The Bouncer

By Soshu S. Oyama

This is the true story of Soshu Oyama. He lived his dream of coming to
America thirty years ago. Leaving Japan and going to America seemed to
him like going to the moon. This is the story of his hope, his anxiety, and his
loneliness on that first day when he arrived in New York. It is a tale of his
enormous emotional and spiritual strength, of his belief in himself, as he
confronts the fantastic foreignness of America with its different races,
religions, customs, and mannerisms. Starting with no friends, no capital, and
no resources except his inner strength, Oyama developed a worldwide
karate organization with branches in major U. S. cities, South America,
Europe, and Japan. Overcoming many barriers and hurdles, he achieved his
American dream. This is the account of how he did it.

www.brooknet.com/oyama/Oyama_Bouncer.html

Chapter 1

It was just before the end of an afternoon class when my assistant, who also served
as secretary and janitor, burst into the dojo. It had been a good class in my dojo in
New York. About 30 students had shown up on an early January afternoon, and I had
put them through a spirited workout. Now, with only a few minutes remaining, we had
begun the "kumite," light contact fighting.
As a rule, I never interrupted a class for anything, especially the telephone. My
assistant had strict orders not to disturb me during a class, to just take messages and
I would get back to them later.
But I could tell this was different. His face was taut and white as he stepped inside and
said, "Saiko Shihan, it's the telephone."
I yelled at him, "Who is it?"
He came up very close to my face, and in a reverent whisper said, "It's from the White
House. It's President Ronald Reagan's secretary, a Mr. Ryan."
I just looked at him. "The White House?"
All my students froze in mid-action and looked at us.
I asked again, "The White House?"
He nodded and said, "Osu."
I ran straight to my office and picked up the phone. A man identified himself as Mr.
Frederick J. Ryan, and said, "The President wants to see you on January 24, at 3:30, in
the Oval Office of the White House. Please be there one hour early, at 2:30, in the
Executive Office."
I hung up the phone, fighting to control my emotion. I tried to make myself calm, but
I couldn't. I was so full of emotion, so happy, so excited, so tense. I sat back in my
chair.
The President of the United States wanted to meet me.
It was like a dream. I felt like Cinderella being invited to the ball. Who would ever have
thought, 20 years ago when I left Tokyo to bring Kyokushin Karate to the United
States, that one day I, Saiko Shihan S. Oyama, would be invited to meet the President
of the United States?
So much had happened in those 20 years. Not only just to me, but to the world. In
1965, no one could have imagined that one day Japan would be among the leaders in

1
world economy and technology. But now, in just 20 years, you can't watch television
without seeing Japanese products and companies advertising. The Super Bowl, major
golf and tennis tournaments, nearly every big event is sponsored by or used as a
means to advertise Toyota, Nissan, Sony.
In 1965, very few Japanese were leaving their country. The people that did were the
elite, sent out to learn Western technology and methods to bring back to Japan to
rebuild after the destruction of the Second World War.
Growing up in Tokyo, I had always dreamed of going to a foreign country, of lands
across the sea and of the adventures I would have there. But I'm not sure I ever really
believed it would happen.
Then one day in early 1963, Mas Oyama, the director of the international Kyokushin
Organization, called me into his office.
"We have a branch in New York," he told me. "The branch chief's name is Mr. Richard
Bonner. He has a karate school there, but he requests an Oriental instructor.
"You are my chief instructor. I think you can do the job. You go."
And that was it.
On June 17,1965, I said goodbye to my family and friends at Tokyo's Haneda
International Airport, prepared to board a Northwest Orient flight that would take me
to Anchorage, Chicago, and, finally, New York City. It was my first time to be on an
airplane, my first time to fly, my first time to leave the country. No astronaut heading
into the unknown of space could have felt any more alone or alien than I did that day,
getting on that airplane.
As I boarded the plane, I quickly saw that I was the only Oriental on board. Now it is
different. Now, nearly every airline that stops in Japan has Japanese flight attendants,
or at least someone on board who speaks Japanese. But at that time, there was no
one on board who spoke my language. And just as to many Westerners all Orientals
look the same, to me all Americans and Europeans looked identical.
My heart was pumping through my chest, and I was so scared that I could not look
anyone in the face. If someone did look at me, I quickly looked at a wall or the ceiling
or a seat - anything to avoid having to make eye contact.
My English was not very good. I could sometimes sing the alphabet all the way
through without forgetting any letters, but only sometimes, and never without singing
that simple kindergarten tune. And I could count to 10 because I had learned the
song, "One little, two little, three little Indians." But after 10, I was lost. If a number
went past 11 or 12, there was nothing I could do.
I had been so excited about going to the United States. I was 30 years old, and 5-foot-
11, taller than the ordinary Japanese. I was going to go to America and teach karate,
and it was going to be a great adventure.
But now that the day was here, my worries suddenly overshadowed my dreams. Sure,
I was taller than the average Japanese, but I only weighed 130 pounds. My friends
kidded me that someone could use my ribs as a washboard. In all the movies and
pictures I had seen of Americans, they were all so big and strong. What if my speed
and power, my technique, wouldn't work on Americans? What would I do then? How
would I get back home? How would I live?
My mother watched me that day and could see my excitement turning into fear.
Finally, she took me aside and said, "If you don't go now, you will never go. And for
the rest of your life, you will always blame yourself for missing this opportunity.
"Son, don't do that." she said. "Go on with your dream."
While I felt like I had become 90 percent worries, I found that 10 percent of
confidence that I had left inside me and concentrated on that. I remembered my
childhood dreams of adventure in faraway lands, and how I believed there was
someplace out there waiting for me.

2
Still, now that I was face to face with the reality of my dreams, I was frightened.
Sometimes it takes great courage to go on with your dreams.
I was scared stiff as I walked on board that airplane. I moved like one of those remote
control robots, and whoever had the controls wasn't doing a very good job. I felt like
everyone was staring at me, and their yes pierced my back like daggers.
I found my seat and looked out the window at my family and friends, who were
waving and calling, "Banzai! Banzai!" But I knew they couldn't see me. I was one speck
in a row of windows full of people that were strange to me.
I have never felt so lost and alone as I did at that moment when the airplane's engines
came to life and began taking us down the runway. I saw my family getting smaller
and smaller as we moved out, until finally they faded away. Soon we were in the air,
and Haneda Airport faded away, then Tokyo, and eventually the entire country of
Japan.
There was no turning back. My dream was becoming a reality, and I had no choice
now but to see it through.

After a few minutes in the air, a strange thing happened. My heart began to slow
down. My palms ceased to sweat. My breathing returned to normal. I found that I
could look around at the other people on board, and began to look them in the face.
They would smile at me, and I found that I could smile back.
Knowing there was no return, I accepted my fate, and my excitement at the adventure
ahead returned.
In the seat next to me was an American G. I. whose name, I believe, was Jim. He had
been in Japan with the U. S. Army, and now was returning home. He was really
excited and talked a lot - sometimes too much, as it later got on my nerves. But he
was funny, and he could speak a little Japanese. With my dictionary, his bit of
Japanese, my even smaller knowledge of English, and a considerable amount of sign
language, we were able to carry on a conversation.
I was able to explain to him that I was going to the United States to teach karate. Jim
looked me up and down and said, "Really?" Are you sure?" I could tell what he was
thinking. It was the same thing I had been thinking only a half an hour before.
I remember one other conversation we had. He used his hands to make what I
suppose is a universal sign for the female shape, then cupped his hands away from his
chest and said, "American girls, big."
Then he said, "Japanese girl is pancake," and rubbed his hands flat on his chest.
I laughed, and he started laughing, too. Some things are the same between people
everywhere, I guess. And while it may not have been great conversation, it helped me
to relax.
I had been so excited about getting on an airplane. Most of the first part of the flight I
spent staring out the window, watching everything that passed below us. But after
several hours of sitting in the same seat and not moving, I wasn't so excited anymore.
Now I began to feel like I was in a prison, and I couldn't wait for the chance to get
back on land.
It was about an eight hour flight from Tokyo to Anchorage, and another seven or eight
hours to Chicago. When we landed in Chicago -- to refuel the plane, I guess -- we
were allowed to get out of our seats and off the plane. It was supposed to be a brief
rest stop, and it was a great relief to touch the ground, to be able to walk around.
It was about midnight when we landed in Chicago. I had seen American gangster
movies that all seemed to take place in Chicago, so I imagined this city as a huge,
exciting town with something always happening. But it was dark, and all I could see
from the ground was other airplanes. And beyond that, nothing.
Jim came to me and suggested that I walk with him. We started walking through the
terminal building, to the next gate, then to the next gate, and the gate beyond that.

3
We turned left, then right, then left, past gate after gate until I was completely lost. I
knew that if I had to get back to our gate by myself, I couldn't make it.
We weren't supposed to be in Chicago very long, and it was getting late. I began to
worry that it was past the time that we were due back. I began to think that it was a
mistake to have followed Jim, but I didn't know where I was, or how to even begin to
find my way back, so I had no choice but to stay with him.
Jim found a telephone and told me he wanted to make a call. He pointed to a chair
and told me to sit. I did, but he could tell by my expression that I was worried. He told
me not to worry, to just sit down.
He started talking into the telephone. Five minutes went by, then another five. He got
real excited, then seemed almost to the point of crying. I could tell that it was a very
emotional conversation.
Jim started making big gestures with his hands as he talked. I didn't understand what
was going on. In Japan, we talk quietly on the phone, without any outward show of
emotion, except for old people, who were so unused to the telephone that they often
bowed to the phone while talking, and after hanging up. But for the most part, the
telephone was still not very popular in Japan. We didn't use them very often, and
made very little motion while using them because the person we were talking to could
not see us.
So this was the first time I had ever seen someone express themselves so physically
on the phone.
Every now and then, Jim would look over at me and reach out his hand as if to tell me
not to worry. But I could feel my face getting tighter and tighter with the tension. I
was worried, and I didn't care who Jim was talking to, be it his mother, father, wife of
lover. I was very anxious to get back.
I stared at him, trying to use my force of will to make him hang up the phone. Even
thought he wasn't looking at me, he could feel my eyes burning through him. He
turned to smile at me. I got up and walked over to him, putting my face inches away
from his and pointing to my watch.
At that point, Jim smiled, hung up the phone, and started running. That let me know
we were in trouble. I ran after him, and as we ran, he tried to talk to me. I didn't know
what he was saying, but I do know what I was saying to him. If I had known how to
curse, I would have called him every name he'd ever heard, and then some.
We finally reached our gate, and my worst fears were realized. There was no one
there.
I felt like someone had punctured the soles of my feet, and all of my power was
seeping out of my body and onto the floor. It was as if I was slowly deflating, and it
was all I could do to keep from falling.
There were two airline employees at the gate, sorting tickets and doing paper work.
They saw us at the same time we saw them, and all of us froze, shocked into
immobility.
Them Jim started talking to them, very fast, and they started talking to him, even
faster. I couldn't understand a word, but I could feel the pawer in their voices. Their
words shot out like bursts from a machine gun.
My heart just kept pounding. I was praying, doing everything I could just to stay in an
upright position. Jim pointed at me, and I realized he was using me as his excuse for
being late. He was blaming me, but I couldn't defend myself. I had only been taught
simple phrases of English, like "I am a boy" and "This is a pen." I knew nothing that
would explain my side of the story. I could only stand there and pray.
The whole scene probably lasted only a minute, but it seemed like hours had passed.
Finally, one of the Northwest Orient people jerked a phone from under the desk at the
gate and started talking into it. The other guy shoved me toward a different door than
the one we had come through and we started running again.

4
We jumped down a flight of stairs, and burst through a second door. I was nearly
knocked backward by the scream of jet engines and the cold air of the runway. The
Northwest Orient man jumped behind the steering wheel of one of those mobile
stairways they used for boarding planes. Jim and I jumped onto the stairs, and the
man started racing across the tarmac.
No one said a word. The feeling between us was colder than the night air. The
airplanes towered above us, looking like angry monsters. We got almost all the way
out on the runway before catching up with our plane. It sat in the middle of the
runway, making a terrible noise, as if the very plane was mad at us for making it stop.
The man moved the stairway into position next to the plane, and we ran up and on
board. A big guy in uniform - the captain, I guess - was waiting for us inside. He
started yelling as soon as we got inside. He was shaking a long finger at us, like a
razor-sharp knife. His words were like more bullets.
I dodged around him and headed for my seat. Everyone on board just stared at me,
and I could feel the emotion, almost like hate, that came from their eyes.
I quickly strapped myself into my seat, and closed my eyes tightly. Almost
immediately, I was soaked in sweat. Jim sat down next to me and gave me a very
ingratiating look. He tried to apologize, but all I wanted to do was bust his face open.
Instead, I kept my mouth shut and didn't talk to him anymore. For the rest of the
flight to New York, we didn't say another word.
Even now, reading the episode of the Chicago airport in my diary, I still get nervous
and sweaty. And also very angry.

Chapter 2

The flight from Chicago to New York took a couple of hours, and I had just begun to
regain my composure when, suddenly, the captain started talking over the plane's
intercom. I couldn't understand what he was saying, and immediately became nervous
again. I was afraid he was talking about Jim and me, apologizing to the other
passengers for our stupid mistake. I was afraid that everyone was going to get angry
at us all over again.
Then I heard him say the words, "New York," and realized we were approaching our
final destination. People began stirring, putting on coats and gathering their
belongings.
The plane banked sharply, and what had to be the biggest city in the world appeared
in my window. It stretched out as far as I could see, and it was bigger than I had
imagined. For the first time, I felt like I was really in the United States, and I was
overwhelmed by the thought.
A chill struck at my heart in those last few minutes in the air. A beautiful as the city
looked outside my window, I couldn't help feeling that there was a serpent in the
garden, waiting to devour me. The old doubts I thought I had left behind in Tokyo
surfaced again.
The landing was smooth and uneventful, and suddenly I was in America.
Everyone began to get up, but before I could stand, Jim turned to me and spoke for
the first time in a long time. I think he apologized again. I forced a smile and said,
"Osu." "Osu" means patience, respect and appreciation.
We got up and followed everyone off the plane. The captain and crew were standing
on the ground, saying, "Thank you and good-bye" to the passengers as they left. I
could tell they were really exhausted and didn't mean what they were saying. I didn't
look at them; I didn't want to make eye contact. I just wanted to get on with
everything.

5
We were guided to immigration. There, we joined other groups of travelers, and I saw
a couple of Oriental people. Everyone was quiet, waiting patiently in line. Each and
every face looked tired.
The waiting caused my heart to begin to jump again. I saw the immigration officer
asking people questions and I knew that I didn't know enough English to be able to
respond. I started feeling guilty, like I was a spy about to be exposed.
Finally it was my turn. I walked up to this big, fat official and handed him my passport
and the paper with my sponsor's name and address. He looked at my passport, then
said something to me. I just pointed my finger at the paper and said, "Ahh." He said
something again, and I started sweating. My face got red, and my heart wedged in my
throat. I pointed at my passport again, helplessly. I just knew something was wrong
and they weren't going to let me in the country.
The immigration man didn't change his expression, but stamped my passport and
pointed to the other side of the desk. I didn't waste any time passing through and
joining the other people that had cleared immigration.
I was directed up a hallway, toward two sliding doors. They opened automatically into
the area where our luggage was to appear. Crowds of people were gathered, and
everyone was talking and laughing, even singing. I looked around for the other people
who had been on my flight and followed them to our luggage. I quickly found my one
suitcase and headed for the line to go through customs.
I found myself standing in a line behind a little child and his mother. The boy was
speaking perfect English, and I was amazed. It seemed like magic to me that such a
young child could speak such good English. Obviously, I was still thinking in Japanese.
My turn came, and I put my suitcase in front of the customs man. I opened my
suitcase for him. I had one pair of pants, two shirts with collars, five pairs of socks,
five dogi (karate uniforms), and a couple of pairs of underwear.
This man had a ball-point pen that he used to poke around in my luggage. At one
point, he hooked his pen on my underwear. He looked at me, and I looked at him;
both our faces turned red. He quickly slung my underwear off his pen and said, "O.K."
Then we both started laughing.
He motioned me on to the next set of doors, and I started off again. But I liked him,
and stopped to look back at him. When I did, I found him looking at me. We both
started laughing again.
The next doors were big double doors that slid open automatically. Just as I got to
them, they rolled back to reveal what seemed like thousands of faces, all lined up on
either side of a narrow walkway, staring at me. It was as if a curtain had parted and I
had walked out onto a stage.
Actually, it was the arrival area, where people waited to meet passengers. They were
leaning over a short railing on either side of the walkway, intently watching the doors
and hoping to see whoever they were supposed to meet.
My face went red again. I felt as if I were in a show. I wandered through the crowd, a
walk of about fifty meters. I walked slowly because I kept expecting someone to reach
out and grab me. My sponsor, Richard Bonner, was supposed to meet me at the
airport. I kept walking until I passed completely through the line and reached the
center of the airport terminal. No one called my name. No one reached out to touch
me on the shoulder. No one was there to meet me.
I stood there, all alone.
Around me, people were being greeted by wives, girlfriends, brothers, friends. There
was so much hugging and kissing and crying - so much emotion. I was overwhelmed.
People in Japan don't show emotion like that. I'd never witnessed a scene like that at
Haneda Airport.

6
I had no idea who was supposed to meet me. Anyone could be Mr. Bonner, or his
messenger. Every time I caught someone's eye, I smiled, hoping that this person or
that person was the one. I just kept on smiling.
Half and hour passed, and then an hour. My face was getting tight from the constant
smiling. My facial muscles were starting to cramp, and I was no longer sure that I was
actually smiling. Perhaps my face was just locked in a grimace.
The airport lobby was getting quiet. The crowds thinned out, and I finally put my
suitcase down in the center of the terminal and sat on it. There were chairs in the
corner and against the walls, but I was afraid to sit along a wall. Whoever was coming
to meet me might not see me if I was not in the center of the room. I didn't want
there to be any doubt that I was waiting for someone.
It was getting late, and I was beginning to wonder what to do. I started missing my
family in Tokyo, but I missed the dojo even more. I wanted to work out, to train, to
sweat.
I had been sitting there alone for about two hours when the outside doors opened and
a big Caucasian man dashed into the lobby. He was holding a poster that I couldn't
read, but I had a feeling that this was the man I was supposed to meet.
I stood up, looking at him hopefully, and he held the poster up in my direction. On the
poster was written, in Japanese, "Sensei Oyama." I called to him, "Osu. Yes." He came
over to me and stuck out a huge hand to shake mine. I was so excited that I grabbed
his hand with both of mine and held on.
He said, "You Oyama-san?" It was Japanese, but spoken with a strange accent. He
pointed to himself and said, "I am George."
He began to explain why he was late. I didn't understand a word he was saying, but I
didn't care. I was so happy that he was there, and that I wasn't alone any more.
I found out much later what had made him so late. George had had a flat tire on the
highway, and his car didn't have a spare. He had to take the flat off, pick it up, and
physically run to a service station to get it fixed. Then he had to run back, rolling the
tire in front of him, put it back on the car and drive to the airport.
His name was George Gonzalez. He was only a little taller than me, but his chest was
three times the size of mine. He was well built like a weight lifter, only he was very
graceful in his movements. I knew then that he trained in something.
George reached to pick up my suitcase and said, "This is all? Just one?"
I nodded my head and George smiled. I couldn't tell what he meant, but I knew he
wasn't making fun of me. I could tell that he cared about people, and knew even then
that we would become great friends.
Before his big hand could get my suitcase, I said no, that I would carry it. George
smiled and took it right out of my hand.
We stepped outside the airport terminal. The air was crisp and clean, especially after
the air inside the terminal building, which had been so humid. New York air felt colder
to me than Tokyo air.
As we walked to the parking lot, George talked. I think he was asking me about my
flight and how I felt. I didn't understand him, but I appreciated his caring. I just kept
nodding and saying, "Osu. Osu."
We got to George's car, and I was overwhelmed. It was the biggest car I had ever
seen. Although I couldn't tell him, I wanted to say that I thought it was a gorgeous
car. I said, "Very nice."
George burst out laughing. We got in, and he pushed a button that made the roof start
closing. That surprised me even more. In Japan, I drove a three-wheel truck for the
Daihatsu Company. To me, a car that big, with a roof that moved, was magic. I never
dreamed I would ride in a car like that.
Later I found out that this was a junk car that could be bought for a couple hundred
dollars. George didn't have much more money than I did. I just didn't know that then.

