himself at breakfast about the misuse of these "titles" and would joke like "Hey Ph.D, pass the sugar." "Hey Ph.D, could you show me this?"

NO ONE on Okinawa is referred to or called “Kyoshi, Renshi or Hanshi, NO ONE.

Again, a true karate teacher guides people and receives respect for what the dedication towards their own improvement and getting their students to acheive their own goals. If you are a good teacher and continue to better yourself, your students will know who you are without having to misplace a word from a licensure certificate.

For those keyboard warriors who are going to take this post personally and attack me from behind their computer, if you believe that I am so incorrect, go to Okinawa and call any 6th dan or above Renshi or Kyoshi, even worse, address a 9th or 10th Dan as "Hanshi" and see what happens.

I have very good friends whose students refer to them by these misused terms but they are still my good friends.I am saying that it is incorrect and I would be remiss by not planting a seed on behalf of my teacher, his students and all karateka on Okinawa, whether or not anyone cares. But it is their culture and heritage therefore it should be honored by saying things correctly and not used by some to satisfy their ego.

Imagine Spanish being changed in some French classroom by a few teachers rewriting the grammatical rules and then teaching it to their students.

In Okinawan/Japanese culture and language, the most polite and respectful ways to address someone is their last name with sensei at the end. (Gibu Sensei, Izumi Sensei, Williams Sensei)

"Well we have been calling them that for so long, how can we change it now?"

You are the teachers, teach. Teach about the correct protocol of Okinawan language and protocol. If you are a school that claims to be authentic and teach "just like in Okinawa", then you really will be once you start with the most simple things of addressing everyone correctly. If anything, it should show tremendous humility on the part of the teacher and shouldn't we all be striving for that?

Still think I am a horse's ass? Read Jessie Enkamp's post, which is very well-written at KaratebyJesse.com , "The #1 Way of Sounding Like a Complete Amateur at Karate.

The worst example of this was the Red Belt I saw in Shureido, waiting to be shipped to some dojo in the West with the title “Soke” and then the unmentioned person’s name in katakana( I have "whited out" the last name and some of the katakana). Here is another request, if you are going to call yourself something so ridiculous as Soke , don’t order your belt from Okinawa. I can only imagine the questions the people in Shureido are asking themselves that someone from the West is calling himself Soke when no one on the island does.

Saturday July 16^th

Carel went to assist Izumi Sensei with his preschool class and then we are all excited to have breakfast with Takamiyagi Sensei and our close friend, Joe Botulinski. We had a great talk with both of them and caught up on the latest news in Okinawa karate as well as their lives.

We spent the rest of the day packing and estimating the weight of our bags for the airline. We had Dave break his baseball bat with a shin kick on the roof on the hotel for one more memory from the island. Joe took the rental car and Rio's father brought her up for one more night with her "American father and uncles."

Sunday July 17^th

Got to the airport. Was in line with Butch Bradley and the other comedians that we heard on the armed forces network at Camp Foster. They were hilarious and we were able to hang out and talk with them a bit. Butch had done some martial arts and we chatted about karate and their comedy tour for the troops.

We arrived in Narita and there was a medical emergency that delayed our plane to Newark 5 hours so we had to wait in line for Continental for over 2 hours at the connections desk. Ridiculous. Two things need to be improved with the airlines, Naha airport's connection lines and the service in Narita(immigration and things like the connection counter). Instead of making things move faster, they continue to keep the lines at a minimum-no matter if someone is going to miss their flight.

We had to stay in Newark for the night and take the first flight out in the morning.

We enjoyed training every night and learning, as always, something that we have never seen before. We were corrected so that we would work harder and stop making the same mistakes and pass on what was needed for us all to be on the right path.

It was discussed to me about expanding the Butokukan in the US but not at the expense of the intregity of the association. There were names mentioned from the US that were already blacklisted in the Okinawa Hombu but that if other people shared the same heart, character and training mindset, then there would be openings allowed at my discretion.

I hope there are, because the Butokukan is a rare thing in the karate world. In my opinion, Gibu Sensei is someone with no equal. He is an Okinawan master whose heart, teachings and altruism have no boundaries. To train next to his students on this trip, from the beginners to the most senior, shows how talented of a teacher he is. But, we made the observation that "they are all just like him." Everyone in the hombu dojo shares a common committment to giving your best in and outside the dojo and becoming the same kind of person as your teacher.