Letter home from a 5th kyu
23 Nov 1985
Shihan Kubota on the makiwara that stood at the back of Glendale dojo.

"I would tell you what a basic lesson is like, except that each lesson is so different. I learn a new technique almost every lesson. Last Sunday we had the 11th Annual IKA Karate Tournament, the winner of the black belt division was a Hungarian who joined recently. We also had some iaido katas demonstrated, some tonfa demonstrations, and a Japanese 6th dan, visiting from Japan, played the Japanese flute. Shihan Kubota did some amazing demonstrations. At the end, Shihan got a present, it was a 400 year old meditation bell from Japan that had been passed down from emporer to emporer, it was very beautiful [this event was later immortalised in an article in Fighting Arts International]. I failed my grading for 4th kyu because I did not put enough power into my Heian Godan. So I was told by Shihan to practise it three times in the morning and twice at night with a snap to each move, and then I can try later. We actually have two Japanese teachers, the other is a 3rd dan who came from Japan four months ago and now lives here. I was talking to Shihan yesterday and to my surprise I discovered that he lives about two streets away from us! Karate here is so brilliant, I am really enjoying it.

I hope that you got the information about Sensei Enoeda's classes. Kubota told me that Enoeda is strict on belt-tying and proper bowing as well as strong stances, but he will help anyone kindly. One of our orange belts (7th kyu) was not doing side kicks properly, so Shihan made him walk round the dojo four times on the sides of his feet.

Let me tell you a couple of useful techniques. Your opponent throws a mae-geri at you, you neatly shift to the side slightly (so you're outside the leg) and catch the kicking leg, then push down at the top of his leg (the thigh) and he goes down. When catching the leg, it is a hooking block. Another one is more simple... as the opponent punches, shift to the side and uraken the temple, also blocking his arm under your arm (see pictures). [I then went to explain the differences between the Gosoku Ryu Heian katas and our Shotokan Heian katas...]

At the back of our dojo we have lots of training equipment - bags, weights, makiwara etc. the dojo has mirrors on some of the walls and that is very useful. My feet are getting very very tough from the wooden floor... [After the Dojo Kun] we bow to the sensei or to Shihan depending on who took the class (usually both), and to the Japanese flag, and then to the spirit of karate..."


Garen Ewing

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 This page originally written 1998, last updated Mar 2008
Shihan Takayuki Kubota at his ancestral home in Japan. Kubota was my karate teacher when I lived in Glendale.
Karate

I first went to a karate class in about 1978 at the Red Cross Hall in East Grinstead with my father and brother. It was run by Sensei Peter Zimmatore. While a couple of black belts and some kyu grades did kata at one end of the hall (though I didn't know what kata were then) we were shown front stance and lunge punch, and told to punch the cupboards at the back of the hall! We were also given a word list. My brother and I wore karate gis that dad bought at a jumble sale that morning. I can't remember how many lessons we actually attended, but it wasn't many.

Sensei Brian Whitehouse, my first teacher.
In January 1985, when I was 15, I started karate at the dojo of Sensei Brian Whitehouse, who ran a small club at the Parish Hall in East Grinstead. My brother and two of his school friends came too, and for about half an hour we were too nervous to enter, but we were shuffling around so much that Brian heard us and invited us in. We insisted that we'd just watch, but sensei soon had us doing the basic stances, blocks, punches - and even going as far as back kicks (just to keep us interested!). We ran home, excited at the new journey we were beginning, jumping and practicing the back kicks we'd been taught.

Brian, a student of Sensei Ron Silverthorne, would probably be the first to admit he wasn't the most technically perfect karateka around, but he instilled tremendous spirit in his students, and gave a very good grounding in the true concepts of traditional karate. His lessons were always hard work, nearly every student dripping with sweat for the full 2 hours. Each move was carried with full intention - attractive technique came second! To augment our training at the dojo, my brother and I, along with a couple of other friends, started training at home on a Saturday, with Funakoshi's 'Karate-do Kyohan' and Nakayama's 'Best Karate' series constantly at our side to help polish our technique.

In November, and a 6th kyu, I went to live in California with my father for a year. One of my priorities was to find a good karate club, and if possible to learn from a Japanese teacher. We drove across the States from New York to Florida to Los Angeles, and I visited several dojos along the way, talking with sensei's of different arts, styles and beliefs. In Florida I had a very pleasant chat with an instructor who had started his martial arts training in Okinawa in 1968, and had later been a student of Bruce Lee for several years. At the JKA headquarters in LA, I missed a visit by Sensei Masatoshi Nakayama by two days.