7
George pressed the button that closed the roof, and started the car. We got on a
highway that was much bigger than any Japanese highway. I was even more surprised
as I realized that this was really a big country.
We drove through the city, past some of the tallest buildings I had ever seen, and on
out into an area where there were trees and flowers. George told me that we were not
going to the dojo, that the dojo was closed. We were going to a nightclub where Mr.
Bonner was waiting for us.
It was a simple message, but it took about twenty minutes to get across. George was
having to use sign language and the little bit of funny-sounding Japanese that he
knew.
I wanted to see the dojo, but I couldn't explain that to George. I just agreed with
whatever he said, nodding and saying, "Osu." George picked up on the work, "Osu,"
and took to repeating it to me after everything he said.
Soon, our conversation was something like, "Osu?" "Osu."
"Osu?" "Osu."
After a while, we came to a big building that was dimly lit and George told me that it
was the nightclub. I thought it was a warehouse. In Japan, a nightclub had bright
neon signs, flowers, and beautiful decorations. It was nothing like this a warehouse
with a little sign and a single dim light. I didn't know what to think.
We parked the car, and went in through the outside door of the nightclub. That put us
in a little room. I could hear music and a great amount of noise from people talking
and laughing. The smell of cigarette smoke was overwhelming.
He went to a second door that would get us inside the main room of the club. Before
we could open the door, two guys even bigger than George stopped us. George said
something to them, and they laughed. It was not a laugh like something funny, but
rather a mocking laugh. They looked at me, up and down, studying me. I was used to
people looking me over because they had not seen many Japanese. These two guys,
however, looked like they wanted to cut me open to see what was inside me. They
were examining me from head to toe.
They finally opened the door for us, and I was shocked. My ears almost exploded from
the noise. There appeared to be five hundred people crowded onto the dance floor,
moving to the loudest music I had ever heard.
In Japan, I often went to nightclubs to drink or dance. Never had I seen anything like
this. We didn't have discos in Japan, where music played at deafening levels and
people jammed into the dance floor so tightly they were actually hitting each other.
After a few minutes, my eyes became used to the darkness and I could see people in
the corners hugging and kissing. Again, I was shocked. I thought this was the worst
place I had ever been. My mind was numb from so many new sights and sensations.
It was too much. I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. I had seen Western
movies, and seen places like this in the movies. Actually being inside the place was too
much. It felt like such a violent place, not a place to relax. There was nothing sexy or
enjoyable here. It felt like everyone was out to kill each other. The people dancing had
a look about them, as if there were no tomorrow. It was if they all knew they were
going to die in the morning and didn't care about anything else tonight.
I followed George through the crowd. I could smell the sweat, but it wasn't a good
sweat like a hard workout at the dojo. This was a sickly combination of sweat,
perfume, and cigarettes. Maybe it was my clothes or haircut or my flat face, but
everyone was looking me up and down, front and back. I felt like an animal on display.
I probably could have charged money to let everyone look at me.
Finally we reached a table in back, and George introduced me to my sponsor, Richard
Bonner. He was about ten years older than me, and looked like a successful
businessman. There was no real distinguishing characteristic about him, but then, at
that time, all Westerners looked alike to me.

8
I was introduced to Richard's brother, Sam. Meanwhile, Richard studied me like
everyone else, top to bottom. Only he did it really quickly, hoping I wouldn't notice.
Still, I caught his eye, and his eyes let me know that he was disappointed. He stuck
out his hand and we shook. His eyes said he bet I would be leaving for home in a
couple of days.
I shook hands with Sam, and George asked me what I wanted to drink. I couldn't say
"scotch" or "whiskey." I ordered the only drink I could ask for with confidence a gin
and tonic. So, I said, "gin and tonic" twice to George, slowly and powerfully. George
smiled back, and put his hand on my shoulder as if to calm me, and said, "Okay,
okay."
The waitress brought the drinks, and with the waitress was a guy who looked Oriental,
but I wasn't sure. He looked at Richard and said, "Hi," which we never say in Japan. I
watched him.
He turned to me and spoke in very nice, polite Japanese. He asked, "Are you tired?" I
was shocked that he could speak my language, but it turned out that he was Japanese.
He didn't look Japanese to me. He wore a tight T-shirt, and had long hair like an
American. I'd never seen this style of hair in Japan, so I didn't think he was from
Japan. It turned out that he worked for Mr. Bonner as a judo instructor. His name was
Watanabe, but he was called "Mr. W."
He sat at the table with us and we talked. It helped me to relax.
My contract with Mr. Bonner said that I was to have my own apartment. But Mr. W.
explained that I didn't have an apartment yet, so I would be staying with him and
George at the house they shared. That was the reason George had learned to speak
some Japanese.
Mr. W. talked just like an American, looked like an American, and even acted like an
American. Yet he was Japanese. I was amazed.
We stayed at the nightclub until about 3:00 a.m., then said good-bye to Richard and
Sam. We drove to Mr. W's house.
He had a two bedroom house, with one room for him and one for George. I slept on
the couch. That first night, I could hear snoring from both their rooms and couldn't
sleep.
It had been a long day for me. For the first time in my life, I had flown on an airplane.
Then there was the mix-up in Chicago, and the long wait at the New York airport.
There was my first American nightclub, and all the sights and sounds that I had been
exposed to for the first time, all in one day.
I was in the United States. I tried to relax, but when I closed my eyes, all I could see
was Japan, my family, and my friends. I worried about what change my life would take
tomorrow. It was like being caught in a spider's web with no way out. I lay there,
hoping dawn would come soon so I could begin a new day and my new life.

Chapter 3

Richard Bonner owned two dojos, one in White Plains, New York, and another in
Bridgeport, Connecticut. My schedule would be to teach on Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday in White Plains, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in Bridgeport. George
was Mr. W's assistant at both dojos.
I was really surprised by the city of White Plains. The whole town was so quiet, and
looked like a national park. There were trees everywhere, full of birds of all different
colors. The squirrels would run up and almost take food right out of your hand.
I was born and reared in Tokyo. It had parks and a few trees along the streets, but
nothing like White Plains. Mostly, Tokyo is a city of buildings.
Behind White Plains runs the Bronx River Highway, and both sides of the highway
were like parks. There were ponds on either side, and ducks and swans made their

9
homes there. In the spring, families of ducks would cross the highway, going from
pond to pond, and cars traveling in both directions would stop for the ducks. No one
honked or got angry.
Everyone seemed to really care about their community, and I felt like this town was
for cultured people. George took me to the White Plains dojo first. A sign on the
outside of the building said, "Karate, judo and self-defense." It was written in a kind of
script that was supposed to look Oriental. To me, it was wrong. That style of printing
was not Japanese, but rather Chinese. It was the kind of writing you would see in a
Chinese restaurant.
I followed George inside the dojo, but at the door I bowed and did a loud, "Osu." The
first room was a reception area, and one of the girls stood up and came toward me;
her whole face was a smile. In Japan, a girl would have given only a small smile. Here,
Americans let their whole face reflect their emotions.
Besides karate and judo, this building was used to teach beauty and fitness. The girl,
whose name was Doris, was an instructor and receptionist. I was taken aback by her
emotion and body language. In Japan, we use very little body language. The change
made me uncomfortable.
We passed through the reception area and George showed me into Richard's office. He
had a big desk, and next to it was a TV monitor. By pushing different buttons, Richard
was able to see what was happening in every room of the dojo.
Richard shook my hand and greeted me, but I could tell he wasn't excited about
having me. I could tell he had been expecting a tougher looking guy. Richard showed
me the dojo by way of the video system.
George then took me around, showing me the boys' lockers and showers, the girls'
lockers and showers, and then we downstairs to the actual dojo.
The room was about twenty-five meters by fifteen meters, with a white mat covering
the floor. My first concern was the fact that the dojo was in a basement. I wondered
how the air moved down there.
George showed me the heating and air conditioning system, which I didn't really
understand. In Japan, the traditional karate schools have hardwood floors and no heat
or air conditioning. There was no place for such comforts in a Japanese dojo. So while
I understood the switch that George showed me to control the heat and air, I thought
it was really just for a big fan to keep the air circulating.
I took my shoes off and stepped on the mat. On a wood floor, when you put your
weight on the floor, you can feel it push back. On this mat, your foot sunk in. I knew
this floor would kill a person's speed.
I walked around the dojo, and began to realize that I would be teaching my first class
that night. I began to summon my power, first in my ankles, up to my knees, to my
thighs and waist and on up. It was as if it came from the floor up. I committed myself
to this job.
My schedule would be to teach from 2 until 4 in the afternoon, and from 6 until 9 in
the evenings. In all, it was about five hours a day, with special and private classes
worked in between.
Since this was my first day, the afternoon classes would not start until next week.
I couldn't wait until 6 o'clock. I needed to sweat now. The best way for me to become
calm was to work out. At about four, I put on my dogi and began to stretch and warm
up. Around 5, I felt good. A little past 5, a few students started coming into the dojo. I
felt so tense. I looked each student in the face, eye to eye, and told them, "Osu." Not
all the students wanted to look me straight in the eye.
I could tell the word had gone out that I would be teaching tonight. As it got closer to
6, the dojo started feeling smaller as about forty people packed inside. The small area
for visitors to sit and watch the classes was also packed with people.

10
Of course, Richard and Mr. W. sat in the front row to watch me. I could feel their eyes
studying my every move, as if I were under a microscope. They wanted to see how a
skinny little fellow like me would handle teaching these big Americans.
Mr. W. and George were especially interested because they were judo instructors. At
the time, judo people didn't think much of karate, believing that it wouldn't work. They
preferred judo, and it was very popular in the United States.
Even George doubted me. He was very nice, but he didn't believe there was any way
karate technique could beat judo. I could tell that George laughed at karate inwardly.
At 6, I made the students line up according to rank. I knew there were supposed to be
some brown and black belts in this class, but I saw only yellow belts and under. Then I
realized that over in the visitors' area, all the black and brown belts were gathered
around Richard. They were here to watch me.
They didn't believe I was a real karate man. They were watching to see what kind of
power and technique I had. They were thinking that there was no way they could learn
from me because they believed they could beat me in a fight.
Before class began, Richard came out and introduced me to the class. I didn't
understand what he was saying at the time, but later I found out his speech was,
essentially, "This man is going to teach karate. We hope he stays a long time. But I
don't know how long he'll stay."
Several people clapped when he was finished, and I started class with some stretching
and exercises. Then we began Kihon-waza, a basic middle punch technique. I could
see that many of the students had bad habits and weak punches. They would lose
their balance, and with each new technique, a lot of people couldn't pick it up. But I
didn't want to correct each student that night.
Instead we did each technique about one hundred times, and with each technique I
made the students, "Kiai," an explosion of energy that comes out in a shout. When
they didn't Kiai loud enough, I hit the floor with a bamboo stick that made a loud
noise. That shook them up.
I did my technique, and each Kiai, with great power. I put everything I had into every
move, working all the tension and emotion from my body that had built up during my
trip.
The harder I worked, the more excited I got. As I got more excited, I could feel the
students begin to share the feeling. Their Kiai's got stronger, and their technique
moved in harmony with my count. I could see their eyes begin to shine as they got
caught up in my excitement. Their spirit and my spirit were in union, and I began to
believe that I could do it.
There is a moment that only people who teach karate can understand, a moment
when you don't have to think, or feel. You just get inside of what you are doing and
your entire universe becomes movement. It is called "Mu."
In the time of the Samurai, it was said that before battle, they would try to catch the
Mu. I meant reaching a point where they no longer worried about anything beyond
that moment in time. It is a feeling of nothingness, like being new-born, with no past
or future.
The way to reach Mu is through movement. To get it, you have to put all your speed
and power and energy into each action, getting inside your technique to the point that
your mind is blank. Everything is movement that is Mu.
I felt that first class, my first students, were beginning to reach Mu. They were not
thinking anything. They were digging in on each technique, doing nothing but
following me. Even their mistakes didn't matter, they were too intent on following my
lead.
I forgot all about Richard, Mr. W, George, and the others watching me. I forgot about
the United States, about Japan, about the world. This was the dojo, the whole
universe at the moment. It was the greatest feeling in the world.

11
By the time we finished the kihon, it was past 9 o'clock. I had spent three hours just
teaching basic technique.
It was only then that I saw that not everyone in the class had been able to keep up
with me, that there were people who had sat down in the corner to rest. I could tell
that Richard's attitude toward me had changed. His opinion had risen a little, especially
after seeing how the students responded.
The next day, I again taught only the basic technique. Soon, all my classes were just
basic technique. Every class was the same, and I could tell the students were starting
to get bored. Richard told Mr. W, who came to tell me that they understood the
importance of learning basic technique, but the students needed action. If they didn't
get action, they would get bored. If they got bored, they would quit and the dojo
would lose business.
I understood their concern. Even in Japan, if you teach only basic techniques, the
students get bored. You have to include movement, combinations, advanced technique
and throwing.
I also knew that I needed to get into condition. During my first week in the United
States, I ate, but the food didn't have any taste. I wasn't able to sleep well. I needed
time to adjust to an American way of life, to learn to "drink the water" as the saying
goes. Then I could really begin to teach.
I was going to have to fight. I wanted to fight. I wanted to see if my technique, speed
and power would work.
If I were not in top condition, I would be disappointed. If some student beat me, I
would as good as dead. I would have to run away, but I had no place to go. Not only
could I not go back to Japan, I also knew that no one would ever call Japan again for
karate instructors. I was responsible for more than just myself: there were all my
fellow instructors in Japan, and those to come. My mission was to develop Kyokushin
karate in America.
Many people misunderstand the martial arts. The talk of the spiritual power, the
mental aspect, as if that is all there is. Yet the mental and spiritual power must be
manifested through the physical. The spirit cannot be separate the spirit from the
body. If you just talk about the spirit, and disregard the physical, you are making a big
mistake. The Bushido talk about "way of life," and how great they were in the past.
Too often, it is all talk and little action. Martial art reaches the mind through the body.
If you don't sweat, you don't reach the mind or the spirit.
So my concern was to build up my physical condition. I needed to be able to sleep and
eat, to begin to understand the American way of life. So I told Mr. W that I was
responsible for teaching the classes, and not to tell me how to do my job.
After about a week, I began to adjust. My body was no longer tense, and my
movement became lighter. My fighting style, my favorite technique, is a left-right
punch, a right foot snap kick, followed by a roundhouse kick. In training, that was
what I worked on, my biggest concern.
Every day at the dojo, I taught for my own conditioning. I could the students didn't do
everything right, but I didn't bother correcting them too much because it was more
important that I get into shape.
I knew a test was coming, when I would have to show everyone just how good I was.
After I did that, I would be able to teach.
In the mornings, I ran and worked on footwork, what is called Ma-wai. I worked to
make my knuckles stronger by taking a newspaper in one hand and wadding it up to
the size of a golf ball. At night, at the dojo, I trained for timing and speed.
After a week, I felt I was getting in good condition. I knew that I only needed a few
more days to be ready for what I knew was coming.
I was going to fight all of the black and brown belts.

12
The black and brown belts began to return to the class after a week or so, but it wasn't
out of respect for me. In fact, it was to show Richard how much better they were than
me. They trained under my direction, but always, either before or after class, they
would gather in front of the mirrors that lined the walls and show off their fancy
fighting techniques. Then they would look over at me and smile, to let me know they
could be doing those things to me.
I caught them looking at me, but I never changed expression. The other students
began to worry, wondering what was going to happen to me. They could tell a
showdown was coming. Finally, I felt ready. I felt powerful again, in such top physical
condition that I felt I could beat anybody, even a monster like Frankenstein. It was as
if every hair on my head, every toe on both feet, was bursting with power.
I was ready to fight, and fight them all all the showoffs, the cocky guys who liked to
watch themselves in the mirror. I wanted them first.
That night, at the end of class, I told all the students, "After the next class, we will free
fight. Free fight only."
The result was as if someone had turned on an electrical current in the room. The
students began to look at each other and whisper. Some looked at me to see if I was
kidding. Some were obviously worried for me.
The black and brown belts just smiled.
The night of the fight, I felt great. I expected a full class, and I was not disappointed.
There were eighty-eight students, including twenty-three black and brown belts. That
suited me just fine. It would allow me to finish the matter once and for all.
Word had gone out around the city, and the visitors' area was packed. Of course,
Richard, George, Mr. W and Sam were all there. Doris, the physical fitness instructor
also showed up. In fact, all the front office people and instructors of the exercise
classes stopped what they were doing to crowd into the dojo. There were so many
people that there was hardly a place left to stand in the dojo that night.
I began class with exercise, and then told all the students to line up around the walls.
With so many there, the line of students was two deep.
I told everybody that I hoped they could understand my funny English, and that we
were going to fight. I bit off each word as it left my mouth, quickly and powerfully. I
said that I was going to fight everyone, and pointed at each of the black and brown
belts to make sure they understood.
My first target was a black belt named Harry. He was about 6-foot-2 and weighted
about 225 pounds; he was very muscular and very hairy. He wore his dogi so that the
hair on his chest stuck out, and he had made no secret of being proud of his body.
I had watched him training, and knew his favorite technique. He positioned himself in
what is called a horse-back stance: feet a little wider than shoulder width and standing
sideways to the person he was fighting.
Harry was not very quick side to side, but he was very fast coming straight at his
opponent. He liked to front kick, front fist to the face, grab his opponent's dogi, do a
right hand reverse punch to the body and then a throwing technique. His body was
very tight, but he was so powerful that he usually intimidated anyone he faced.
So I walked out to the middle of the dojo and pointed to him and said, "Come over
here."
He stood up and put a mouthpiece in place.
That was the first time I had seen one of them wear a mouthpiece. In a dojo fight, you
are supposed to be careful not to hit the other person's face because they have to go
to school or work the next day. But if Harry put in a mouthpiece, that meant he was
going to go for my face. Looking around at the other students, I realized they all had
mouthpieces. I decided then that I would still punch and kick only to the body, but if
that didn't work, I would go for the face, too.

13
Harry came out to face me, and we bowed. He took a step back, assuming his fighting
stance. I raised both my hands into the air, slid my left foot forward and brought my
hands into fighting position. As I did, I let out a loud, "Ee-shai," a sound never before
heard in this dojo. It comes from deep inside the body and serves the same purpose
as a dog growling before the attack.
Then I looked him in the eye and said, "Ko-I," which is like saying "Come on." It is a
Japanese word, and it came out almost instinctively. My heart was very calm, my
breathing under control, but my body was on fire. I squeezed my elbows into my
sides, and was ready.
Harry looked into my eyes and took one step back. I knew then that I had him.
I came at him, and he slid back again. I made a little shoulder fake, like I was going to
move around behind him to his left, and he twisted ever so slightly that way. Then,
with my right hand, I quickly hooked Harry's left hand and pushed it down, stepped
back to his right so that I was directly in front of him, and hit him with a straight left
hand into his unprotected chest. I could feel the power in that punch, which forced
him to twist his body even further to the left and expose himself more. I hit him again
with all my power: a right hand directly to the middle of his chest, with a loud "Ee-
shai" as I struck. I felt my whole body go with that punch, as good a punch as I'd ever
thrown.
I heard Harry gasp for air, back up a step, and fall down among the students who
lined the walls. The dojo was deathly quiet. There was no movement, not even the
blink of an eye.
Then suddenly there was the sound of everyone releasing the breath they had been
holding.
I grabbed Harry and pulled him back out on the floor. I tried to make him stand up,
but he wouldn't get up. He was on all fours, hanging his head and gasping for air. I
tried once more to pick him up, but he just fell down.
I don't know why, but I spoke in Japanese and said, "Do-shi-ta," which means,
"What's the matter with you?" I said it very contemptuously. Harry's face was white.
He waved his hand, as if to let me know he needed to sit down. I knew I needed to
drive my point home, though. For ten days he had mocked me, and now I watched
him heaving on his hands and knees like a dog.
I reached down to pull his head up by his hair and slapped his face hard. The force of
the blow knocked his mouthpiece all the way across the room, and his nose exploded
in blood.
I told the students to take him away.
There were more than a hundred people packed in that room, but no one, not Richard,
George, or Mr. W., said a word. There was only silence.
I pointed at the next black belt, whose name was Tony. He was black, but after seeing
what happened to Harry, his color was much paler.
Tony was a very graceful fighter, with beautiful technique. I knew I would have to be
more careful with him.
We faced each other and bowed. I stepped forward and again yelled, "Ed-shai," but
Tony was already backing up, determined to stay away from me.
Tony was a head taller than me, and weighed 190 pounds. To me, that night, he
looked small. He tried front snap kicks and roundhouse kicks, but since he was always
backing away, his pretty kicks never came close to reaching me.
Finally, I chased him into a corner. He was facing me, with his left foot forward. I
faked right, jumped inside his guard and, pushing his left hand farther to this left,
grabbed his dogi up near the back of his neck with my left hand. Pulling him forward, I
brought my left knee up and into his stomach. I could feel my knee go all the way
through to his back. Tony dropped flat, with the wind completely knocked out of him.

