The Wisest Thing I Ever Did

Greetings, friends. As I write this, there is bag of ice on my lap. Why, you ask? Because I pulled my groin in Brazilian Jiujitsu (BJJ) class, while rolling with someone who was literally a third of my age.  I was attempting a scissor sweep from open guard. (Yes, that means something to some people reading this.) …Which totally should have worked, but something “down there” literally snapped. I heard it.

Getting older sucks, my friends.

But it got me thinking about my journey to this moment. I’ve written about it before, but I think it’s worth revisiting. Being old, I do find myself revisiting the choices I’ve made in my life. It takes a certain mood and strength to tolerate thinking about my bad choices. But I take deep pleasure in recounting the good choices, mostly because there have been so few of them. And perhaps the wisest choice I ever made was done when I was 19 years old, in September of 1986.

You have to understand that despite what many of you might think, I actually have extensive introvert tendencies. I’m that guy who often has a panic attack before he’s supposed to attend a social event with people I don’t know. I’m that guy who tries to look comfortable conversing with a potted plant while at a party. I’m that guy who plans his whole day around the phone call I have to make, and celebrates when the call is cancelled or becomes an email instead. And I’m that guy who needs an inordinate amount of strength to sign up for activities, because it means presenting myself in a new social situation with people I don’t know.

So in 1986, it took an unusual amount of strength for me to sign up for my first karate class at the University of Toronto. It was something I had planned on doing for months, something that I could finally afford, given the heavily subsidized nature of activities on university campuses, and something that my poor confidence totally needed. I don’t remember the first class, or even the first few years of classes. But I do remember the remarkable changes they made in me.

It’s that change I want to afford my son. He’s only four, but he’s already been a member of a karate dojo, a MMA (mixed martial arts) club, and now a BJJ school.  (As an aside, I think BJJ is the right choice for small kids like him. There’s no striking, and because of the comparatively long path to excellence in BJJ, the early start will pay great dividends if he sticks with it. But frankly, I think any martial art is great for kids.)

At this point, I feel the need to catalogue my extensive martial journey. So bear with me as I take you on a little trip through my discovery of the so-called martial arts.

I actually had my first karate class in the late 1970s or early 1980s with Cezar Borkowski, who was a dynamic young black belt doing Saturday pick-up classes in various high schools on weekends. My brother, sister, and I popped into a couple when I was 12 or 13. At the time, Cezar was teaching a hard semi-contact fighting style that (in retrospect) seemed to me like Shito-Ryu style. My sister turned out to be quite good at it, but it freaked us both out. We did not pursue it.

(Fast forward many decades. Borkowski is a Hanshi, which is a kind of “teacher of teachers”, an honorific reserved for very few in the art. He founded Northern Karate, which I think now brands itself as a Shotokan style school. I’m not really sure. In other words, he became a big deal.)

In 1986, though, not knowing anything about anything, I signed up with the Toronto Academy of Karate, which was headed by a man named Burt Konzak. I chose that school because it was promoted by the university’s athletic faculty. At that time, I did now that that the university had a second dojo, one with the University of Toronto’s name in it. More on that later.

Now, it wasn’t until sitting down to write this blog post did I discover that Dr Konzak passed away in 2019. My condolences to his family, especially to his widow Sonia whom I remember as a lovely and dynamic woman. Let me be both cryptic and candid by saying that Dr Konzak’s teaching style was not to my liking. While I appreciated my time there, the friends I made, and the undeniable athleticism and focus that the practice afforded me, it was not a place of joy for me.

If you don’t know, most martial arts are subdivided into schools or “styles”. Historically, these styles would come into conflict. But conceptually they are interesting because each style confers a distinct approach and philosophy, and each offers a unique lineage, which I tend to value.

While Dr Konzak bristled at naming his style of karate, it was known that he had received his black belt under legendary Washin-Ryu master Hidy Ochiai. As noted, lineage is important in traditional martial arts, and to me, as well. But there was tension between Master Ochiai and Dr Konzak. So I was saddened that we could not link our lineage to Master Ochiai. I don’t mean to disrespect the late Dr Konzak. But it was slowly dawning on me that his dojo was not the place for me. Instead of being inspired by him, I was afraid of him. This was sufficient motivation for me to work my ass off, but not for me to really want to grow in the art.

You have to understand, martial arts in those days was very siloed. No one cross-trained. You stuck with your discipline and eschewed not only other arts, but other schools within your art. And changing schools within one art can be complicated, especially if you’re getting up there in rank.

But I was fascinated by what other traditions offered. What I was endeavouring to do –to cross train– was considered heresy at the time. UFC and MMA were not yet a thing. With a friend, I started training an Indonesian style of kung-fu called kuntao, under an odd and muscly fellow named Phil, whom I’d met in a gym on campus. I couldn’t believe the things that kuntao had my body doing.