After we settled in Glendale, I came across the dojo headquarters of the International Karate Association (IKA), headed by 8th dan Soshihan Takayuki Kubota (now Soke, a 10th dan). I signed up for 6 lessons a week! Kubota's style was Gosoku Ryu, but he was very accommodating and accepting of any style, and my Shotokan fitted in very easily (Kubota taught with an edge of realism which I'd already had instilled by Brian, so it was a nice progression). Every evening I'd start the half hour cycle (on my little fold-up bike, occasionally I'd brave the bus) from my home in Glenoaks Boulevard to the dojo at Glendale Avenue. Lessons were 1 hour, but very hard - I learnt so much in the time I was there. I wrote back to my brother often, telling him about some of the stuff I was learning. To the left (grey box) is an extract from one of my letters (remember I was just 16, and a 5th kyu!)

After almost every lesson I'd go across the street to the 7-11 and buy a Dr Pepper Super Gulp! If my dad was picking me up and he was late, Shihan would wait outside the dojo with me - concerned that I'd be cold or waiting too long. He even lent me a blanket from the boot of his car once, as he had to dash off... rather embarrassing, but what a great person he was, as well as a true master of karate.

Sensei Morio Higoanna, Goju Ryu

When I returned to England I went back to Sensei Whitehouse's club, often staying for two evening classes and doing the four hour session twice a week, and then also at his new Saturday morning class, which often only had four of us training. His club was now under the tutelage of London's Sensei Mike Springer (5th dan) of the Ashanti Karate Kai. Mike was fast and incredibly sharp, his seminars proving very valuable in my gradings up to 1st dan, which he took me through. On the day of my black belt test I had just got back to England that morning from three days in Paris, where a friend and I had spent each night sleeping rough with no money for a place to stay... not that we got much sleep - it had been Bastille Day, and Paris was full of fireworks! I passed, though it was exhausting. As well as Heian, Tekki and Bassai, my main test kata was Hangetsu.

Over the next few years I drifted in and out of Brian's club and sampled several others - including the different styles of Uechi Ryu and Kyokushinkai. I lived in Canterbury for a few months, and attended a friendly Shotokan club in Herne Bay. I also tried to attend the occassional open day, including an excellent one with Sensei Morio Higoanna at the Elephant and Castle Sports Centre, organised by Sensei George Andrews. I'd been a great admirer of Sensei Higoanna ever since seeing the BBC series from 1983, 'The Way of the Warrior'. When I couldn't find a club I liked, or felt was right for me, I'd practice at home, often with my brother. For a while I even taught kids privately in their homes, gaining some good teaching experience (though I had been a sempai at Brian's dojo for a few years), which led to me running a small group of older students and friends for training at Gatwick. I also took up yoga, which is a wonderful compliment to karate.

Mark Bishop.

Into the mid 1990s I found myself without a root club to train at and seemed unable to find somewhere to advance further. I felt ready to start working towards my nidan, and at one club, was advised to learn and practice Tekki Nidan, Sochin and Nijushiho with that goal in mind. I think this was at the club of Sensei Jim Snook, who ran an excellent Shotokan club in East Grinstead. In 1995 my mother died and my training all but stopped (my mum was a friend and shiatsu student of Mark Bishop, the author of 'Okinawan Karate' - he was very supportive at that time, and did a nice write up about mum in his newsletter, The Circle. I did a few sessions of T'ai-chi with him too). I trained irregularly at home, but was also now playing bass in a band which took up a lot of time. Not long after getting married, I joined a small club in Dormansland run by an ex-student of Brian's. I wore a white belt as I didn't feel I should claim my former grade at a new club, and after a few months I was tested for 1st kyu. Another gap in training was forced when I broke a rib doing 'jumping breakfalls' at this club. A couple more years whizzed by and I then found a club in Lingfield, where I again wore my white belt. I stayed just under a year here and then, after another few months gap, started training at a new club in East Grinstead, having re-taken my shodan grading in February 2008.

The focus of my karate training is on kata and its application, and another area of great interest to me is karate history. I enjoy the works and ideas of Patrick McCarthy, Harry Cook and Clive Layton, as well as the writings of Gichin Funakoshi and his contemporaries and forebears. I also have a fondness for early Shotokan (JKA), despite it moving away, to some degree, from the original fighting art - I like both aspects, the Okinawan 'te' aspect and the Japanese 'budo' aspect. I have no interest in sport or performance karate. There is no doubt that taking up karate at an influential age changed my life enormously for the better, and has contributed to the person I am today - but there's always room for improvement!

Old Photos: (click thumbnail to see bigger)
The day of my first grading to 8th Kyu in March 1985, appeared in the local paper.
Jiyu kumite with my brother at the Parish Hall dojo, 1985.
The only photo I got while training at Shihan Kubota's was of the outside of the dojo, 1986.
Back garden training session,
tobi yoko geri! c.1988.
Karate demonstartion at the King's Centre - Heian Sandan. c.1989
With Sensei Mike Springer at the Crawley Down dojo, 1989.
My homemade makiwara at Canterbury. 1991.
Teaching a small group at the Gatwick dojo in 1994.

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