14
The next black belt yelled as if he was really attacking, but he, too, ran away from me.
I chased him and chased him until finally I cornered him. Before I could do anything,
he jumped at me no technique better than pure fear and grabbed my dogi, hoping to
tackle me. As he jumped, he tried to force me backwards, so I used his forward
momentum to head-butt him in the face. He fell backwards, clutching his bleeding
mouth. The impact of my forehead into his face was so strong that I was stunned for a
moment, and could see nothing but stars.
His mouth started to bubble with blood, and the other students ran from him, he was
such a mess.
So it went. I fought all of the black belts, and beat each one decisively. Then I started
on the brown belts. By this time, the dojo was alive with activity spectators taking the
losers to the bathroom to clean them up or, in some cases, taking them to the
hospital. Small children in the visitors' area were crying, and the people that had been
afraid for me were now almost afraid of me. My dogi was covered in sweat, and
spotted with the blood of the black and brown belts, but I kept going.
As I got to the lower ranking students, I changed tactics. I used mostly defense, not
wanting to hurt them. They, after all, had been willing to learn from me all along.
I fought eighty-eight students that night, and could have fought more. I think that
everyone at some time in life reaches a point where he feels that anything is possible,
that all the possibilities of the world are open right then. That night, I had that feeling.
After I had fought the last student, I told everyone, black and brown belts included, to
take off their color belts and put on white ones, signifying a beginners rank. No one
argued.
At the end of class, everyone came up to shake my hand. Richard, George, and Mr. W
looked at me that night as if for the first time, and I could see the respect in their
eyes. Everybody wanted to shake my hand and, by the next day, my name was all
over town.
The next week, about half the students quit. Richard was upset, but didn't complain to
me. He knew I could handle American students now.
I felt like the door to my future was wide open. Now I could really begin to train in
karate, and teach my students well. More importantly, I knew that I needed to
continue my own training. I couldn't get lazy. I knew that I was going to need to know
more technique, build more power, and get into ever better shape.
I couldn't calm down after that class ended. To celebrate, I went out to get a beer and
think over all that had happened. I couldn't tell you what kind of beer I had that night;
I only know that it tasted like a million dollars.
In the two weeks that I had been in the United States, my whole life had changed
dramatically. In Japan, karate was my life, and my life followed a set pattern. But this
week, particularly the night of fighting, had changed everything.
In Japan, my karate had never really faced a challenge. I was taller than almost all of
my students, so when we fought, I had the advantage. There was no threat to my
technique or training.
Sometimes during the spring in Japan, when everyone goes a little crazy, a stranger
would show up at the door of our dojo and challenge me to a fight. Even in that
situation, I still had the advantage. Most karate styles in Japan didn't practice with full
contact. They stopped short of making contact, even on punches and kicks to the
body. In our style, Kyokushin, we practiced with full contact every day.
Strangers who challenged me in my dojo were usually experienced in other styles of
karate, so they were not expecting to actually hit or be hit. A lot of people don't think
there is a difference between practicing with contact or without, but there is. When
you aren't going to make contact or try to hurt someone, your technique may be very
fast and beautiful, but you never use the same kind of power you would in a real fight.
The emotion is different, and the physical demands are different.

15
Whenever we were challenged to a fight, we warned the challenger that we used full
contact. Very few people backed down, so we made sure they signed a release so that
if anything happened we were not held responsible.
Before I actually fought anyone, I had them fight one of my students. The fights were
never longer than a couple of minutes, and we always won. Sometimes we had to call
an ambulance, or carry the challenger to the hospital on a wooden bench.
We never lost, so I had no question that my style, my technique, was the best in
Japan.
When I agreed to go to the United States, though, I realized I was not used to fighting
people bigger than me. That made me wonder if my technique would really work. In
Japan, I was called "Sensei sensei," which is "Teacher, teacher," a sign of respect that
meant my students did whatever I told them without question.
Now I realized that respect had kept me from being challenged, and kept me from
improving. Whenever I made a mean face and a loud "kiai," my opponent would often
become afraid right then. He would say, "Ma-e Ri-mashita," which means "You win,"
or "I give up."
It was like resting in a hot bath or being relaxed to the point of inertia. I thought I was
in karate, but really I was just standing outside the world of karate, looking in. I wasn't
really using all my heart and body. No one was telling me, "this is right," or "this is
wrong." No one challenged me to change the way I taught technique to compensate
for different body styles. It made no difference whether a person was fat or skinny,
strong of character or weak. Every technique was taught the same for every body.
I began to realize that I was wrong. The first time I faced an American student, I knew
the system I had taught in Japan wouldn't work here. I knew I was going to have to
really enter the world of karate, to really dig. I was going to have to get out of the
warm bath.
I had to start thinking and living karate twenty-four hours a day. I had to get inside
each student, understand each technique perfectly, and make each technique relate
individually to each of them.
I had to understand each technique and how it related to every other technique. What
does this punch mean? What is the purpose of this block? Why kick like this? These
are the questions I had to ask myself constantly. I was going to have to start thinking
and living nothing but karate.
I was out of the warm bath and onto the ice; if I fell through, I would sink.
It was as if I was starting over in karate. From that moment on, I knew I was really
stepping inside the universe of karate.
I started in karate when I was twelve years old. I didn't really train, but I could copy
the kicks and punches. I didn't come to the United States until I was thirty years old.
In the years between, I nearly quit karate many times.

Chapter 4

I didn't train constantly all those years. I did other things. I earned a black belt in judo,
studied kendo (fighting with the sword), and did a little bit of boxing. All of that helped
me in my karate.
My experience in the United States helped me discover a new world of karate. Even
though I was thirty, I didn't think I was too old. I knew I needed to train more and
make myself stronger. I would look myself straight in the face every morning, and
fight off my excuses. I would be stronger and wiser, and I would have a deeper
understanding of karate.
First, I had to understand what I was, which is something everyone should do every
day. You must fight yourself first. Otherwise, a million excuses will keep you from

16
achieving something. A lot of people don't want to look themselves in the face to see
the truth.
When I began to teach karate, I didn't have time to make excuses. I had to be one
hundred percent dedicated.
To really teach karate, the instructor must trust karate and believe in it 100 percent,
and the only way to do that is through sweat and experience. Many karate instructors
do a lot of talking about karate and make very pretty speeches, but sweat very little.
In a one hour class, they explain one punch, and spend most of their time talking
about it. Explanations are important, but more importantly, you must show students
how to execute the punch. Explain how to use it in a fight and how to make it fit with
other techniques. Showing them how it works is worth a thousand words.
A good teacher needs to understand each technique, what its purpose is, and what
part of the technique is the strongest and which is the weakest.
Also, a good instructor will make sure to teach each student how to adapt a particular
technique to his or her own body style.
Most importantly, an instructor must sweat. I always tell my young instructors, "You
sweat more than your students." If the student sweats more than the teacher, then
the teacher is not really teaching.
Everywhere in the world now there are people who call themselves karate masters.
They say they teach karate or kung fu or whatever, and they sit at a desk and talk
about martial art and the samurai spirit. They talk very well. They also sell different
color belts. What they do best is count money.
A student can feel it when a teacher takes his teaching as a responsibility. That's why
some students and teachers have such a strong relationship. The kind of teacher who
spends all of his time talking is a swindler and impostor.
I will tell you how to find a good teacher anywhere in the world. Basically, go into a
karate school and see how much they sweat. If there is little sweating going on, but a
lot of talk and laughter, don't join. It isn't serious karate.
No teacher ever knows it all. A teacher is always learning, even from the beginners. A
good teacher doesn't just draw on experience from inside the dojo. He can learn from
everyday life, and from watching other sports such as football, boxing, tennis, ice
skating, and golf. Watch those athletes and ask, "Why do they stand like that? Why do
they balance like that? Why do they jump the way they do? Why this movement, in
that order?" A good teacher will watch and study each movement, and use it to help
him learn more about karate.
Many instructors spend class time standing off to one side, their heads stuck up in the
air, chests out. Their students wear fancy uniforms, and the instructor's only
movement is to point a finger.
That is bullshit. Everyone, if he is human, changes from day to day. Your power and
speed vary from day to day. There is no guarantee that tomorrow you will be as good
as you were today.
We change with time. When we are young, we want results quickly. We are not
patient; we want everything right now, relying on the power and speed of youth.
In middle age, it is different. We rely more on technique to cover what we lack in
power and speed.
As we get older, we no longer rush into anything. We think ahead, knowing what kind
of movement we want to use before the action starts. We use more wisdom, and know
beforehand whether to fight or fall back.
Time affects us all. As society changes, we all change. The important thing through it
all is to not lose yourself. Always push yourself harder, train harder, sweat, and,
through that, you can reach your mind and really discover who you are. That helps
build confidence and discipline. The first person you always face is yourself, and you
must win this fight before you fight anyone else.

17
That is why the world of martial art is so deep. When a person approaches a peak, he
thinks he is master, but he is lying to himself. The next day, he will have slipped from
that peak. That is why we all must train everyday, and try every day to keep from
slipping. That is the way life is.
I was really lucky to find my place in this world. I have been in the United States
almost twenty years. I am fifty years old now, but I still think I have to train more. I
still teach, in New York City, at the headquarters of North American Oyama Kyokushin
Karate, on the Avenue of the Americas. I teach every day. Every day I look at the
beginners and I try every day to get a new, fresh feeling when I stand in the dojo.
When I line the students up, I need to see in each student the different character, the
different personality, and the different body style. I need to begin to pull the best
potential from each one. I sweat with them, punch with them, kick with them, and
train with them every day.
The night after I fought eighty-eight people in that dojo in White Plains, I discovered a
new world of karate. Before that night, I was worried. I was almost ready to pack up
and head back to Japan. But I made myself jump into this world, and I made it. I
passed through.
Now every day is exciting because I found my life in teaching karate. My life has been
well spent in helping other people improve their lives.
Every day I start the day with running, and then begin training. Time goes so fast;
when I finish, I shower and go to bed because I can't wait until tomorrow to teach
again.
George Gonzalez was born on April 3, 1937, in Havana, Cuba. When he was thirteen
years old, George began taking lessons in Kadokan judo from Mr. Takahama, a
seventh degree black belt. Mr. Takahama loved George, and taught him very well. By
the time he was twenty-five, George had earned his third degree black belt and had
begun teaching.
Mr. Takahama and George taught many students in Cuba. In fact, there were many
high ranking government officials, officers in the Cuban army, and members of foreign
consulates among their students.
When Fidel Castro first came into prominence, he told the people they needed to be
independent, and he preached self-determination for the little nation. He didn't talk
about communism, only democracy. His words appealed to many young people,
including George.
Things changed after the revolution. When Castro came into power, he began
directing the island nation to communism, and his men began eradicating the anti-
communists. Thousands of people suddenly disappeared, almost overnight. Many of
them were George's friends, people he had taught judo. He began to worry about his
own safety, never knowing when he, too, might disappear. To save his life, George
plotted his escape. With Mr. Takahama's help, George arranged to become a member
of the consulate of a South American country. George had taught several of the people
in the consulate. With their help and diplomatic passports, George managed to slip out
of the country and into Miami. He left with nothing but the clothes on his back.
To hear George tell about it was more exciting than a James Bond movie. His story
had all the makings for a great suspense thriller, complete with close escapes and
brushes with the authorities.
Before George left Cuba, Mr. Takahama gave him letter of recommendation, so that
George could find a job teaching judo anywhere. Mr. Takahama knew that a lot of
people around the world loved and studied judo, and that his name and rank in the
Kodokan hierarchy would carry a lot of weight. At the time, Kodokan was the top form
of judo in Japan. Curiously, although escaping with only the clothes on his back,
George managed to keep the letter from Mr. Takahama when he left Cuba.

18
In Miami, George had to do anything he could to survive. He had no money, no
friends, and he knew very little English. He lived by his wits for many years, getting by
on the streets of Miami.
He eventually moved to New York just as judo started gaining popularity in the United
States. With his letter from Mr. Takahama, George was able to get a job as a judo
instructor with Richard Bonner.
The money was still not enough to get by, so he still needed to get extra work. George
took a job at night, working as a bouncer in a local night club.
George was almost six feet tall, and weighed around 180 pounds. He was built like a
Mr. America, but his muscles were not tight. He was very limber, very fluid, and very
quick.
Even as a bouncer, George had ways of making money on the side. One trick he had
was to let himself be choked by anyone who wanted to do it, anyway they wanted for
two minutes. He didn't tuck his chin into his chest to keep people from getting around
his throat. He held his head up and out, and let people get any kind of grip they could.
The bet was that if he quit before two minutes was up, he paid them five dollars. If he
lasted two minutes, they paid him five dollars. A lot of weight lifters, boxers and
football players came in and always thought they could win that bet. But George never
lost.
He had another routine where he would stand about three feet away from a wall and
brace himself, allowing anyone to hit him between his neck and waist. If any part of
his body touched the wall, or if he doubled over and touched the floor, he would pay
them five dollars. If not, he got the five dollars. Again, George never lost.
He was like a human sandbag. Whenever a macho man or someone with a tough
reputation came into the nightclub, George would taunt him and talk him into making
the bet, either choking or punching. He never lost and he sure made a few dollars
from those tricks. George didn't put much stock in any other sport or martial art; he
was totally dedicated to judo. In fact, he thought karate was a joke. He never paid any
attention to karate until the night he saw me fight eighty-eight people. That surprised
him, and he began to change his attitude toward karate. I could tell that he began to
wonder about me, about my power, and my movement and technique.
When George wondered about something, he had to test it. In other words, he wanted
to fight me.

Chapter 5

A few days after my big fight, George joined my daytime karate class. My daytime
classes were different from the night classes. The day classes were for housewives
and lawyers, accountants, and policemen, people who could get time off during the
day or who worked at night. It was more of a class for exercise, not really for fighting.
I didn't let the students fight each other because they didn't really know what they
were doing. I was afraid they would get black eyes or bruises, and these people
couldn't afford to go to work looking like they'd been fighting.
If these students wanted to fight, I let them take me on. I let them attack while I just
defended.
One day while I was warming up for a daytime class, George came in wearing his Gi,
and put on a white belt. Many of my students were shocked because some of them
also took George's judo class. They said, "Sensei George, what are you doing here like
this?"
I knew. I knew George had wondered long enough. He was not interested in karate
lessons; he was there to test me.

19
About twenty people attended this class, and I put George with the other white belts to
learn basic techniques. The other students didn't seem to be able to concentrate,
though, with George among them. They kept looking at him, then at me. They were
suspicious, wondering what was going on.
We practiced kata, form exercise, as two part training. They faced each other and did
their katas as if fighting. Then I had them all sit against the wall and asked the
students, as I always did, if someone wanted to free fight.
All the while I knew what George was planning. George and I were the best of friends;
we knew each other well. From that first day when he picked me up at the airport, it
was like we had known each other a long time. His own experience as a stranger in
this country helped him to understand how I felt arriving in the United States. We
became great friends from that very first day.
That didn't keep him from wanting to test me. When I asked the class if anyone
wanted to fight, George's was the first hand up in the air.
It was not like the night of the big fight. George was not tense; he was smiling. I
smiled back. Richard Bonner had slipped into the room at some time during the class,
and he was smiling, too.
I told George to stand up in front of me. I told him, so that everyone could hear,
"George, you can grab my uniform, you can throw me, take me down, you can choke
me. You can use the judo technique where you choke your opponent until he passes
out. You can do Gyaku-waza (joint techniques), you can break my hand. You can use
all the judo techniques you want. Go ahead."
George grinned at me. He said, "Oyama-san, are you sure? Really sure? I can use judo
techniques?"
I smiled right back at him. "I am sure, George," I said. "Use your judo. In fact, I can't
wait for you to use your judo on me. I would love for you to use your judo on me. I
want to feel your judo technique being used on me."
It was like a pair of comedians acting out a Wild West gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We
jokingly set the stage for a challenge.
George came right at me. He was not concerned about my punch or kick; he was not
even thinking about what I might do. He just wanted to grab my dogi. He tried to grab
my right sleeve with his left hand.
I was standing left foot forward. He reached for my sleeve, and I did a left foot front
snap kick to his stomach, which not only stopped him, but backed him up two steps.
I felt like I had kicked a car tire.
George was more careful now, so I stepped forward, getting closer to George. He tried
to reach my left sleeve with his right hand and, at the exact same instant, I punched
with my right hand to his chest, as hard as I could. It forced him backward, and I
followed, grabbing his shoulder with my right hand. With his right sleeve in my left
hand, I did a harai-goshi, a judo technique that threw George to the floor.
The timing was perfect, the technique beautiful and clean. All the students clapped,
and I laughed. George, on the floor, looked up and laughed.
I asked George, "You want to do it again?"
He said, "Yeah."
We got back into fighting position and quiet settled over the room again. I kicked a
left-foot roundhouse kick to his face and he blocked it. I did the same technique to his
face again, and again he blocked it. He had both hands up to protect his face so I used
the opening around his middle to grab his chest and execute a perfect takedown
again.
Everyone clapped again, and I laughed. George laughed. Even Richard laughed.
I told George, "Karate is not bad, huh?" George answered, "No, it is very good."
After that day, George was more interested in karate and soon fell in love with karate.
When I got up in the morning to go running, George got up to run with me. As soon

20
as his judo classes ended, he ran over to take my karate class. Wherever I went,
George went, and day by day, he got better. He caught on to technique quickly, and
improved every day.
Many people experience hard times, poverty, and the depths of despair. Some forget
to smile, and their eyes lose their shine. Some people, however, have the guts to keep
smiling. George had lived a hard life, but he never forgot to smile. He always made the
people he was with feel better, always joking and laughing with them. He really helped
me forget my homesickness and kept my spirit up.
I really enjoyed my friendship with George. Although he, too, was new to the country,
George was the biggest help in my adjusting to ordinary life in America.
Getting adjusted really took some time. The language, food and different customs all
made my transition to life in the United States difficult. The biggest headache, though,
was money.
Before I left Japan, I signed a contract that assured me of receiving $150 a week, and
my apartment was guaranteed. Everything else was supposed to be taken care of by
Richard Bonner. The $150 was supposed to be all mine, for my own use. My teacher in
Japan had told me that I didn't have to worry about anything. Since he was my
teacher, I couldn't ask any questions about the contract he had accepted for me. All I
could say was "Osu."
I couldn't read English, and I couldn't begin to understand what I was signing. All I
could do was agree to sign the contract.
When I arrived in the United States, I quickly discovered everything wasn't "taken care
of." I was paid $150 a week, but taxes and insurance had to be deducted out of that,
which left me with only about $100. Also, I found out that I was expected to pay for
my own apartment. I was guaranteed an apartment, but I had to pay for it.
Richard Bonner's lawyers had written a very tough contract, thinking we would
negotiate. We didn't. The people in my Tokyo headquarters were so anxious to get
someone to America that they signed the first draft. It was a great contract for Richard
Bonner. For me, it was terrible.
Even Richard was surprised when the Tokyo headquarters said the contract was fine.
He had expected negotiation. He didn't know that when my teacher told me to sign, I
signed.
It was a very tough situation. Richard was a funny man, a nice gentleman with a warm
heart. After I proved myself to him, he began to take me out to dinner once a week,
pay for dinner, and treat me really well. In business, however, he was hard-headed. I
tried to discuss changing my contract, but he wouldn't even talk about it.
George understood my situation, and talked to Richard several times on my behalf.
Richard still didn't budge from his "business is business" position.
So, I learned my first lesson about business in America. I didn't know if all Americans
were like that, but I decided to be very careful next time I signed any papers.
I soon realized that, although I didn't worry about money in Japan, here it was very
important. I understood that money was powerful and that it could be very good.
I was definitely going to need more money to survive. I couldn't stay at George and
Mr. W's house forever. I also needed a car. If you didn't have a car in America, you
could forget it.
If it had only been me I was concerned with, I could have managed. I was also
worried about my family in Japan, who were relying on me to send money home.
The only option was to get a second job. Right away, I knew that my employment
opportunities were going to be very limited. I couldn't speak English very well, and I
couldn't write English at all. On top of that, I didn't even know how to go about finding
a job.
Again, George came to my rescue. He found me a job at a nightclub in White Plains, a
club called The Helm. It was on Post Road in White Plains, only about ten minutes

21
from the dojo. It was a nightclub for young people that would hold about five hundred
people. The owner was a man named David Murray.
George worked there as a bouncer, along with about eleven other people. I had no
idea what being a bouncer meant. I only knew what I had seen in movies, on
television, and read in books. George had warned me, however, that the real job was
nothing like what I imagined.