In those days, I’d train in the Hart House dance studio, where I’d encounter various martial artists from other styles. Tae Kwon Do dudes taught me their high kicks. Krav Maga dudes taught me tricky self-defence moves. The kickboxers looked down on us, but from a few of them I learned power strikes and head movement –techniques not common in the karate I was learning. I would even put on gloves and do some good ol’ boxing with a friend I met there. It really was a glorious space for several traditions to come together without the oversight of a master teacher or label.

It was within this milieu that I discovered Phil, who was the most impressive of the lot. I was very excited to be going on a new journey with Phil, learning something exotic and effective. His kuntao break falls, for example, were decidedly different from what I’d learned in Japanese arts. What was this sorcery? But sadly, Phil had to move away suddenly, and my training with him came to an abrupt end.

Searching for something similar, I dabbled in Do-Pi Chinese kung-fu, in what I was told was the oldest kung-fu school in Toronto’s Chinatown. But it wasn’t for me. I adored the ambiance of the place, its ancientness and depth. I loved the idea that our school would participate in the traditional New Year’s lion dance in Chinatown. That kind of cultural connection meant a lot to me. But the quality of the instruction was lacking.

I believe it was that same year that I travelled to Thailand and stumbled upon “Joe’s Gym” in Chiang Mai. Now, at this time (early 1990s) the words “Muay Thai” were not in common use. Of course, I’d hear of it, but it had not reached the same degree of global penetration yet. And I was certainly unaware of any Muay Thai schools in Toronto. So, of course, I immediately signed up to be trained by a local champion.

It was a great source of bragging rights for me amongst my karate friends at the time, that I got to train full contact Muay Thai in actual Thailand. The training blew my mind. The use of elbows and knees, the reliance on power, and the mental attitude implicit in Muay Thai competition were not things I was prepared for. I realized that there was so much I did not know, and that the instruction I was receiving in my dojo was quite unidimensional. Unfortunately, my trip was not endless. I had to go home.

Around that same time, Steven Seagal was becoming popular. He had shown the world Aikido, which looked like magic. Many of us were enthralled. So I joined the university’s Aikido dojo, which dealt in a style called Yoshinkai and was taught by an excellent and honourable fellow named Shihan Takeshi Kimeda. I enjoyed my time in the Aikido dojo, especially learning directly under Sensei Kimeda, who had an allure of both goodness and greatness about him. I earned a yellow belt in that art. But ultimately it was not for me. Something about it did not seem grounded in reality, and I was looking for some more grittiness, especially after my taste of Muay Thai.

Each time I took up a new martial art, it required an enormous expenditure of social courage from me. I found each new visit terrifying. You’d think I’d have got used to it. But I never did.

Throughout it all, I continued training karate under Dr Konzak, twice weekly. I even co-taught both a women’s self-defence class and a beginner’s karate class. (Looking back, I realize how woefully ill-equipped I was to do that. But at the time, we were all so delusional about our non-existent skills.)

This continued for about five years. I was about to be tested for my brown belt when I decided to make another terrifying leap. Once more overcoming my crippling shyness, and knowing that this required delicate social navigation given the arcane rules of karate dojos, I went to visit the other karate dojo on the university campus, one whose existence I’d only learned of a couple of years earlier.

This was the University of Toronto Karate Club (UTKC), founded and taught by the incomparable Shihan Suenori Tominaga, a man whom I would ultimately learn to see as a secondary father figure. Sensei Tominaga was a great man. His death 20 years later hit me hard, though I had not seen him for years before then. I wrote about him in this obituary: “Tominaga Sense: In Memory of a Great Man.” While I have almost no concrete memories of the five years spent at my first dojo, my very first day as Tominaga’s student is etched indelibly into my brain, as described in that article. Such was his impact on my life.

As noted, I feel that martial arts lineage is important. It’s what links us to the culture and tradition of the thing. It’s supposed to be more than just fighting. It’s supposed to be character building. And there’s something about seeing the line of your tutelage forefathers stretched out in time that somehow triggers a desire to invest even more in character growth. At least for me. And I had been denied an acknowledged lineal connection to Hidy Ochiai.

Tominaga was a student of Minoru Miyata, who in turn had been trained by Gichin Funakoshi himself. Funakoshi is credited with having invented modern karate, and our style –Shotokan– is named for him. Upon Miyata’s death, Tominaga was trained by Shihan Osamu Yamada, who maintained a relationship with our dojo for many years, conducting our shodan (black belt) tests. I am proud to say that I am the last of the UTKC students to have been awarded a black belt by the hand of Shihan Yamada.

Not for nothing, but I always noted that when Yamada Sensei came to visit us from Japan, he’d bring several of his senior black belts with him. In the showers, it was hard not to notice that many of them had full-body tattoos, and Yamada himself seemed to be missing part of his pinky finger. I’m just sayin’.

I’ve always been jealous of my Japanese friends in the dojo, that they had a cultural connection to this great art. It’s the main reason that I studied the Japanese language in my twenties. Even without that connection, I’m unreasonably giddy that my black belt traces a lineage back to Grandmaster Funakoshi himself. In this era of “McDojos” and mediocre strip mall karate gyms, I feel exceedingly fortunate to have learned traditional, uncompromising karate from truly great men.