Chapter 6

On my first night at The Helm, George took me in to introduce me to the owner and
the other bouncers. They looked at me as if a small guy like me had no business
there. It was just like the first time I met Richard Bonner. Everyone looked at me like I
was a pitiful excuse for a bouncer.
David Murray, the owner, hired me because he liked George, and George had done a
good job for him. All the other bouncers respected George, and without that respect, I
would not have gotten the job.
No one had any confidence in me. No one believed I had any sense in my head. So, of
course, they didn't respect me. I saw their attitude, but I didn't let them know that I
knew what they were thinking. Instead, I kept it all inside me. In my heart, I said to
myself, "I will show you what I can do. When the chance comes, you will see."
George told them about my fight with eighty-eight people. He tried to tell them that I
was tough enough. They just thought he was making it all up, and I didn't feel like
explaining myself.
What kind of person becomes a bouncer? There are several types.
The most common is the big guy, the weight lifter or boxer who has a reputation for
being tough. There are also the street fighters, guys well known for their fighting
ability.
Many clubs in other states hire policemen who work as bouncers during their off time.
In New York, at that time, it was still illegal to hire off duty policemen as bouncers.
Lastly, there were a very few judo instructors who worked as bouncers. I believe that I
was probably the first karate instructor to be hired as a bouncer. At least, I was the
first in the New York area.
At The Helm, they gave all the bouncers T-shirts to wear that bore the nightclub logo
on them. They gave me a size large, but it was too big. All the shirts they had were
too big. So, I had to buy my own shirt and have the logo put on it.
It was 1966, and go-go dancers were very popular. Go-go music was all the clubs
played. The music was really loud, throbing rock and roll. It wasn't regular music that
you would listen to with your ears. It was music designed to make your whole body
vibrate. You felt it, rather than heard it.
In The Helm, the crowds were so big that you couldn't walk without bumping into
people. With their hiring of me, the club had twelve bouncers to take care of five
hundred to seven hundred people, people who were destined to disturb the peace. It
was impossible to prevent trouble when there were so many bodies jammed together
in a tight space.
In the really big clubs, bouncers don't work alone; they work in pairs. I had George as
a partner because none of the other bouncers thought I was capable of being much
help to them.
I was no stranger to the kind of fights that can occur in nightclubs. Those in Japan,
though, were quite different than what I was about to experience. In a Japanese club,
before anyone throws a punch, they talk. The talking was part of the routine. It
usually went something like this: "You stupid guy. What are you doing? Don't you
know who I am? Everyone in town knows me." Then, he would inform the other about
his reputation as a fighter.

22
The other guy would go through the same routine. The stories they told about
themselves didn't have to be true, and quite often were not. They told them anyway it
was protocol.
Then, finally, the fight would actually begin. Always, before the actual physical fighting
began, there was a lot of what I call "mouth-to-mouth" fighting. It involved only
talking back and forth between the two.
In America, it was different. Americans did not take the time to talk. They just started
throwing punches.
There was one bouncer at The Helm, a weight lifter, who once tried to break up a fight
between two guys by grabbing them and pulling them apart. When he got them apart,
he began telling them to calm down. The bouncer was quickly punched and knocked
out by both of the men fighting.
My own first experience in breaking up a fight presented an incredible dilemma. It was
a fight between two women. It is impossible for me to imagine seeing this in Japan.
These were two beautiful girls, with nice, long blonde hair. They jumped at each other,
and began grabbing each other's hair, screeching, clawing, and kicking.
I ran up to them, but then stopped. I had never seen two girls fighting, and the sight
of it made me nervous. I also paused because I had no idea where to grab them to
pull them apart. I mean, it wasn't like breaking up a fight between a couple of guys. I
would never have just grabbed these girls anywhere. So, in trying to figure out what to
do without embarrassing them, and more importantly, myself, I stopped.
George solved that one in a hurry, though. He came up behind me, gave me a push,
and told me to just grab anywhere. So I did.
We jumped between them, pulling the cursing girls apart. Still, they kept after each
other, like a pair of Dobermans. The girl that I was holding had something clamped in
her fist. I forced her hand open, only to discover a handful of the other girl's hair.
That gave me goose bumps. I was shocked. In Japan, the girls were always smaller
than me, especially through the hips. I was really worried, now. If I was going to have
to fight girls, I wasn't sure how hard I was going to have to punch them. I knew it
would have to be hard because, judging by these two, some of these American girls
could punch me out.
At The Helm, bouncers got free drinks and a light snack as part of the job. The pay
was about $12 a night, which seemed cheap to me considering the danger involved.
On my second night, I still didn't have bouncer's shirt. When I got to the club, all the
other bouncers and the bartenders were very friendly to George, but they said nothing
to me. I could feel that I was different from these people, but I was still confident.
The second night was a Friday, and it was even more crowed than usual. George and I
kept moving around, keeping an eye on what was going on in the club.
It didn't take long for trouble to begin. Some guy came up to a girl and asked her to
dance. When she refused, the guy began pushing her. The girl's boyfriend came up
and told the guy to "go to hell." That's when the fight began.
Both guys were small, smaller than me. George grabbed one of them, and bent his
arm behind his body, pushing his head down on the table. I grabbed the other one,
pulling his hands down behind a chair and forcing his head down.
Suddenly, some guy I didn't see pulled my shoulder, almost pulling me off balance. I
turned to see who it was, and it was another bouncer. He didn't recognize me as a
bouncer without my shirt, and I was completely unable to explain what was going on.
I knew that I was going to have to do something. George had told me early on that, in
a nightclub, if somebody grabs you, act fast and talk later. I knew that this bouncer
who grabbed me was going to try to hurt me.
So, as he pulled me toward him, I let my body go with his power and butted him in his
face with my head. As I did that, someone behind me grabbed my left shoulder and
jerked me around violently. I turned quickly and did a right-foot groin kick, doubling

23
the guy over. I grabbed his head, held it down, and smashed my elbow into his
collarbone. He gave a loud "ugh" and collapsed on the floor.
It was all over in less than a second.
The two skinny boys who had started it all were standing there, staring at me. I had a
warm feeling coming down my face, and realized that I had a small cut on my
forehead from the head-butt. The owner came over, along with a bunch of other
bouncers. George stopped them, and told them that the two guys had jumped me. He
explained that I had tried to tell them who I was, but that they didn't stop. So,
whatever happened after that was too bad.
"It's not his fault," George said, pointing to me.
I looked at the two guys on the floor. The first one, a weight lifter, was out cold. He
had a broken nose. The second guy, who turned out to be a fellow bouncer locally
famous for his boxing, had a broken collarbone. Both were taken to the emergency
room of the local hospital. I felt bad about what happened, but I didn't see how it
could have been avoided.
After that, the owner and the employees changed their attitudes. Everyone was nice to
me, and many tried to talk to me. I came to the conclusion, that, in America, if you
prove your power, you don't have to be able to talk. People will change the way they
react toward you once they see what you can do. That was how it was in the dojo with
Richard Bonner, and that's how it was in the nightclub.
I have seen how bouncers are portrayed in movies and on television. Honestly, it
makes me laugh. They always show the bouncer sitting at the corner of the bar,
drinking quietly, talking to a nice-looking girl. When something starts happening, he
stands up slowly, and walks over to the troublemaker. Slowly, and with a swagger, he
picks up one guy, says a few words to him, and the fight is over. Everything is slow
and graceful. If it ever does get violent, the bouncer takes some guy outside, shows
him the butt of a gun, and the troublemaker runs away.
Unfortunately, real life is not like that. A good bouncer doesn't sit in a corner. He
moves around the room, picking up bottles and empty glasses. He talks to people,
making a mental note of who is drinking too much, who is looking for trouble. He gets
a feel for the crowd and its mood.
He also keeps the other bouncers in mind where they are in relation to his own
position on the floor. That is important when quick reaction is necessary. Some big
shot guys get jobs as bouncers and walk around looking and talking tough. When the
trouble breaks out, those guys always seem to have stepped into the kitchen or the
toilet. They never seem to be there when the trouble starts, always arriving just as the
excitement has been brought under control. They are handy at saying, "Oh shoot. If
only I'd been here, I'd have done this or that."
It doesn't take the other bouncers long to recognize who they can count on and who is
all talk.
Why would a person ever take a job as a bouncer?
Some guys do it because they think it makes them look tough, and they get to talk and
brag to a lot of girls. Those guys don't make very good bouncers. They are the ones
that tend to disappear at fight time.
The best bouncers are the guys who really need the money. Those guys are serious
about the job. Because they are serious, they tend to handle whatever situation comes
up as quickly and quietly as possible.
In my experience at The Helm, the big-bodied weight lifters tended to be the kind of
guys who wanted to show off. They either spent all of their time talking at the corner
of the bar, or else going crazy breaking up fights with guys smaller than themselves.
When they got a small guy, they would overreact in order to show their toughness.
These "supermen" tended to beat people up too much.

24
How a bouncer stops a fight is very important. If the fighters are punching and
kicking, then the bouncer may have to punch and kick, too. You can easily get carried
away, though, and overdo it. You have to make sure you calm the customer down,
pacify him, apologize, and make sure he knows that you were just doing your job. If
you hit someone, you've got to make sure he feels like everything is O.K. afterward,
that it was someone else's fault.
If you don't, you will have serious trouble later on, outside the club. Humiliation
breeds anger, and somebody will come after you.
George and I did a good job. We were usually able to recognize a fight coming, and
were able to stop trouble before it got out of hand. Sometimes, though, we made
mistakes.
One night a guy came in and began to cause a lot of trouble. He was wearing tight
jeans, a colorful shirt open to his waist, and a lot of jewelry. He was very drunk, and
he had begun harassing a lot of people.
George solved it by coming up behind him and knocking him down, throwing him to
the floor. I jumped on him and punched him again.
Then we turned him over, and saw that the guy was an old man, maybe fifty-five or
sixty years old. We had assumed he was much younger and, from a distance, in those
clothes, he did look young. We pulled him up, dusted him off, and apologized.
Although we tried to make him understand, he became angrier.
Just before closing time, he came back into the nightclub with a shotgun. He fired a
shot into the ceiling, and started looking for George and me. Everyone scattered and
hit the floor, leaving us standing in the middle of the room. We started running for the
kitchen.
The old man with the shotgun chased us through the nightclub, but we had a good
head start. Once we got to the back of the kitchen, we jumped out an open window.
We landed right in the nightclub's dumpster. We sank up to our necks in garbage. We
had to climb our way out of stinking lettuce, fish parts, sticky bottles, and plastic
wrappers. We fought our way to the top of the dumpster, and climbed out. We ran
down the streets of White Plains covered in foul smelling refuse.
We ran straight to the police station, to a couple of policemen we knew. We told them
what had happened, and asked them to check the old man out.
When you are a bouncer, it is vital to have a good relationship with the local police.
After that night, I really began to realize that $12 a night was too cheap a price to put
on my life. It didn't seem worth it. I wasn't looking for girls or recognition as a big
shot. I needed money. What good was money, if you weren't around to collect it?
Some time after our incident with the old man and his shotgun, one of the bouncers I
worked with got shot in the head in the nightclub parking lot. The man who shot him
didn't run; he just stood over the body and waited for the police. When the police
arrived, they asked him why he'd shot the guy.
The man said the bouncer had beat him up earlier that night in front of his girlfriend,
that he didn't think that it had been necessary to humiliate him like that. He'd lost
face, so he got a gun and waited in the parking lot to kill the bouncer.
When I heard that story, I told George that I wanted to quit. I knew that the bouncer
had had reputation for using too much force, and that he probably had it coming. Still,
twelve dollars was too cheap a price to risk your life. My job was to build up karate in
the United States. My life was worth more than the price of three or four hamburgers.
I started looking for a new job, and told Mr. Murray that I was going to quit. He tried
to make me change mind, but he thought that we all became bouncers to meet girls
and get free drinks. His persuasion consisted of talking about more free drinks and all
the girls. He never offered me more money, so I just quit.
I still needed money and a job. I talked to George and Richard, and they looked for a
job for me. Richard finally found a job for me pumping gas in a service station a

25
couple of blocks from the dojo. My job was to pump gas, clean windshields, and check
oil. They paid me $2.50 an hour to work from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
That was $10 a day, and very safe. Nobody was drunk, and there was no alcohol or
cigarette smell. It was also very boring.
My hours at the nightclub had seemed to fly. There was always so much action men,
women, drinking and dancing. There was so much emotion there, from love to hate,
friendships to fights. I was never relaxed enough to be bored, and the hours passed
like minutes.
At the gas station, four hours passed like four days. I just stood there, watching the
clouds move slowly across the blue sky. A customer would come, and I would take
care of him, then look back up at the clouds that had barely moved.
Plus, since the station was so near the dojo, a lot of my students came to the station. I
pumped their gas as I did for all customers. In the dojo, I was the teacher, and they
thought of me as a big man, a man who deserved much respect. When they saw me
pumping their gas, washing their windows, and checking under their hoods, the
images clashed. It was hard for my students to believe I was the same person.
There is nothing shameful about a job in a gas station. Still, I felt as uncomfortable as
my students. In fact, some of my students, when they saw me, got out of their cars
and asked me to let them pump their own gas.
This was, of course, long before anyone had heard of self-serve gas stations. Back
then, the gas station owners could not have imagined anyone paying to pump their
own gas.
After the gas was pumped, my students would bow to me and say, "Osu." The station
owner could not believe his eyes. He saw people paying to pump there own gas, and
then bowing to the attendant. He didn't know what to make of it. He looked at me and
said, "Oyama is a great man." He was impressed by the attitude of his customers
toward me.
I was still bored. After about two weeks, a man came to see me. His name was Gus,
and he owned a nightclub in town called the "G.G." Somewhere, he had heard of me
and the job I had done at The Helm. He had come to offer me a job at his nightclub.
Richard was very excited that someone, a big shot like this, had come to see me about
a job at his club. Richard explained to me that this Gus was a very rich man, a very
successful man. I said that I wasn't interested in a bouncer's job.
Gus stayed after me, though. He came to the gas station to talk to me, and came to
the dojo to watch my classes. He kept coming back, and one night he asked me to go
to dinner with him. He said I could have any kind of food I wanted, and I chose
Oriental.
All there was at the time was Chinese restaurants. We went to one in White Plains,
and he asked me again to change my mind about the bouncer's job. He told me I
could set my own hours so that it would not interfere with my teaching karate. If I had
a special class, or was participating in a demonstration or tournament, he said I could
go and not worry about it. I told Gus I wanted two more things. I had to have George,
and George had to be well paid, too. I also had to be in charge of all the bouncers at
his club.
Gus agreed to all my conditions, and I agreed to go to work at G.G. So, once again, I
was a bouncer.
G.G. was a popular nightclub for young people, much like The Helm. It held about the
same number of people, about six hundred on a full night. There were thirteen
bouncers, including myself. Because of the odd number, I worked by myself, without a
partner.
Since Gus and I had agreed that I would be in charge of the bouncers, I had to keep
one eye on the crowd, and the other on the bouncers. I made sure to talk to them

26
often, to tell them what I saw and instruct them in how to handle any situation that
arose.
There were certainly plenty of situations to handle. In December of 1965, the United
States had sent about 180,000 soldiers to Viet Nam. By December, 1966, around
385,000 soldiers had gone. I had no idea then the impact that had on my job as a
bouncer at a nightclub.
I don't know why wars are always happening in the world, but I felt particularly
connected to the Viet Nam war. It was a war that made the young people of America
worry a great deal about their future. Most of them weren't sure they had a future,
and that fear began to take a toll on their everyday lives.
It is hard to distinguish between a "good war" and a "bad war." I just know that the
young people around me , who should not have had a care in the world, suddenly felt
the weight of the world on their shoulders. I understood the feelings of the people
whose lives that war touched.
The impact of the military draft was strong. On Friday and Saturday nights, the club
would be packed. People were jammed shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg. A group of
people at one table would be laughing and talking about life, love and old times. Then,
suddenly, everything would get quiet at the table. Sometimes someone would start
crying. Others, you could see, were holding back their tears. Most just didn't care that
they were in public, and just cried in great, heaving sobs.
Sometimes it was mixed men and women, families, friends. Inevitably, the reason for
the emotional moments was that one of the group had received notice that he was
going to Viet Nam, and they were all gathered for that last send-off. They wanted to
be able to tell the one leaving not to worry, that everything would be fine. They
couldn't do it.
It was so out of place. All around them, there were people laughing, dancing, talking,
and celebrating life. At that one table, though, it was as if an invisible wall had come
down to insulate them from the rest of the world.
More often than not, those people would start to drink to forget why they were there.
They would down whiskey and beer, shot after shot, and get louder and louder. They
would not only listen to the music, but they would try to become part of it, pounding
on the table or stomping on the floor. They would jump up and start dancing in crazy
patterns around the room.
In such an emotional environment, problems came up. Every day and every night,
fights erupted in the club. The bouncers were often dealing with four and five fights a
night, always starting between two people and escalating like the war itself. The
numbers would grow two, then four, then six, and so on. It was like a brush fire
catching hold in dry weather.
For a bouncer to walk into such a crowd, telling people to calm down, would be
foolish. Talking would not stop such a fight. No one listened when you said, "Don't
fight." Their reasons for fighting went much deeper than some little annoyance. They
arrived at the club upset, and their fighting was merely a symptom of all the
uncertainty that filled their lives.
If a bouncer was a couple of minutes late getting to a fight, it would be out of hand. At
that point, all he could do was join in, and soon a full-scale riot raged.
I taught my bouncers how to get in quickly. There was no use talking because no one
was listening, I told them. A bouncer had to get in, get one good shot, and knock the
troublemaker out. I didn't want anyone cut, or anyone's bones broken. I wanted a
quick, one-shot knockout.
Each bouncer has a different way of trying to stop a fight. The weight lifter types try to
grab people and pull them apart. They try to grab an arm or leg or piece of clothing
and pull the fighters away from each other. When people fight like dogs, putting their

27
weight forward and going in head first with the intention to kill, this doesn't work. It is
hard enough to pull two dogs apart, much less two human beings.
If you grabbed someone and tried to reason with them, it was no good. Trying to
reason with my broken English was particularly useless. No one could understand me,
even if they tried.
So, I didn't even attempt to grab people or talk to them. I went in from the side or
front, and grabbed one of the fighters by the hair on the side of his head, where it is
most sensitive. Then, I twisted to the right or left, always twisting the head so that the
chin was no longer pointing forward. When your head and body are going in opposite
directions, there is no way to keep your momentum.
While twisting their heads to one side, I used a foot-sweep or low roundhouse kick to
knock their feet out from under them. I then pulled them backwards to the floor.
Many times, however, I could stop them with the palm of my hand. I would grab them
by the hair with my left hand, and pull backward until the ear and the chin were facing
outwards. Then, I took my right hand and hit them between the ear and point of the
jaw with my palm. I never missed, and it nearly always knocked them out. Or, if it
didn’t, it always left them paralyzed for a few minutes.
If two people were going after each other, I never said anything. I just came up
quickly behind one, grabbed the side of his head, pulled it around and knocked him
out quickly with the palm of the other hand. The guy he was fighting usually stopped
at that point, but I didn’t. I would slap the other guy, too.
No matter what, I always hit the other guy even if it was another bouncer who was
fighting with a customer. If I could hit a couple of people and knock them out, then
could usually scream, "Stop the fight," as loudly as possible, and people would freeze.
Sometimes, even the band would stop playing.
It was like in the E. F. Hutton commercial.

Chapter 7

I was constantly aware of my differences from most New Yorkers. One weekend, a
friend from Japan came to New York for a dentist convention. He was staying at the
Hilton, and we got together one morning for breakfast. Whenever I talked, the waiter
and all the other customers at nearby tables would stop what they were doing and
look at us. It embarrassed my friend. I was not yelling or screaming, but my voice was
just naturally strong. My friend told me, "If you were a burglar, you'd never be
successful. Your voice is too strong. Even if you whisper, everyone hears you."
I think it has to do with teaching karate. As I trained, I built up my spirit and used my
voice to get my students excited. So in ordinary life, my voice was naturally stronger
and more forceful.
In those days as a bouncer, if I stopped two or three people, and yelled, everybody
would stop.
If two guys wrestling on the floor didn't hear, I would walk over, grab the guy on top,
knock him out, help the other guy up, and then slap him across the face, too.
One thing about the way Americans fight - it is always up front, punching the face and
chest area. I taught the other bouncers to attack below the waist, at the legs, hips or
thighs, and make people lose their balance.
A small move, timed just right, is all you need. The big moves you see in movies - the
big kicks, spinning jumps kicks and punches - never really work.
Well, I don't want to say they won't ever work. Maybe they will. I'd like to say I did a
lot of fancy techniques, like in the movies. But really, my technique was simple - a
knee kick, a low kick, the elbow, head butt, or palm hand.
And whenever I stopped a fight, the next day everyone was talking about it, from the
waitresses to the bartenders to other bouncers and customers.

28
"Sensei Oyama did it like this." they would say.
"No, he did it like that."
My techniques were usually so small and so quick, that they never really saw what I
had done. That led to people making up wild stories.
"He did it with his little finger."
"He just walked by and knocked them out."
The stories kept getting bigger. Maybe I stopped a fight between two or three people.
By the next week, it was being said that I'd stopped a fight between 10 people, and
the numbers continued to multiply. People love to exaggerate.
One night while I was working the entrance of a nightclub, a fight started out on the
dance floor. There was no way for me to push my way through the crowd and hope to
get there in time to stop what was happening. So I jumped up on a nearby table and
started jumping from table to table, working my way to the dance floor to stop the
fight
By the next day, I heard stories about how I could fly. It really embarrassed me.
Whenever a fight started, everybody would call for me. The first couple of times I was
tense and nervous. But after so many days of breaking up fights, I could remain calm.
I gained experience, and knew exactly when to jump in, when to make my move, what
move to make. Sometimes the guy had a knife or a broken bottle. I just waited for my
chance, and took my best shot. It always knocked them out.
Usually afterward, the people I hit understood that I was just doing my job. In fact,
many customers treated me like a hero. Soon, if I said do something, people did it.
I never hit a girl. I just tried to catch them, and often they scratched or kicked me. But
I couldn't hit them. And that made a lot of people like me.
I would like to say that karate made my name popular throughout the city. Instead, it
was probably my work as a bouncer that made my name. People didn't know
I taught karate - they just knew I was a good bouncer.
All around White Plains, the Bronx, Eastchester, and that area of New York, people
talked about me. Sometimes other nightclub owners and bouncers came to see me.
And when I went to other clubs for a drink or to relax, the owners or bouncers there,
people I didn't even know, would buy my drinks.
I felt funny about it. I didn't know these people, and they were showing me such
hospitality. I often had my entire bill paid by people I had never met, other than to
shake their hand.
And when I took my students out for drinks after class, they were shocked at how
popular I was. My students then began to feel big, too. But I was always
careful not to let them get too big-headed.
That was the good part of being popular. But there was a bad part, too. The good side
of being famous -- the recognition, the respect, the free drinks was great. But fame is
a two-sided coin, and it wasn't long before I discovered the down side.
As my reputation grew, so did the number of challengers. There was always some
wise guy who thought he was tougher than me, and wanted to prove it.
I never started a fight, never in my life. In fact, as a kid growing up in Tokyo, I was
very ordinary. I was virtually ignored by the wise guys and bullies.
But during my first couple of years in the United States, I hit so many people I couldn't
believe it. Sometimes I sent people to the hospital. As always, it was a matter of doing
my job.
Then came the wise guys. They usually showed up with a bunch of their friends, found
a table and watched me for awhile, checking me out. Most were surprised at how
skinny and small I was. They had heard the stories, and had come looking for a real
monster. When they saw me, they would whisper back and forth, "Is this really him?"

29
Even so, before challenging me to fight, they would test me. The first few times this
happened I was very uptight. This was different than just breaking up a fight. These
guys came looking to fight me, and I assumed that meant they had experience.
But as I gained experience, I began to tease these "tough guys" when they came in to
challenge me, and that shook them up. It became a game -- very childish, but
a game all the same.
There were many instances of people challenging me and forcing me to fight. In fact,
my fight with Daniel ranks among one of the nastiest.

Chapter 8

A couple of days before Christmas, 1966, a French Canadian guy came into the club.
He came in with two beautiful girls, and they were all dressed very sharp.
It was an odd time of day for people to come into the club, about 5 or 6 in the
evening. I was curious, but it turned out that this French guy was a friend of one of
the bartenders, a guy named Kenny.
Kenny told me his friend, whose name was Daniel, was a fifth degree black belt in
judo, a fifth degree black belt in aikido, and a seventh degree black belt in karate. All
totaled, I counted him to be 17 degree black belt.
Daniel was about a head taller than me, and appeared to weigh about 200 pounds. He
was obviously in very good shape, and looked very intelligent. It was also obvious that
he was rich, well educated, and arrogant. He obviously believed he was a little bit
better than everybody else.
The first time I saw him, I didn't like him. He handed me his business card, which
listed all his black belts, and I knew for sure that I didn't like him.
Kenny introduced us. I felt funny about it, but I shook his hand. I tried to be polite,
and smiled at him. But in his smile, I could tell he was thinking, "You are Oyama, this
guy everyone is talking about? You are so small, such a little yellow monkey."
I gave him my hand as a friend, but he grabbed my hand and twisted my arm around
behind my back, getting me in a half Nelson. With his left hand, he reached around my
neck. He applied pressure to my wind pipe, not enough to choke me, but just enough
to let me know that he could.
He quickly let go, turned me around, smiled and acted as if the whole thing was a
friendly joke.
I felt the whole nightclub turn and look at me. We were standing at the front counter,
with all the bouncers, waitresses, and bartenders looking at us. George had seen the
incident and he just stared, his mouth open. No one could believe it. Even Kenny froze
in surprise.
Daniel felt like a star now. He thought everyone was looking at him in admiration. So,
without even taking off his suit coat, Daniel dropped to the floor in front of me and
started doing push-ups, using just his thumbs. Then he picked up his left hand and did
push-ups off his right thumb, then switched and did a few with his left thumb.
When he finished, he jumped up, brushed off his clothes, wiped his hands off in front
of me and grinned.
"Not bad, huh?" he said, looking around the nightclub.
I couldn't help but think, a push-up with one finger? So what? Lifting huge amounts of
weight? So what? Fighting is different.
But a lot of people think that because a person can lift a lot of weight, or do push-ups
with one finger, he must be a great fighter. Daniel obviously thought so.
I understood what was going on. At first, I thought Daniel was just a friend of Kenny's
who had come by to see him. Now, I knew he had really come by to see me, and now
his eyes told me he thought he could beat me, easily.

30
But Daniel didn't challenge me. Instead, he put an arm around each of the girls he'd
come in with, and walked past me to a table near the end of the bar.
I stayed in the same spot, thinking, what should I do? I could feel everyone staring at
me. They knew I was going to do something. But I couldn't decide what.
Then I caught George's eyes, and he looked at me and very quietly said, "Shihan,
don't do it."
But I was mad. I was fighting myself to maintain control. I couldn't stop the blood
from rushing to my head.
Kenny brought a drink and put it in front of me, saying, "From Daniel." Then he
shrugged and backed off.
I turned and looked at Daniel. He picked up his drink, tilted it toward me and laughed.
I decided right then I was going to pull him out of that nightclub and kick his butt.
I picked up the drink, walked to Daniel's table, and put the glass down in front of him.
I put my face right up to his and said, "You do too much joking with me. Get out of
this nightclub."
Daniel said, "Come on, it was just a joke."
I said. "Shut up. Take your two girls and get out." I said it loudly, powerfully, so
everyone could hear.
Daniel kept smiling, but when I yelled, he stopped smiling. I said to myself , that's it.
He's coming after me now.
Daniel didn't stand up. He just leaned back in his chair and said, "I fight you now."
I said, "O.K. But not here. Outside."
Everyone started staring at us. I turned and walked outside, leaving Daniel in his seat.
Outside, it was snowing and the parking lot was covered in ice and snow - all except
for one place, a place where a grill in the parking lot brought warm air up from the
sewer and melted the snow all around it.
I walked to that one place, and turned and waited for Daniel.
When Daniel came out, he saw where I was standing. He was smart. He knew that
where I was standing was the best footing. He just waved his hand and said, "Just a
joke," and walked back into the nightclub.
I was really mad now. I followed him back into the nightclub, straight to his table.
Everyone that had followed Daniel out to the parking lot now followed me back inside.
I walked up to him and said, "Don't come to this nightclub again. Ever. You get out
now."
He stared at me, and after a moment said, "O.K. I'm leaving."
So I turned my back. When I did, Daniel stood up and reached out, tapping me on the
shoulder. I turned, and he pointed his right finger at my face and said, "I shoot
you ..."
Before he finished whatever he was saying, I put my right fist into his face.
I have seen in old movies where a guy gets hit with one punch and the force of the
blow knocks him across the room. I didn't believe it could happen. But when I hit
Daniel, the force of my punch threw him backward across the floor, all the way to the
foot of the bar, where he landed.
I was still mad. I walked quickly over to him and grabbed his hair to lift his face and
punch him again, but George grabbed me around the shoulders and said, "Don't do it."
I looked at Daniel. One side of his face was completely split. His nose, one eye, one
cheekbone, was all busted in and covered in blood. All the women started screaming.
We called an ambulance, and took him to the hospital. The doctors said I had busted
the bone around his eye, broken his nose and cheekbone, and split open part of his
forehead. It took two weeks of surgery and then two more weeks of plastic surgery to
fix him.
Still, I didn't feel sorry for him. I told Kenny, "If Daniel comes back, I will do the same
thing to the other side of his face."

31
And then I told Kenny, "Don't arrange any such fights anymore. If you bring in any
more of your 'friends,' I will beat you like I do them."
Then I told everyone in the bar, "Don't bring anymore strangers in to fight me. You
think it is funny. You want to see who will win, and make some sort of competition out
of it. But it's not fun for me. I don't like it.
"If anyone does it, I will beat him up. Don't do it anymore."
I never saw Daniel again.

Chapter 9

About two months after I went to work at G-G's, I was finally able to afford my first
car. It was a Buick - a huge, huge old Buick. To me, it looked like a tank. It was the
size of a small apartment in Japan. In fact, in Japan, you could have put a kitchen in
the front seat and slept in the back.
It was a strong, powerful car. A lot of smoke came out of the exhaust when
accelerating, but it didn't bother me. I imagine the people in the cars behind me
weren't too happy about it.
The next step was to find my own apartment. Many of my students were looking all
over town to help me find a place. There were a couple of beautiful apartment
complexes, complete with tennis courts, a swimming pool, and a clubhouse. But they
were expensive.
And so big. In Japan, you could have had two people living in an area the size of the
average American bathroom. Every apartment I saw was huge. There was a bedroom,
a kitchen with a refrigerator, a living room, a dining room and a bathroom. The
refrigerators were big, too. In a Japanese apartment, the refrigerators - if you got one
at all - were about three feet high and two feet deep. Compared to what I was used to
in Japan, American refrigerators looked big enough to hang meat in.
In the end, I found an apartment between Scarsdale and Tucaho. It had a kitchen,
bedroom and a bath, and rented for $250 a month. Electricity, gas, and water were
included in the rent, and--three times a month someone came in and changed the
sheets on the bed.
I got my one suitcase, put it in the back seat of my smoking Buick, and left George
and Mr. W's for my own home.
My apartment building was a four-story brick building. My apartment was on the
second floor. There was heat for the winter, but no air conditioner for the summer.
Across the street was a fire department, and my window opened out onto the street
overlooking the fire department.
The day I moved in, it didn't take long. I put my suitcase down, took out my clothes
and hung them in the closet, and that was it. There was enough room left over in the
closet for me to have made another room. I still didn't have much in the way of
possessions.
I moved in November. The heat didn't come on until December, and that was when I
discovered about steam heat. The system was old, with each apartment having a pipe
that came up and heated the whole room. The temperature dropped in the early
morning, and when the heat came on, I heard a "shuu, shuu, shuu TANG-TANG"
sound. The first time I heard it, I jumped up quickly and started checking the pipes for
leaks. I didn't know anything about plumbing or heating, but I knew something had to
be wrong.
However, when I asked the manager of the building about it, he told me there was
nothing wrong. The pipes, he said, were just old and the pressure of the steam in the
pipes made them rattle like that.
I didn't mind. While George and Mr. W took care of me nicely, I liked living alone. It let
me feel free to do what I wanted. It's a little disgusting, but one of the best things

32
about living by myself was being able to pass gas whenever I wanted. While living with
someone else, whenever I had to pass gas I had to excuse myself and go into the
bathroom. That was a bother.
And holding it inside was not good for my intestines. I have weak intestines, and have
a lot of gas. It was good for me not to have to worry about offending anyone.
And sometimes after taking a hot, hot bath, I like to walk around naked and maybe sit
in the kitchen and drink a cold beer. But with George and Mr. W around, I couldn't do
that.
So here, I could just be myself, live my normal lifestyle and relax. And I needed the
time to relax.
My teaching system was so intense, and my job as a bouncer was really tense. After a
day of both those jobs, I needed time to be by myself and relax. So while $250 was a
lot of money to me, it was worth it.
This little apartment might have been old and small, and the pipes rattled when the
heat came on, but to me, it was a palace.
Besides, I could get used to the pipes rattling. What I didn't know was that rattling
pipes would be only the beginning.
Soon, I got a new shock - the fire department. In Japan, fire trucks make a constant
siren noise. But here, when the fire trucks left they made a horrible, gruff noise, a
"Vroom, vroom," followed by a high pitched "whee whee" sound.
There was no schedule to the fire trucks coming and going, so sometimes I could get a
full night's sleep in. But other times, the trucks ended any chance of a good night's
sleep.
I finished my job as a bouncer at 2 a.m. I came home to my palace and opened the
door. My roommates - a family of cockroaches - would see me and scurry back to their
beds. I would read, drink some juice - whatever I could find after an exhaustive search
of my huge refrigerator and finally, go to bed. Gradually, I learned to sleep through
the noise of the heater and the fire trucks, even when they started at the same time:
"Shuuu, shuuu VROOM-VROOM TANG-TANG wheeeeee, BAM-BAM."
After a while, directly above my apartment, on the third floor, a musician moved in. He
worked in a nightclub band, as a drummer, and came home about the same time I did.
When I came home, I wanted some quiet time. But when he came in, he liked to
practice playing the drums. So now I had the heater, the fire trucks, and the constant
pounding of drums over my head.
And I couldn't get used to it. Sometimes he got really excited, and started banging
away on the bass drum and cymbals and who knows what else. I would just lie there
in bed, while he played so loud my bed would bounce up and down.
So I went to the apartment building office and told the manager about the noise. I
asked, "Hasn't anyone complained?" The managers were an old man and wife. They
were very nice. The man told me, "I'm sorry. I don't own this building. I just take the
rent and change the sheets. We don't take care of complaints. We're too old to do
that."
I didn't want to cause trouble. They asked me to be patient. I decided instead to take
care of it myself.
I asked George and a couple of my students to get me some white pine boards, cut
into pieces, and four big concrete blocks. I took it all to my room and stacked it
between my kitchen and my bed. Then I got ready to go to bed.
Sometimes when I came in, the drummer didn't practice, and I slept all night. But
when he started practicing, I got up, too. I would set up the concrete blocks and then
put two or three boards across them. And when he started pounding on his drums, I
would start a long, loud "Kia," and break the boards. Because boards were expensive,
I would pick up the broken pieces and break them again. And each time I would give

33
my longest, loudest, and most powerful "Kia." And whenever I really put my power
into it, you could feel the whole building shake.
So on some nights, there was a strange kind of music filling the neighborhood. There
was the drummer, pounding away. There was me, screaming and breaking boards.
There was the fire engine coming and going across the street. And there was the clang
of the steam heater.
All together, it made for the strangest cacophony of noise, something like: "VROOM,
VROOM-shuuu-shuuu-KEESE-laaa crash, bam-ba-ba-bam TANG-TANG, whireeeeeee,
whireeeeee," and so forth.
I figured that someone would eventually complain and stop all the noise. After a
couple of days, the drummer went to the office and told the managers about all the
noise coming from my apartment. The old couple told him, "Before you came, Mr.
Oyama complained. We told him all we do is take rent money and change sheets.
We're too old to handle complaints. Plus, he is a karate man." They told him there was
no way they'd talk to me.
So the war of noise continued. I waited to see who would be the first to come to the
other and try to make peace. Maybe we needed to go to Geneva, Switzerland, for
peace talks. But he never came to my door, and I never went to his.
Sometimes I would eat a snack and leave the crumbs on the table, and all the
cockroaches would come in for a nice party after I was through. But when I started
breaking boards they didn't like the noise. They came as long as it was just the drums
upstairs. They seemed to like that.
Cockroaches don't worry about rent. They didn't like my place, so they just moved to
another apartment. I didn't care.
This became serious war to me. The drummer and I would see each other in the
parking lot outside the building and just stare at each other. He was so skinny and
pale, I knew I couldn't fight him. I would have killed him.
Sometimes it takes more guts in a situation like that to be patient. I was patient. He
was patient, too.
But finally, after some time, there was a knock on my door. I opened the door, and
there was the drummer.
He told me, "Your noise is making me nervous. My hands shake and I've started
having nightmares that someone is chasing me."
"I will stop playing the drums in my apartment if you will stop karate training."
I was very tired of the whole situation, too. I gave him a nice smile and said, "Fine. I
will stop, too. But you don't do it anymore, right?"
He agreed, and we shook hands. His hand was shaking, but I took it and smiled.
Now, there was just the noise of the fire trucks, the heater, and, sometimes, the little
cockroach party. But that was all. That noise was a lullaby. My palace had been
defended.

Chapter 10

I worked as a bouncer for six years. During that time, people would tell me about
crazy people with pistols and rifles, who would get into arguments and then shoot
people. I had also heard stories from other nightclubs, about someone shooting
someone else in an argument. The people telling the stories acted like it was
something terrible.
These stories didn't really have any effect on me. This was something different from
Japan. In Japan, when people got into arguments and really lost control, they pulled a
knife and stabbed each other. You never heard of someone getting shot.