Sadly, when I went off to London, Ontario, to pursue my PhD in 1993, I left behind regular training at the UTKC dojo. I never intended to give up karate. But I did. My preternatural shyness got the better of me. I visited a Shotokan dojo on the London UWO campus, but I could not summon the social courage to actually train there.

I did find the courage to attend three classes of the UWO judo club. While I remember every single class and everything I learned in those excellent classes, the club could not get off the ground. It was poorly run and quickly disintegrated. Looking back, this was a shame, as I suspect I probably could have taken a whole new lengthy judo journey.

But that was also the year that UFC 1 happened. And that changed everything. If you trained in the martial arts, watching skinny Royce Gracie dismantle every style placed before him caused your head to explode. None of it made any sense. But it did bring BJJ to prominence.

Now, among my senpai in the UTKC dojo was a 4th dan black belt named Shawn Rodie, who was also a very senior practitioner of Japanese Jiujitsu (which is the forebear of BJJ), in a style called Kyoshin Ryu. I am deeply honoured to wear a black belt that Sensei Rodie once wore, and that he gifted to me. (I own two physical black belts, one with my name in Japanese characters emblazoned on it, which I cherish and preserve, and the one given to me by Sensei Rodie, which I would actually wear to train.) Over the years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I would drop in to occasionally learn Japanese Jiujitsu from Sensei Rodie. Unfortunately, I was never able to be in town long enough to string together an actual program of learning.

I don’t remember the year of my last karate competition, except that it took place in Windsor, Ontario, and I got my floating rib caved in with a side kick. I thought my liver had been punctured and that I was going to die. Yes, I’m a drama queen. That’s when I realized that I’m really not very good at this and maybe I should stick to yoga.

But I did make sure to compete in a tournament the weekend before my PhD defence. It was a deliberate choice, to force myself to do something that genuinely physically scares me, so that when I had to do something intellectually scary (the defence) it would pale in comparison. It worked perfectly. All my nerves were exhausted at the tournament. The doctoral defence I barely noticed.

And that’s pretty much where my martial journey ended. Except that my 4-year old son took up BJJ this year. I’m so proud of him. I’m also excited for him…. But not because he will learn how to fight.

(Let’s be blunt… I never learned how to fight. I trained for decades, but today I would get wallopped by an old lady with gout. And I mean that. I’m not very good.) Rather, what I took from a lifetime of martial arts training was something much more important, something that I desperately want my son to acquire.

You see, there’s only one real super power in the world. The irony is that anyone can acquire this super power, but almost no one ever does. That power, simply, is discipline. I hadn’t realized that I had developed discipline until I was telling Sensei Shawn Rodie how I regretted not having left my first dojo earlier, how I had wasted five years being unhappy there. I will never forget what Shawn told me: “No. That shows me discipline. It takes discipline to do a thing you don’t like for five years, when you’re trying to get something out of it in the end.”

Modesty aside, I think I’ve done some things in my life of which I can be proud. Siring and raising my son is prime among them. Getting a PhD? Maybe. Writing certain books? Absolutely. But earning a black belt under Sensei Tominaga is definitely near the top. Why? Because he made you earn it. Not just through ability and focus, and putting in your time, but by performing an art that he loved to a very high standard that I know he upheld and would not waver from.

So watching my son train in BJJ, I got jealous. I wanted to taste that joy again. To him it’s just a game, jumping around and rolling about with other toddlers. But me, I wanted to learn something brand new, to start from absolute zero as a white belt knowing nothing about this particular art. My teacher is Flavius Virginio, former trainer of the famous Blackzilians MMA team, former instructor of the Abu Dhabi military, and all-around good guy. It’s my first venture away from Asian martial arts to something culturally quite different.

And yes, on the drive to my first class, I almost turned around and went home. That social fear kicked in again. Fear of what exactly? I have no idea. But you know what? It’s overcoming the fear that makes a thing feel like even more of a rewarding accomplishment.

I’m not that far from being in my 60s. My body, while supple and far more versatile than many others my age, is just not that resilient anymore. BJJ injures me regularly. I need a week to recover after every session, while the young guys train daily. But here is why I will try my best to stick with this:

First, it’s important to learn new things. When was the last time you genuinely learned a new skill? I can feel my brain laying down new neural pathways as my body has to learn to move in new ways, and learn how to move other people’s bodies in new ways.

Second, it’s a really cool martial art. I suspect it might be more forgiving for someone my age, as I learn to master my leverage and exertion better. Karate would destroy my 57-year old joints.

Third, and most important, when you’re in a dojo (or doing any task requiring focus) your mind cannot wander. There are so many details to learn, and such dire consequences if you don’t pay attention, that all other thoughts are forced from your brain. It’s compelled meditation. How can that be bad?

Well, if you’ve read this far, I thank you. This was a lengthy vomit about a personal journey that I wish more people would make. In these times of distraction, mental fragility and anxiety, it’s the ancient ways that dangle salvation.

 

 

Tags:

loading
×