34
I think that is a reflection of the difference in cultures. Guns play a big part in the
history of America. In Japan, it was the sword. America had its cowboys, Japan had
Samurai.
So guns didn't have much of an effect on me. Now a knife, that was a different story. I
could understand the concept of getting stabbed. With a knife, there was to be contact
with the person you are attacking; you have to get close to them and see the emotion
in their eyes. When the blade strikes, you feel the energy. Getting stabbed or cut just
seemed to involve so much more pain.
A gun was so impersonal. It's just a pull of the trigger and BANG - someone is dead. It
just wasn't a concept I could relate to, so none of these stories of people getting shot
seemed real to me.
I told the story of the old man who came into the nightclub and chased George and
me with a shotgun. George was more scared that I was. I saw the look on George's
face, and that scared me more than the old man and anything he might try to do. I
wasn't afraid of the gun, just George's reaction to the gun.
At G-G's, we saw people carrying guns. We might see them accidentally, when a man
took off his jacket in the bathroom or while he was reaching for identification at the
door. Most of these were policeman or private detectives.
We also saw guys that looked like they were probably carrying guns, guys that were
part of a gang or some sort of organized crime. But most people never showed off
their guns, never made trouble. They just came in to drink and enjoy the bar.
So I was not really familiar with guns. When I heard of someone getting shot, I said,
"Oh, that is too bad." But if I heard of someone getting stabbed, I was really shaken,
because I could identify with that.
No one ever shot a pistol inside the nightclub while I was working as a bouncer, but I
did have two experiences with someone pulling a gun and pointing it at me.
The first time involved one of my very good customers, a guy named Michael. He
didn't seem to have a regular job, judging by the way he talked and the hours he kept.
But he always wore nice suits, drove nice cars, and had a lot of money to spend. He
was always joking with people, making friends at the club, and leaving good tips.
The only odd thing was that he spent a lot of time on the telephone at the club. At
times, it was as if the nightclub was his office.
Gus pulled me aside one day and told me. "You watch Michael. He's a gangster. Don't
get too close to him. Keep your distance."
I didn't understand, and asked Gus why?
"It is better for you, for your job, for the nightclub," he told me.
I didn't ask why anymore.
But one night, after closing the club, a few of us were sitting around a table, talking. It
was a few of the people that worked there, relaxing, drinking beer, telling stories.
Michael was there with us, as he often was, and this night, he was really drunk.
Michael started telling me a story about the Hudson River, that there was a lot of
concrete in the bottom of the river, concrete that was attached to humans. He said
there were more people at the bottom of the river than I could count.
Then he told me, "Can you imagine a human body chopped up like hamburger meat?
Do you know what human meat tastes like?"
He told me stories that night about these organizations where, if someone messed up,
they punished that person by tying him to a table and then biting them, biting huge
hunks out of their flesh.
Michael was really drunk. He put both hands on the table, then put his head down on
the table. I'd never heard stories like this, and didn't know what to say. I was trying to
understand why he was telling me these things, because he was a good friend, always
nice to me.

35
No one at the table said anything. No one else was talking; just Michael. And he just
kept on telling stories, giggling as he did. It was like each story conjured up some
personal memory for him.
He was looking at me when he was telling these stories. I didn't know what to do,
except look at him real serious and say, "Really? My goodness!"
Maybe the others at the table already knew about this kind of stuff going on. I looked
at George and Gus, and they weren't saying anything. They just sat there, quietly, as if
they were afraid to say anything. I think they knew they were hearing things they
shouldn't be hearing.
While Michael was always good to me, I think he was a little jealous of me, of the fact
that I was good with my hands. To me, Michael was always weak, and always seemed
to worry about things. He was a show-with money and clothes. But he was also always
looking around. His eyes were always moving.
After awhile, he reached his right hand into his jacket and pulled out a pistol. I didn't
know it then, but George told me later it was a .38 Special double-action revolver.
Michael laid the gun on the table and talked some more. But finally, he picked it up,
looked at it and looked at me.
"Sensei Oyama," he said. "You are very tough."
He just held the gun, not pointing it at anyone. And he said it again.
"Sensei Oyama, you are very tough."
It got very quiet. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. I just shook my
head.
Michael put both hands around the pistol. He was so drunk, he needed both hands to
hold the gun steady, and then he pointed the gun at me.
"But you can't fight a pistol," he said. "You cannot win against a gun."
He was having trouble holding the barrel steady, and so the gun bounced up and down
in front of my face. I could feel the air around me freeze. No one moved. But I could
feel every heart in the room beating - and mine was beating loudest of all.
I looked at Michael and told him, "Of course not. I couldn't fight a pistol."
I put my hands on the table, then slowly reached out and grabbed the gun by the
barrel.
"Michael?" I said. "Is this a real gun?"
I pulled the barrel to me, put the point of it up to my eye and looked down the barrel.
I saw the bullets in the chamber.
"Are those real bullets?" I asked.
Michael looked at me for a minute, then started laughing. While he laughed, I gently
pushed the gun down onto the table.
"You really don't know, do you?" he said, then laughed.
I just shook my head, "No." I was afraid to speak.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw George's face was white. Everyone's face was
strained, and there was a tightness in the air.
I picked up my glass and drank some beer. Michael tried to laugh, but it was a fake
laugh.
He picked up the gun and put it back in his holster. As he did, he said, "This is my
baby. This is my girlfriend. I sleep with her. I take showers with her. I take her to
dinner. She is always with me. She is the only one I trust."
He looked at me, and gave me a smile that was sad and lonely. He was not happy.
He put both hands on the table, stood up, and said, "Adios." He turned and walked out
of the nightclub.
No one spoke until he was gone. Then there was a collective "Whew" from everybody.
I could feel the sweat running down my body. I looked at George, and he gave a
thumbs' up sign and smile. Gus just nodded his head.

36
That was the first time I ever felt the fear of a gun. That was when I realized guns
were not just some abstract part of the stories people told me. I felt the presence of
that gun all over my body.
And after that, whenever someone reached inside their coat pocket, it made me very
aware. I now understood the danger.
There was one other time when someone pulled a gun on me.
George and I were working the door, collecting the cover charge and checking
identification. It was a weekend night, and G-G's was packed. George sat on a bar
stool in the corner, and I stood sideways to the door, collecting money. After I took it,
I handed it to George, who put it in a sack. We laughed and talked as we did this, as
we would any night at the club.
Then this guy came in and gave me money for the cover charge, but didn't go directly
inside. That wasn't unusual, though, as people would often pay and then stand there,
looking inside the club to see what was going on. And this guy seemed normal.
He was about my height, but skinnier than me. A lot of people liked to stand in the
doorway and talk to the bouncer, so they could say hello to us later and look like a big
shot. Girls did it most often, but men would do it, too, and buy us drinks. I figured this
guy was one of those who wanted to talk.
Both George and I were looking out at the dance floor. I was a little in back of George,
and this guy was just in back of me. I had the money in my left hand, and my hand
was almost full.
Suddenly, I felt something pushing on the side of my head. I turned to see what it
was, and it was a gun, pointing at my head. The skinny guy said to me, "Give me all
the money."
His voice shook with nervousness. George and I froze. I looked at George, but he
couldn't move because he was sitting on a high stool.
Meanwhile, the music and dancing and drinking was going on all around us. But to me,
time was frozen.
I looked at George, and didn't really think about what I was going to do.
"OK," I said. "I give you the money."
With my left hand, I just threw the money up in the air. It was just enough to distract
the guy, who instinctively looked up. That was the moment - I grabbed the gun with
my now-empty left hand and punched the guy in the face with my right. I felt like I
had punched ripe fruit. I felt like I had smashed something.
I had the pistol in my left hand, and this guy just flew back against the wall, sliding
down to the floor.
It all happened very quickly, and was over in a few seconds. Most people never
realized anything had ever happened.
George and I went over to look at this guy, and at the same time looked at each other
and said, "He's dead." There was blood squirting out of his nose, a steady stream as if
out of a hose.
George had turned a dark blue instead of his normal tan. I looked at the pistol in my
left hand, and suddenly was soaked in sweat. My knees started shaking.
It was over so quickly, I never thought about what I was doing. But now that it is over,
and I looked at the guy lying there bleeding and saw the gun in my hand, I was
suddenly more scared than ever before about being a bouncer.
The police got there, and the ambulance. One of the other bouncers brought a towel
to hold against the guy's face, and a crowd quickly gathered. I sat on the bar stool,
breathing deeply, while they took him away.
One of my students was a sergeant in the police force. He told me the guy I hit was
not dead, but stayed in the hospital three months before they could take him to jail.
And those were the two times I faced a pistol in my life.

37
 Chapter 11

Later, I began to get interested in pistols, and I asked one of my students to take me
to a shooting range. I began to study all guns - pistols and rifles, shot guns. I decided
I needed to know about them if I was to survive American society.
Many of my students thought I was Superman. But I am not. I am an ordinary man. I
just spent more time practicing fighting, and maybe I had more experience than most
people in fighting. Maybe.
About five or six years ago, on a national TV show, I saw a guy who could catch
bullets between his teeth. A lot of my students saw it, too, and couldn't wait to see me
the next day
"Sensei, if he can catch bullets," they said, "Maybe you can, too."
I told them, "If I throw a peanut, and you catch it between your teeth, I will buy you
anything you want."
"If you throw a peanut at me, and I catch it between my teeth, I will buy you drinks.
You think you can do that? Can you catch a peanut between your teeth? Not in your
mouth or your throat, but between your teeth?"
Then I told them, "How do you think, with a bullet coming straight at your face, you
can catch it between your teeth?"
And they shook their heads.
"Of course, it is impossible. You would have to have a million lives to risk to catch
even one. And a million would probably not even be enough.
"You know what I thought of that TV show?" I told them. "That TV director, I wonder
what kind of brain he has to even put something like that on TV. To me, that was
stupid, to show people all over the country something like that. He must not care, and
just wanted to make money, to show something that stupid."
I learned that when someone has a gun and reaches for it, that's when you have your
chance to stop them. Once they pull it and point it at you, your chance is gone.
But I'm not saying give up. Never surrender your life. You've got to be ready to fight if
you have no other choice. And if you are ready, maybe you will get another chance.
While quite a few people knew me as a bouncer, very few knew that I also taught
karate. I had come to the United States to teach karate, and from the first day I had
done that.
But being a karate instructor didn't get the attention that being a bouncer did.
Still, I continued to teach. After I fought the 88 people, many of the black and brown
belts disappeared. I thought maybe I fought too hard for them. Also, my teaching
system was different from the instructor before me, and they didn't want to start all
over. They didn't have the guts to start over.
A few of the advanced students hung in there. I had told them all to take off their belts
and wear white belts, but after three months, I gave everyone their old belts back.
Their technique and form was still that of the older style, and they still made many
errors. But I thought they had shown courage in staying, and in being willing to start
over.
Sometimes, it is easy to give up. Especially after you have reached a high point,
something you have worked hard for, and then had it taken away from you. No one
likes to start over.
After three months, I saw that these people were really trying hard, and they
impressed me in being willing to start over. Even though from a technique standpoint
they didn't deserve it, I felt there was value in their having their old rank back. They
proved to me how dedicated they were to karate, and I felt good about that. I didn't
mind spending extra time with them, helping them improve, because I admired their
courage.

38
I was anxious to spread my reputation as a teacher of karate. The best way to do that
was through demonstrations. People were anxious to see things that they thought had
to do with karate - "So and so broke this" or "so and so blocked that, and it took my
breath away." They like thinking there is some mysterious power, some super power
they don't understand.
Karate is learned in a dojo, and a dojo means school. It is important that your students
know that the dojo is a place for training. It has to be different from the outside world,
mentally and physically.
I don't want to compare karate to religion, because in spite of what some people seem
to think, karate is not a religion. Any kind of religious beliefs are welcome in a dojo.
Inside the dojo, everyone is equal.
But it is helpful in this case to compare karate to religion, even though it is not really a
valid comparison. But it will help me make my point.
The dojo is a special place, like a sanctuary. Inside a church, people study and grow
spiritually, and no one is better than anyone else. People who come inside a church
treat it differently than they would any other building they might enter in the course of
a week.
It is the instructor's responsibility to make students feel the dojo is different from any
other place. Part of the difference is in manner of speech, or Oriental customs, or
karate customs. But that is not the best way to make the dojo a different atmosphere.
Traditional karate manners and customs are important, but more importantly, in each
class, it is important for each student to face themselves, see their weaknesses and
strengths and possibilities and face them.
Many instructors look at the students as a means of making money. These instructors
see each student in terms of dollar bills. They flatter their students, tell them whatever
they want to hear, and give them whatever they want.
Teaching this way does not turn the dojo into a special place, and students will see
through this kind of teaching and won't give the dojo the special respect it deserves.
Whatever the attitude of the students is, that is the attitude the dojo will have. If the
instructor makes the dojo a special place, then the students will sense that. When they
come into the dojo, even if they are in a bad mood or don't feel like training, the
attitude inside the dojo will change their minds.
The tone is set in the daily class, and how the instructor teaches each class.
Sometimes the instructor needs to sweat more than the students he is teaching. He
has to explain each technique, how to use it and why. He must also demonstrate. He
has to show the students that karate is more than words. It is better that his only
words to the students be "Copy me," than to spend a lot of time talking.
The instructor must "be" karate to his students. His life must be totally inside karate,
so that the students look at him and see karate, and want to follow him into his world.
His "kiai" must be stronger than that of his students. His punches, his kicks, his
footwork must be natural, a part of him.
I don't care if he is called "Master" or not. I don't care if he is a strong fighter or not.
All that matters is that the instructor be 100 percent inside karate. That is what will
impress the students, and make the dojo a special place.
If you train like that, then everyone will respect the dojo. The students will spend their
time there well. Time spent in the dojo will become very important to them, a special
time to cleanse the body, to be reborn and refreshed.
The dojo is a different world from the world outside. Outside, lifestyles have changed.
Computers, television, machines have taken much of the physical out of everyday life.
Instead, people are flooded with information. Their minds are packed with stimuli,
which creates a tremendous imbalance between their physical and mental life.
When they come to the dojo, everything is physical. They punch, kick, train, scream,
and it doesn't matter what kind of life they lead outside the dojo. An Oxford graduate

39
or a high school drop-out, corporate president or gas station attendant, housewife or
lawyer - it doesn't matter. All that matters is, can each individual face himself, push
himself, and reach his potential karate?
Money, education, lifestyle - it isn't important. Inside the dojo, each person faces only
himself. There is no escape from that. And if each person tries to face himself every
time in the dojo, he becomes a changed person. Afterward, he is more balanced
between the mental and physical aspects of his life.
There is no faking it in a dojo, no pose, no attitude to take on that will get you by in a
dojo. You may not know anything about your fellow students, but it doesn't matter. As
you respect yourself for what your are accomplishing, so do you learn to respect your
fellow students for their own growing and learning.
And that feeling makes the dojo special, and the students will come to respect that
feeling, and won't mistreat the dojo.
You can practice the things you learn in the dojo anywhere, just as you can practice
the lessons you learn in church anywhere. But you need to go to church for that
special feeling of being with others who are striving for the same goals you are, who
are learning with you. It is a place of renewal.
The ideal would be to make any place just like the dojo, just as we would like to make
every place have the feeling of a church. But we are human, and our dreams don't
always come true. So we need a symbol, a special place to go to for that special
feeling to renew our dreams. It is true in karate, and in every day life.
So I worked to make each class special. Every time a student put on a dogi, I wanted
to make him forget everything except the world inside the dojo.
At too many karate schools, once you get your black belt, they make you feel like
you've reached your goal and are finished. They show up at class, do a little training,
show off a little technique, and are finished.
Before I came to the New York dojo, the style was Kyokushin karate. But really, it was
a lot of different styles mixed together. It was what I now call "paper karate" - the
instructor read something in a book, and taught that, then read something in another
book, and taught some of that. They mixed all these things together and called it
Kyokushin karate.
But it wasn't. Especially in the style of fighting. Our style is very powerful. Before I
came here, they "fought" with speed and techniques, but no contact. Or at least, very
little contact. There was no power behind their technique.
Most of the students' knowledge was so poor. They thought there was some magical
power to a black belt, that there was no way to fight against a black belt. They thought
there was no way they could even hit the person wearing the black belt, like the belt
itself contained some mysterious power.
I knew of guys who would buy a white belt and dye it black, then show up at a dojo.
And people were afraid of him. They didn't even try to make him prove himself. They
just assumed he was powerful.
If a black belt said, "I can walk on water. I can catch a bullet between my teeth," I bet
you these students would have believed it. That was what these students had been
taught. They were blind.
And here, suddenly, I come from Japan, a skinny little guy wearing a black belt, and
they saw this skinny little guy fight and beat all of the black belts, right in front of their
eyes.
My teaching system was not magic, and never taught anything mysterious. Karate is
not a super power, it is scientific. There is a reason for the power and speed, and
everyone has the potential to be a black belt inside of themselves.
Sometimes, a black belt loses. Sometimes a beginner will hit a black belt with a good
punch or kick. It has worked because both black belts and lower belts are human. You

40
have good days, you have bad days, and some humans are naturally faster or stronger
or quicker than others.
The important thing is understanding your body skill, and what kind of abilities you
have. Then, you build up the good parts, and push to improve the weak ones. You
learn the basic techniques and make it fit your body. There is nothing mysterious. It is
just hard work and understanding.
This was how I taught every day. Before me, they thought karate was wrapped up in
some magical power. I destroyed that belief. I told them they could reach the level of
a black belt just by trying hard. And the lower ranks began to build confidence, and
when they fought the black belts they were no longer afraid.
The advanced students that I inherited had a hard time getting rid of their bad habits.
Before I came, whenever the instructor didn't feel good, he might say, "Today, we just
fight," or "Today, we just exercise." There was no steady to routine to class, and the
black belts got used to doing what they wanted.
The lower ranked students didn't get much out of class the old way. They didn't have
the bad habits and, when I came in, they learned quickly. A new wave of feeling came
over my dojo, and most of the older black belts began to fade away. I didn't plan for
that to happen, but I realized that it was natural. It was bound to happen as the lower
ranked students got better.
The students and I began to trust each other, and a spirit grew within the dojo. It was
like we had a big rope, binding us together. It was made of sweat and spirit, not talk.
In six months, the feeling in my dojo was different from that of any spa or health club.
My philosophy was always, "sweat." Before explaining something, show it. Do it. A lot
of instructors try to teach with their mouth - a little action, a lot of speech. I think this
is monkey business. I am still a karate instructor, and I teach every day. It doesn't
matter about your age or skill, a karate instructor should still demonstrate, to the best
of his ability, how to punch and kick. I have always made my students follow my back,
not my mouth.
Before I came to the United States, I had poor knowledge about racial problems. The
United States is full of different races of people. So many people came here from all
over the world. In Japan, there is only one race of people - at least, most of the people
that live there believe there is only one race.
But every country has racial problems. It is just that most of the world gets its news
from the United States, so it seems like the racial problems in the U.S. are more
prominent than anywhere else.
I just wasn't aware of problems. My class was made up of about 80 percent white
people, 20 percent black. Once in a while, some Oriental people would come in.
The first couple of months, I worked on pushing myself and didn't think about any
problems between the different groups in my class.
But after the first year, as I began to bring people up to an advanced level and they
began to have an understanding of proper techniques, we started having problems.
Well, one problem, anyway.

Chapter 12

We had one guy, named Clyde, who was black. And another guy, who appeared to be
of Italian heritage, whose name was Dom. These two fought each other harder than
they did anyone else. I was always careful to watch them when they were sparring.
When they lined up against each other, they seemed to forget about training. They
both got this look in their eyes, a look that said they were serious about fighting, not
about learning karate.

41
Sometimes Clyde, whenever he fought a white, would give them a harder than
necessary shot. Even if they had a lower rank, or poor technique. And sometimes
Dom, when he fought other Blacks, did the same.
And when they did, they would be watching each other. It was as if, in their minds,
they were always fighting each other. There was always something mean in their eye
contact.
I never cared about color in my class. And most of my students didn't care. They just
trained and sweated; skin color was irrelevant. It was easy to forget racial problems.
But whenever Clyde and Don fought, I felt funny. I didn't know why, at first. I just
knew something was wrong. No one else ever thought about racial problems, at least
not until Clyde and Dom started going after each other.
It was giving me a headache. I tried to think of something, some way, to fix the
situation, but I didn't have any idea of what to do. I worried about that a lot.
One night we were having a free-fight class. I put a few of my better students at the
front of the dojo, and had them fight all the other students, one at a time. Most were
to just receive the attack of the intermediate students. They were there to give advice,
and be of some benefit to the lower ranks.
Then after that, I put some of the advanced students against other advanced students
for a little contact. Of course, they were to use control. They could hit below the chin,
but not in the face area at all.
But that night, I paired Clyde and Dom. Both had very good technique, and both
tended to get a big head because of the confidence they felt. They almost had too
much confidence.
So I watched them very closely. They both started off with good technique, but then it
began to get out of control.
Dom would kick a left foot roundhouse to Clyde's head, and he didn't control the
contact. Clyde saw it coming, and stepped back so that the kick missed, but Dom's
toes hit Clyde's lips, and cut the corner of Clyde's mouth, just a little.
Instantly, Clyde's face went from black to white. His eyes bugged out. I pointed to
Dom and said, "Control," and Dom said OK.
But Clyde didn't. They clashed again with a couple of good techniques, and then Clyde
threw a left hand punch, obviously with the intent to hit Dom in the face.
Dom stepped back so that it was not a direct hit, but it was just enough to cause
Dom's nose to bleed.
I pointed to Clyde this time and said, "Hey, control!"
But neither listened to what I said. Their faces flushed, and it was like they forgot
completely that they were in the dojo. They forgot that I was there, that there were
other students. They just wanted to hit each other, just like a street fight.
I guess I knew it was going to happen sooner or later - and here it was.
All the other students stopped fighting. They just began to watch what was going on.
Dom and Clyde were swinging at each other, wildly, out of control.
I told Dom and Clyde to stop it, to break it up, but neither listened to me. So I stepped
in between them and in my most powerful voice told them to stop.
Everyone was quiet. I could feel the spirit of the dojo, and it had changed. That special
feeling was gone.
I just stood there, staring at Clyde and Dom. Neither could take my silence, and both
started talking at once.
"You started it," Dom said to Clyde. "I was under control."
"No, you started it," said Clyde. "You've been wanting this for a long time."
They began fighting with their words.
Still, I didn't say anything. I just kept watching them, watching their faces.

42
After a couple of minutes, they stopped arguing and began to feel uncomfortable.
They both began looking around for something to stare at, neither wanting to look at
me.
The rest of the students were looking at me, and I was trying to control my emotion. I
looked at both of them, from one to the other, straight in the eyes, and I couldn't
control myself any longer.
I turned and smashed Clyde across the face, saying "Stupid." Then I turned quickly,
and did the same to Dom.
The students couldn't believe it. I was trying to control myself, but I couldn't. I hit
them again, for interest.
I hit them harder, almost knocking them down. Both grabbed their mouths, and their
lips were bleeding.
I grabbed them both by the neck, and pushed them to the front door of the dojo and
up the steps, past the front office, through the reception area, and out the front door.
I stood in the doorway and said, "There. Go fight. Fight to your death. I won't stop
you. Go!"
I yelled so loud, both were in shock.
Then I went back inside, to the locker room, opened Clyde's locker and shoved all his
stuff in his bag. Then I did the same at Dom's locker. I went back to the front door,
and threw their bags at their feet. Both bags split open, the contents going all over the
parking lot.
"Don't ever come back to this dojo," I said. "You disturbed the feeling here for all the
other students. You disrupted training. You don't have any sense. You are here for the
wrong reasons. You weren't training. I can't teach you.
"Why not fight now? Go fight. This is a big place. Fight now!"
I was yelling so loud, Richard Bonner came running outside to see what was going on.
Others came out, too. They were scared.
But I wasn't totally out of control. I think I had been waiting for this, knowing I could
use it as a chance to show and tell the other students exactly how I felt about the
dojo, and about racial problems. I shut the door and took all the students back into the
dojo, and made them sit on the floor. I wanted to explain why I did what I did.
"My style of karate, our style of karate, we don't care if you are white, black, yellow,
purple," I said. "I don't care what kind of food you eat. It doesn't matter. I don't care.
"All that matters here is sweat. You train, you sweat. You build yourself up and prove
yourself, and always, you are against yourself. You are not fighting other people. You
face yourself.
"You can see what kind of person you are in training, no matter what your color or
background or education or income. When you are training, your technique shows you
your character. It brings out your weak points and your strong points. When you do
your punch, it your punch, no one else's. Each kick is your kick. The sweat is your
sweat.
"That's why you face yourself. That's why you push yourself. You have to decide
whether to give up or not.
"And always, you respect each other. You are all training together. Everyone respects
each other, that each one is facing himself every day. You appreciate what the other
people are doing, and you respect that.
"That is 'Osu.' It is that feeling of patience, of respect. It is the feeling we have here in
the dojo.
"I don't want you to lose that feeling. If you bring in things from the outside world to
destroy this feeling, I don't want you here. I don't want your friendship. I don't want
to teach you. I don't want to talk to you. If you disagree with my opinion, you don't
have to take your lessons here. You are welcome to change clothes and go home. I
want this to be like family.

43
"I can't tell you what to do outside the dojo, in your private life. But I will tell you what
to do inside the dojo. I am the instructor. I spend more time than anyone in karate. I
want you to understand that."
That is what I told everyone. Of course, my English was bad, but I think they
understood. Everyone's eyes were serious, and I could tell they had listened to me,
carefully. When I finished, I said, "Does everyone understand?"
Everyone answered very loudly, "Osu."
I made them all stand up, and we continued training. The special feeling came back to
the dojo. We trained hard, we sweat, and we forgot Clyde and Dom.
After class ended, Richard Bonner called me into his office and - what a coincidence! -
Clyde and Dom were in there, dressed in their street clothes, sitting side by side.
Richard said to me, "If they apologize to you, will you forgive them?"
Richard was talking nice, but I could tell he was trying to tell me I had to say yes. But
he didn't know how strongly I felt about what had happened. I knew there was no way
I could forgive them.
I walked over to Richard's desk, ignoring Clyde and Dom completely, leaned across his
desk to where I was right up to his face, and said, "No."
It wasn't the answer Richard was expecting, and his shock quickly turned to anger.
He stood up and said, "I am the boss here. This is my business. I pay you money.
Whatever I tell you, you have got to do it."
"Of course you are my boss," I said. "You pay me money - a little money. But
whatever happens in the dojo, I am the boss. Whenever it comes to explaining a
technique, how to kick or punch, how to decide the strength and weakness of each
student, of determining the character of each student, I decide, not you. I am the boss
in the dojo. I am the boss of the students. Not you."
"You can be boss when you hand me money each week. That's it. If you don't like it,
too bad. If you don't want it that way, you fire me."
Richard's mouth dropped open. He was speechless. Clyde and Dom were just as
stunned.
I turned and left the office. I got my shower, and went to my job as a bouncer at G-
G's.
On the way to the nightclub, I began to wonder. Maybe I was too strong. Maybe I
over-reacted. Or maybe what I did wasn't enough.
But more than that, in the bottom of my heart, I knew I couldn't back up one inch. If I
backed up, I would lose myself. I would lose everything I stood for. I had told my
students my belief, my philosophy, and, more importantly, I had told myself. Even as I
was talking to the students, I realized I was talking to myself, telling myself how I felt
about karate and the dojo.
And when I realized that, I felt a lot better about what I had done. I looked as if I had
lost control, but I hadn't. I was in control. In fact, I did a damn good job of staying
under control.
That was the last I thought of Clyde and Dome until the next day, when I returned to
the dojo. Inside the dojo door, Clyde and Dom were sitting side-by-side, talking and
laughing. I had never seen them with each other except going against each other. And
here they were, acting like long-time friends.
When I came in, both stood up and said, "Osu." I didn't look at either of them as I
walked past. I acted like they weren't there.
And from then on, it seemed like wherever I went, Clyde and Dom would show up,
laughing and talking, so close I almost expected them to be holding hands. They
showed up at the dojo together, they showed up at the nightclub together, and always
they were laughing and talking.
Sometimes they brought Richard Bonner with them, and the three of them would sit
around having a great time. You'd never believe they once hated each other.

44
I knew they were trying to make me see they were good friends now, that their
differences had been settled. They were waiting for me to say, "OK, you guys are all
right. You can train again."
And inside, I laughed at them. But outwardly, I kept my face passive, and wouldn't
look at them. They would see me, stand and say "Osu." I just ignored them.
This went on for a week, then two weeks. Then the other students started coming to
me, talking to me on their behalf. I couldn't fight all my students.
So finally I said it was OK, and accepted their apology. I let Clyde and Dom into the
dojo, and made them stand in front of all the students. I made them apologize, and
then told them, "I will allow you to train here again."
All of the students clapped, and Clyde and Dom were embarrassed.
That was my first involvement with racial problems, but even that wasn't a racial
problem. It was a problem between two individuals.
I hear people say that karate is like religion, because we bow to each other and say
"Osu" and have a creed. But karate is not a religion. Everyone is equal in karate. It has
nothing to do with background, beliefs, race. Every country has racial problems. Even
Japan.
I don't know what to do about racial problems. But in karate, or any kind of sport, if
you sweat with each other it makes you understand each other all the more.
That's why sports are so important. People are on an equal basis, and they are
involved at a physical level. You don't have to bring a certain opinion or book
knowledge. If you sweat with each other, you can go a long way toward understanding
each other.
Society is changing all the time. But if people will just sweat and work together, they
can become friends and understand each other.

Chapter 13

As the 1960s progressed, judo began to decline in popularity and karate grew. Soon, it
seemed that on any weekend anywhere in the country, you could find a karate
tournament being held.
Karate tournaments are different from a boxing match or football game. In these
tournaments, money wasn't made by selling tickets to the spectators, but rather by
charging a registration fee for the participants. So the directors of these tournaments
wanted to get as many people as possible to enter their tournaments and from that
money - the entry fee - he paid his own expenses, for the gym, the trophies, publicity,
and so forth.
In Japan, karate tournaments were like boxing matches, in that money was made by
selling tickets to a large crowd. But there were very few spectators at American karate
tournaments. Almost everyone interested in a karate tournament came to enter.
The way karate tournaments developed in the United States is unique. The idea was to
have as many competitors as possible, so directors couldn't afford to limit their
tournament to just one style of karate. They had to open to all styles, and try to get
other karate schools to come and enter.
Also, in Japanese karate tournaments, just the black belts fought. But in the United
States, all color belts fought, from the most experienced black belts to the most
inexperienced white belts. And each rank was divided into three weight divisions
(Heavy, middle, and light), and then the tournament was divided into adults and
children's categories, men and women, sometimes even a senior citizen division.

45
Usually there were two forms of competition, free fighting, and kata, or forms. Later,
more competitions developed, between breaking techniques, weapons techniques, and
now there are even people doing kata to music.
All of this is original to the United States. No other country held karate tournaments
like this.
I felt there were good and bad reasons for doing things this way. But to me, the main
thing was that it was the American way, to change and adapt even the martial arts.
And one good thing was that it made karate tournaments an equal opportunity for
everyone, so anyone had a chance to be a champion. And it gave people who were in
training something to look forward to.
In Japan, people are more patient. They were willing to do the same things over and
over again, the same kata, the same training. There is not such an individual aspect to
the Japanese character, and everyone wanted to try to reach the same level of
perfection.
But in America, people want excitement, some form of competition. They need things
like these tournaments to look forward to, and wanted a chance to show their
individuality.
So this tournament system was made to order for the American public, and
contributed greatly to the growth of karate.
In the beginning, there was no full contact in the fighting at these tournaments. They
had what is called a point system of fighting. Now there is full contact karate, and
knockdown karate, that has become very popular. But even today most tournaments
are still run on the point system.
Japan has a very similar point system, called "Sun-do me." There is no contact
between fighters, not to the face or the body. In the U.S., there is often light contact
allowed, usually to the body. Contestants wear safety gloves and shoes and mouth
pieces to protect themselves.
Again, the United States has improved on Sun-do me. With so many different styles of
karate involved in these tournaments, with so many different groups sponsoring
tournaments and different techniques in each style, the judges need to see light
contact in order to really tell what is a point and what is not.
With contact, they can see if the technique was delivered with power and delivered
cleanly. Without contact, it is left up to the judge to decide what is a good point and
what is not, and there is more room for error.
In Japan, there is no contact point system. It is all up to the judge, and so it is a very
subjective system. Even 15 years ago, the American karate tournament rules were
better than in Japan. It is my opinion that sometimes Japan's point system is a joke. It
has kept such tournaments from flourishing, while the American system helped karate
develop and grow.
Another advantage to the Open tournament is that all different styles are welcome to
compete. That means the Japanese styles, Korean Tae kwon do, Chinese Kung-fu,
Kempo, styles from the Philippines, any style. At the tournament, you had to study
these other styles, see what their movements were like, what techniques they used, in
order to decide how you were going to fight them and best have a chance to win. That
meant studying their stance, their movements, their punches and kick technique. The
result has been that when someone from one style sees something in another style
that he likes, or that maybe he fought against and couldn't beat, he copies that move.
That allows each style to influence the other, and as a result all styles progressed.
I can't compare Japanese and American karate exactly, but I believe that Japanese
tournaments are not as open. They don't want other styles coming in and influencing
them. Such closed tournaments keep different styles from coming into contact with
each other, and so it becomes hard for any one style to progress. Each one thinks it is

46
the strongest, but none have any real way of knowing. Times change, but the closed
styles stay the same and never develop.
A perfect example of this developed while I was first making the rounds of
tournaments in the United States. One of the other top Japanese styles of karate had a
branch in the United States, that opened after I'd been here awhile, and after some
time decided to have a tournament.
For this tournament, they invited the top five champions of Japan, in their particular
style, to the U.S. This was a very big event, because it was the first time a Japanese
champion had ever come to the United States to fight.
But the agreement was, these champions would fight only people who studied the
exact same style of karate. They didn't want other styles involved.
However, to sell tickets and make money, the promoters sold tickets to everyone. At
that time, there had never been a karate tournament between the Japanese and
Americans, and everyone wanted to see it. It was believed then, even as it is now, that
Orientals were superior at karate because that is where karate started.
Back then, it was so strange because every American believed every Oriental knew
karate, and any Oriental who knew karate had to be better than an American at
karate.
So everyone was very excited about this tournament, and there was much talk all over
town. There must have been 4,000 to 5,000 people packed inside the auditorium for
the event. Of course, I went too, along with some of my students who couldn't wait to
see these Japanese champions.
The early part of the tournament consisted of the usual point system fighting, between
all ranks and divisions. After that was settled, then would come the fighting between
the Japanese champions and the American team picked especially for this tournament.
The promoter came out and introduced the Japanese champions, and they started
warming up. They were introduced to the Americans, who bowed and were obviously
in awe of their Japanese opponents. The Japanese champions strutted around, looking
very proud, as if they were the kings of karate. They walked like they were going to
show everyone what karate really was. And the Americans watched them carefully,
bowing every time one came by.
I watched these Japanese, and was laughing inside. I knew this style of Japanese
karate, had seen them when I was growing up in Japan. This style didn't use contact
in their tournaments, teaching themselves the idea that if one of them ever did make
contact with an opponent, he would kill the opponent immediately. It was a very proud
and puffed up style.
These "masters" were very vain. They were taught a special way of wearing their dogi,
that made them look different. Their dogi pants were very short, above the shin, but
the belt was very long, and very ragged, frayed at the edges. The tradition in Japan
was that whenever the belt was frayed, it was like a medal of honor. It meant the
black belt had trained a long time.
But I knew some of these black belts, and knew that some would get a friend and they
would rub their belts across a piece of concrete or wood to make it look frayed and
worn. A new, fresh belt meant they were rookies, and others in their style would look
down on them.
A normal black belt could take many years of hard training and not fall apart. I have a
couple of belts, and I have trained almost every day for 40 years. I got my first black
belt 35 years ago, and it is still fine. I wear it every day in training.
Or maybe these guys just bought cheap belts.
I watched these champions warming up. They were not very big, and stretched only a
little so that they were not very limber. The Americans, on the other hand, had well-
built bodies, very tall, very loose. The Americans warmed up, practicing round house

47
kicks, the reverse punch, and many combinations. I could tell these Americans had
experience against other styles, and had trained hard and learned well.
But the Japanese, they did the reverse punch, reverse front snap kick. That was it.
Very rarely did they do any other technique.
I compared the two teams as they warmed up. I knew they were not going to allow
contact in these fights, but that each fighter was going to have to pull his punches and
kicks. That meant it was going to be hard to do the round-house kicks and punches,
because it is harder to stop such techniques before contact is made. Ordinary life tells
us that if we do everything in a straight line, we have better control. We walk straight,
we reach straight, we bend over straight. So if you punch or kick straight, you have
more control.
I also knew that this style in Japan usually did 99 percent reverse punches or snap
kicks, because they could control those techniques and not make contact. They did
very simple combinations, and had the utmost faith in them because they believed
karate was a mysterious force, that with one punch you could kill a man. People saw
these black belts break concrete blocks with one punch, and believed they could do the
same thing to a human head.
I knew even before the fights began what was going to happen. I could already tell
who was limber, who was tight; who was strong and who was weak.
One other thing about this particular style. Because they always fought in non-contact
tournaments, their "Kia" was very important. Without contact, a judge often called
points by how loud the "kia" was, and how good and confident the face of the attacker
looked after he performed his techniques. Since there is no contact, one man would
throw his punch while delivering a loud and powerful "Kia," then jump back and act
like he had thrown a really great punch. We called that the face of the Kabuki, the
Japanese dancers that wear the masks that are painted in different emotion. These
were very much like Kabuki actors, because so much of their tournaments were sound
and facial expressions.
But karate was not acting.
It was time for the first fight. The Japanese champion assumed a wide stance, with
one hand at his solar plexus and the other hand held about chest high. He was not
covering his face at all. I could tell he was very traditional in form and style.
The American stood with his feet about shoulder width apart, his hands up to protect
his face, his elbows in to protect his midsection. It is a stance very similar to what I
taught. In Japan, my style is the only one to fight that way. We were also the only
ones to fight in full contact.
The chief referee for these fights was a Japanese. The corner judges were American.
The fighters bowed, and the Japanese referee gave the sign to begin.
Immediately, the Japanese champion gave a loud kia, and his face took on that of the
kabuki.
The American fighter put his front foot up, and did a couple of round house kicks that
were just above the Japanese champions' head. Clearly, he could have been kicking
the champion in the face. But no one gave him a point.
The Japanese champion didn't even raise his hands to block. I bet he didn't even know
the other guy's foot was just inches above his head. I don't think he ever saw it.
Then, the Japanese champion did a front snap kick, with a loud "Kia." He had short
legs, and it was obvious he never came close to the American's body. But he had a
nice, powerful kia, even if it was more powerful than the kick.
The American stepped back, then countered with a hook kick, and again it went right
above the Japanese's head. The champion never saw it, never even flinched, and no
one awarded a point.
So the American did what anyone in that situation would do. He did a round house
kick that went over the Japanese champion's head, then stopped it and came back

48
with a hook kick. However, this time he made light contact with his heel - a perfect
hook kick - to the point of the Japanese champion's jaw.
The champion dropped to the floor like a rock. It was not a hard kick, but the kick was
on just the right spot, and it knocked the champion out.
The American was in shock. He couldn't believe that a little kick like that had knocked
out the Japanese champion. He was stunned. The crowd was shocked, too. They rose
to their feet in silence.
The American looked at the referees and said, "What happened?"
I started laughing, and one second later everyone in the auditorium started cheering.
The corner judge put a flag toward the American team, signifying a point. The fighter,
he put both his fists over his head and began to jump up and down. Everyone was so
excited, because an American had beaten the Japanese champion.
The referee went over and picked up the champion's head, but he was out cold. And
the tournament director hurried over to him, and said something to him. The chief
referee in turn called the corner judges over, and they began a long discussion. You
could see the corner judges just bowing at whatever was being said, responding only
with a respectful "Osu."
Meanwhile, bedlam had broken loose. The American team was hugging their fighter,
and the crowd was chanting and cheering.
Then the announcer broke through the noise.
"This is not a contact tournament," he said. "The judges are discussing whether that
was a well-controlled kick or not." Before he could even say the word "not" the people
were booing and stomping their feet on the floor. I joined in.
In the end, the referee ruled that the American was disqualified for making contact.
The Japanese champion stood up, his left hand rubbing his chin, bowed, and wobbled
out of the ring.
That was how the whole tournament went. The Japanese won, four to one, with all
four Americans losing through disqualification.
It was not fair. But it showed how big-headed and close-minded many karate
instructors had become. If the Japanese champion had kept an open mind and
watched what went on around him, he would have been prepared. But he didn't. He
refused to keep up with the times.
That taught me how important good leadership is, and how important it is for a leader
not to close his mind. This is true of any organization, in business, government, or
whatever. When a leader gets a closed mind and won't listen to other people or see
what is going on, all he has built up will fall.
This may not be the best example, but I will use it anyway.
The first time I came to the United States, I never saw a Toyota or a Datsun. Now,
sometimes it seems like you can hardly find an American car on the road. I think it is
because American car industry leaders didn't pay attention to what was going on
around them. They just kept turning out what had always worked for them before, and
the Japanese car makers came in and beat them out.
Now, the American car industry has tried to work with Japanese leaders and catch up.
Naturally, the leader has an ego because of what he has accomplished. And ego tends
to close the mind. So it is always important to have an open mind, to always learn,
until you die.
This is important for leaders, to listen to others, to other ideas, to learn from history.

Chapter 14

The people who enjoyed competing in karate tournaments enjoyed the fighting and
kata competition, but what soon became even more exciting was when a top instructor
or master would put on a demonstration. This really seemed to get American people

49
excited, and lent to the fascination of karate. People saw these instructors do these
great things and it was like watching fantasy - except that they felt that if they trained
long and hard enough, one day they would be able to do these things as well.
A lot of karate instructors want to be called "Master," but not all deserve to be so
called. I called these people "Monkey business masters." They were the people who
liked to impress others, and make everything they did seem real mysterious. But I bet
most of their ideas came from watching the circus.
For example, I was at a karate tournament once where a so-called "Master" put
something in his mouth and then blew fire. It was the same stunt you can see at any
carnival or circus, but because this guy was wearing a dogi and a black belt, did some
deep breathing and some mystical motions and movements, people thought, "This is
great. This is truly martial art."
I saw a commercial one time, on a television show where they showed commercials
from other countries. This commercial was from France, and advertised a cough
medicine. It had an older man walking around, and every time he coughed, fire came
out of his mouth. It showed him walking down the street, coughing and burning up
trees and stores. A man who was supposed to be a fire marshal came up, gave him a
certain type of cough medicine, and the fire stopped.
That trick of coughing fire was no different from what these guys were doing at karate
tournaments, except that these "masters" would come in and set up a mood like a
Hollywood director. He would do some deep meditation, and take off the top of his
dogi to show off his puny chest muscles - they thought they were Mr. America, but
they looked more like Tom Thumb. But the setup was such that he could convince
people this fire-breathing was a martial art.
But that shows how everyone was into demonstrations, and always trying to do
something really special that would have people talking. If you did a really astounding
demonstration, the word got out on you, and everyone wanted you at their
tournament.
And soon you heard people talking, saying, "Did you see what this guy did? It was
incredible. He is truly a karate master."
Only to have someone else come back with, "But this other guy did this. He is even
greater."
And so it went, with each demonstration getting more incredible and outrageous.
Especially the breaking techniques, which were very popular. For some reason, in
Western culture, to put the human body against concrete or board or brick was
something spectacular. No one thought a human could survive hitting something like
that without breaking one of his bones. So whenever they saw some little Oriental guy
put down a concrete block and break it with his head, everybody went nuts. People
were amazed to see someone break a board or knock the top off a beer bottle with
their hands or elbow or knee or head. And soon, people were busting things with
every part of their body, from all angles, trying to outdo everyone else.
I did it, too. If some other Master busted three concrete blocks, I wanted to bust four.
If they did five, I would do six. But no matter how many you bust, after awhile, it all
looks the same.
So I started thinking, what can I do that will be really dramatic?
I was thinking about this problem one day, of what to break that would really make an
impression. I was drinking Scotch on the rocks, and wiggling the glass and staring at
the ice as it clinked around the bottom of the glass. As I watched the ice, I started
thinking about icebergs, and how impressive it would be to bust an iceberg with my
bare hand. Ice is a very hard substance, and that could be an impressive stunt.
So I said to George, who was with me, "Do you have a big block of ice?"
"No," he said. "But I'm sure an ice house would have one."
"Will you take me to such a place?"

50
George agreed, and took me to the White Plains Ice Company. They turned out
sections of ice that weighed 300 pounds.
George asked the main guy there, "How much for this one big piece of ice?"
I think it was something like $6 or $7 at the time.
But George loved to kid with people. He told this guy, "If we bust this 300 pound piece
of ice with our bare hands, you think we could have it for free?"
George was pointing at me, meaning if I could bust it, could we have it for free.
This guy looked me up and down, then at George. Then he looked back at me, at my
hands, at my body.
"You kidding?" he asked George.
George said no, and this guy called over a young boy and said, "Hey, this little guy is
going to try to bust this piece of ice with his bare hand. Do you believe that?"
Soon, a small crowd gathered around, all talking and joking about what was going on.
Finally, the first guy said, "OK. You bust it, it's free. But if you don't, then you have to
pay for the ice."
I didn't go with the idea of breaking the ice that day. I just wanted to see what a block
of ice looked like, how it felt. But once again, George had pushed me into a corner. I
looked at George, as if to say, "What have you gotten me into?" But he just winked at
me and said, "Go ahead."
I told the men I needed a pair of concrete blocks, to put the ice across. It was too low,
so I asked for two more. They brought that, and kept bringing blocks until the ice was
at a good level for me.
The ice had scratches on it, marking off 100 pound sections. I put a towel over the
scratches, because I was afraid the chips would cut into my hands.
Then I began to make the Shuto, the knife hand, and began practicing my timing and
placement.
Many times in doing a demonstration, the performer gets nervous and tense, and can't
really get the power he needs because his body is tight. But I wasn't tense that day.
This wasn't a big crowd, and the ice was only $6. I wasn't sure I could break it, but I
knew if I didn't, it was no big deal. So I figured I would go ahead and give it a try.
I focused my mind, controlled my breathing, warmed up and was ready. I slowly
raised my arm up over my head, and came down quickly and powerfully on the center
of the ice.
The ice busted, all the way through.
I felt the blow in my shoulder, in my waist, in my legs. It was strong resistance, but
the ice broke. I looked at George, whose eyes were popping out from surprise. The ice
men couldn't believe it, either. They looked at my hand, felt it and my arm to see if I
was OK.
By this time, I had control of myself. I calmly looked at them all and said, "No
problem," and acted like it was nothing.
And that's how I played it until I got into the car with George. Then we looked at each
other, and started screaming and yelling and laughing. We were so excited. That was
the first time anyone that we'd ever heard of had broken ice like that. I believe it was
the first time it had ever been done anywhere.
I felt like I had discovered something great. This was a demonstration everyone would
enjoy, and that would make my name great. I couldn't wait for the next tournament. I
wanted to show this trick to the world right away.
I got my opportunity the next week. There was an open tournament being held in
Rhode Island. The producer was a Kempo teacher named George Vazzario. He called
me about bringing my students to the tournament. I said sure. I'd bring my students,
but could I also do a demonstration? He said sure, no problem.
I took eight of my brown belts to this tournament, and let them compete in the black
belt division. I told them I felt they were equal to the black belts in other styles. I was

51
confident, because we trained so hard.
In the semifinals of the black belt division, there were eight people left. All eight were
my students. I hadn't really noticed, because I was taking care of other, lesser ranked
students that I had brought. But the public address announcer told everyone, by
announcing that there were eight students left in the black belt division, and all eight
were from Master Oyama's school. The several thousand spectators and competitors
applauded, and I felt like I was in heaven.
My demonstration was to be done just before the finals of the black belt division. I
wanted to start out with a kata, a very high kata called "Kan-qu." I really dug in and
was determined to do this kata well, but about halfway through, I changed to another
kata. I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh," but I knew better to let on that I had made a
mistake, so I kept right on with what I was doing, and no one ever knew I had made a
mistake. I kept my face straight, very serious, and when I finished, everyone clapped
and cheered.
Then I was ready to break the ice. I had planned on having four 300 pounds blocks of
ice, stacked around me for 4 breaks. I asked for the blocks to be cut in rectangles,
because it was easier to find the center of a rectangle and break the ice.
But someone had made a mistake. I guess because it had never been done before, the
tournament director misunderstood what I wanted. I had asked for four, 300-pound
pieces of ice, to do four different breaks. But the tournament people had decided that
that was too much, that I meant two 300-pound pieces, cut into half. So they bought
two big rectangle pieces of ice and cut them in half, into squares of 150 pounds each.
I saw the squares, and started to sweat. I looked at the audience, but they didn't know
anything was wrong. They just wanted to see me break ice.
There was nothing I could do but go on with it.
So I positioned myself in the center of the four pieces, and decided to start with my
right hand, because it was my strongest. I felt that way, I could at least break one of
the pieces.
So I tried to concentrate, to focus my energy through my right hand and to the point
where I felt I could bust the ice. The gym was so quiet, I could hear my heart
pounding.
I split the air with a loud "Kia," and brought my right hand down on the ice. It sounded
like a drum, banging so hard the whole gym shook.
But this cold, miserable piece of ice didn't even crack.
So I backed up, and hit it again. I knew as I did it the second time that I was going to
lose my balance, because my confidence was shot. As I brought my hand back, I
stopped, and decided to skip this ice.
I raised my left hand over a new piece of ice, and brought it down swiftly on the
middle. Thankfully, this time the ice busted.
That gave me new confidence, so I went to the third piece of ice and did a right hand
punch, and again, I was rewarded with a clean bust.
So I came to the fourth piece, and did a left hand straight punch, and again, a clean
bust.
So I came back to the first piece. This time, I tried my left hand, and hit it cleanly. But
again, the ice didn't move. So I hit a right hand straight punch, and again, nothing
happened. I switched to a left hand Shuto, but again, it didn't break. I tried the right
hand Shuto, but to no avail.
So, more determined than ever, I raised my right arm in a shuto again and brought it
crashing down on the ice. This time, the ice dropped. I thought I had broken it, finally.
But what had happened was the force of my blow had broken the concrete blocks
underneath the ice!
The people in the stands went "Ooohhh!" when that happened. They were impressed.
But I didn't want to give up. I set the ice up on new blocks, and stared at it.

52
I didn't want to use my elbow, because the elbow is very sensitive. But by this time,
that was about all I had left. So I did my right elbow, all the way up my body and
down. I decided this would be the last time. If it didn't break, I'd quit.
I raised my left hand to grab my right wrist, and together pushed down as hard as I
could.
The noise was like a cannon shot. There was busted ice all over the floor as the block
exploded.
I said "Whew," and the audience gave me a standing ovation.
I felt relief, but not much success. Everyone clapped, and I appreciated it, but I
couldn't straighten my hands. Both hands were swollen, both wrists, both elbows. I
could hardly use my arms at all.
So I drove home using my fingertips. Thankfully, I had power steering in that car. I
really learned to appreciate the power steering in my big Buick that day. I couldn't
have driven home any other way.
When I got home, I sat in my little chair in my little apartment, with ice on my arms
and hands. I was stiff and sore, and could hardly move.
I never forgot that day.
That demonstration of breaking ice made breaking bricks and boards look like child's
play. Breaking ice seemed so much more dramatic because the ice was big and bright,
and when it shattered it flew all over the stage. It was much more of a spectacle.
After that, any time I went to a tournament or was asked to do a demonstration, I
made sure I selected the ice myself. I began to break the ice with different techniques
- the Shuto, or knife hand; seiken, or straight punch; or with the elbow or forehead.
And I studied the ice. I watched to see how it was cut. I noticed that if it sat for a long
time, it broke easier. I learned everything there was to know about breaking ice.
And everywhere I went, people loved this demonstration. They probably had some real
mysterious idea about karate, and when they saw this, it reinforced their idea of
karate.
But breaking techniques are only a part of karate. In a free fight, it is much more
difficult because of the factors or speed, timing, power, and movement. I don't want to
say the breaking techniques are easy. They are very hard. But it is not all there is to
karate.
It was not long before other instructors were copying me. Now, you can see people
breaking ice all over the United States, and indeed, all over the world.

Chapter 15

About six months after I first really began to get popular because of the ice-breaking
demonstration, there was a big exhibition that was to be held at the Hartford
Coliseum. A Kung Fu master named Danny was going to show what he could do, and
he sent invitations to all the top level martial arts people in the area. It was to be just
a demonstration of Kung Fu, but he invited all different styles of martial arts - from
Tae Kwondo to judo and jui jitsui, kendo, aikido to Chinese and Japanese kempo.
What really struck me funny at the time was that he invited a Ninja with the black
costume and the running and jumping and rolling around. The ninja demonstration
was like something out of a comic book. For a really good ninja demonstration, you
need to have special lights, a good background, music to set the mood. But this ninja
master was alone under the bright lights of the Hartford Coliseum, and it looked
silly, to see a guy in a black costume running around like that.
There were many other demonstrations. I didn't give one. I was there as a spectator.
It cost me $6, at a time when a movie only cost $2, so it was expensive. But I wanted
to see it.
The final demonstration was to be given by the kung fu master himself, Danny. And

53
guess what he was? His grand finale was to break blocks of ice with his bare hands.
He stacked blocks of ice in the middle of the stage, and prepared to perform this great
demonstration.
I watched Danny carefully, as he slowly approached the ice. He walked up to it slowly,
studying it, making a great show of the whole thing. He raised both his hands over his
head, brought them together and then lowered them to his chest, breathing deeply
and loudly as he did. Then he went into a moment of meditation, with his eyes closed,
his breathing controlled.
Finally, he walked up to the ice and set himself into position. He checked his distance,
like a golfer going for crucial shot at the Masters. Everyone was quiet. He put his hand
out, over the ice, closed his eyes, then slowly brought the hand back. He opened his
eyes, looked at the ice, and stepped away.
At first, I was caught up in the ritual like everyone else. I thought he was trying to get
his body under control. Then I realized he was doing all this to tease the spectators, to
make it dramatic. He was putting on a big show, like a movie star. And I bet a lot of
the other instructors who were there knew what he was doing as well.
He walked up to the ice a second time, and positioned himself. Once again, he reached
his hand out over the ice, and this time he took a deep breath as he did it. He raised
his hand up over his head and said "One," and then he slowly brought his hand down
through the motion of breaking the ice.
He did it all a second time, saying "two" as he went through the motions slowly again.
And now, he was ready. This was it. Everyone could feel it. He slowly raised hand out
over the stacked pieces of ice, and then raised it over his head. Suddenly, he opened
his body up and began a deep and very loud "Kiaiii" as he began to bring his hand
down.
But before he ever began his downward motion, the ice broke. Five pieces just fell, cut
straight through the middle. Although untouched by human hand.
There was a murmur through the crowd, as everyone tried to figure out what had
happened. But I knew. Danny had already cut through the ice, to make it break easier
when he did it on stage. But all of his wind-up and preparations had taken too much
time, and the weight of the ice on itself was too much, and the ice broke on its own.
At first, no one could believe what had happened. Then everyone realized they'd been
cheated, that they'd paid $6 a person to see a fraud. People started booing, and
throwing chairs and bottles and trash up on the stage. They started screaming, "Give
us our money back, give us our money back!" and poor Danny just stood there,
looking confused and embarrassed.
I just sat there with my students and laughed. I laughed so hard I cried.
I have one other story about demonstrations. This one involved another karate
master, a guy from Bridgeport who taught another Japanese style of karate. He name
was Lee.
Lee always went around town wearing a Hakama under his dogi. A Hakama is a pair of
black pants, very baggy, that is usually worn by Aikido or Kendo people during
demonstrations. The pants are so baggy, they almost look like a skirt. It is a formal
uniform, worn only in certain demonstrations.
But Lee wore these hakama all the time, walking down the street every day. He also
always wore a Japanese headband, which is very popular now because of the "Karate
Kid" movies, but at the time was very strange. And on his feet, he wore the Geta,
traditional shoes that are something like flip-flops.
It was a very strange looking outfit, and made him very mysterious looking to all who
saw him. He was a very popular man.
Whenever I did something, I noticed he was always quick to copy me. He never wore
the Hakama until after I wore them during a demonstration. After that, he wore them
everywhere. When I began to break ice, using the Shuto, he began to do the same

54
demonstration. Later, I sometimes would break ice using my forehead, and it wasn't
long before he was doing that as well.
Breaking anything with the head was very exciting, and people loved it when Lee did
this. He loved the excitement it created, and before long he forgot everything else and
worked only on breaking techniques using his head.
And he got more and more popular. Somewhere, someone started the story that Lee's
head was so tough, that if you punched him in the head you would break your
knuckles. Soon, the story became that his head was so strong that bullets couldn't
penetrate his skull.
Lee told everyone he had a secret method for training his head, that made his head so
tough. But it was a secret he refused to share with anyone.
But I used my head sometimes for demonstrations. It is very dangerous. You cannot
develop your head to be stronger or tougher than it is. And whenever you break
something with your head, the shock or trauma to the head lasts for several weeks.
You should never use the head like that every week. And the more material you break
with your head, the worse it is - like a boxer who takes too many punches to the head.
Anyone should be able to figure that out.
I tried to get Lee to understand that. I didn't tell him directly, because he would never
listen to me, but I told people that I knew would tell him. I said it was very dangerous,
that he shouldn't be breaking things with his head so often.
But his students and he just laughed. They believed in his "special training."
Lee was very popular, and one day he was invited to give a demonstration at Yankee
Stadium, before a major league baseball game. Lee was going to break the ice with his
head, in front of about 15,000 people, as well as on television.
Before the game, they set up his ice blocks on the first base side, and the stadium
announcer said, "Today, karate master Lee will break ice with his head as a special
demonstration." I don't know what it had to do with baseball, but people loved the
idea.
Lee had to be walking on the clouds that day. He was so proud of himself. He put on
his best show, waving to the crowd, feeling like he'd reached the top of the world.
Anyway, he went through his warm ups, bowed his head over the center of the ice
where he would make contact, bent his knees, and, with a powerful "Kiai," raised
himself up and brought his body forward, head crashing down on the ice.
Unfortunately for Lee, the ice didn't move. It stayed there, shiny and bright in the sun.
But Lee, well, Lee slowly raised his head up, a completely glassy look in his eyes, and
fell straight over backwards. His legs were still bent, his arms still out in front of him,
his feet off the ground. He was out cold, like an ice statue that fell over on the ground.
Everyone dashed out to see what had happened. They gathered around him and a
bubble came out of his mouth. His eyes were white, staring straight ahead. They
called for an ambulance and took him straight to the hospital.
Lee stayed in that position for two days, in a coma. He never once moved, never
batted an eye. Finally, after two days, he came to. But he stayed in the hospital for six
months.
When he did get out, he was like a walking vegetable. Every now and then his face
would swell up with a recurring problem due to that injury, and he was always having
to take medicine for constant headaches. Lee shut down his dojo and faded away.
It is a pitiful story, but true.

Chapter 16

After everyone started doing the ice demonstration, I began to look for something
new, something that I had never seen done before in the United States. What I came
up with was a demonstration involving two people, and pitted the bare hand against a

55
razor sharp Japanese samurai sword. The climax of this demonstration was when the
one with the sword tried to split the other's head down the center, but the man being
attacked being attacked caught the sword between his bare hands. It was very
dangerous, and required a lot of training between two people who were really
dedicated.
Living in New York at that time was a Mr. Nakamura. Inside the Kyukoshinn
organization, he held an elite position. Grand Master Oyama, the director of
International Kyukoshin, loved Mr. Nakamura. Six years younger than me, Mr.
Nakamura had a very warm personality, was a very well educated man, and very
strong. I respected him very much too, and still do.
Unfortunately, he and the Grand Master disagreed later over some organizational
matters, and he is out now, teaching his own style of karate. It is called "Sei-do juku,"
and he has done very well with that organization.
We were both living in New York at that time, busy teaching at our own schools. But
we got together very often to talk about demonstrations, about what we could do to
appeal to many people and really show karate as a traditional martial art.
There were already many people who did demonstrations of self defense, showing
how to defend against a knife attack, or that showed big, strong men attacking
females. There were many demonstrations involving partners in such a manner.
For Mr. Nakamura and me, these demonstrations didn't have much appeal. Some were
very funny. Some people did these very serious, very traditional demonstrations, and
tried to act and look very Oriental, which was difficult because the guy was 6-foot-4
and blond with blue eyes, and the girls were blond and very well built. They would
even try to speak Japanese, but it always came out with a funny accent. To an
Oriental, this very "serious" demonstration was more like a comedy.
None of these people did things that really excited either Mr. Nakamura or myself, and
they always seemed to do the same demonstration over and over again. Quite
honestly, it got boring.
We felt we needed something revolutionary, something with dynamic movement,
action, speed, and power. Something that people would say, "Wow, that is
dangerous." It had to be something that was really like a fight, not something fake
that didn't seem real to the people watching.
We saw people demonstrating the bare hand against the knife, but sometimes the
knife was very tiny. And even when the knife was big, the action was very small.
So Mr. Nakamura and I decided we would use a Samurai sword, and not a fake sword,
either. In Japanese history, there are many incidents of the common people going
against the Samurai with nothing but their bare hands and winning. If you trained
correctly, it could be done.
At the first meeting to begin working on our demonstration, when one of us pulled a
sword and pointed it at the other, neither of us could figure out a way to fight it. All
we could see to do was to run away, surrender, or maybe throw a chair.
Then we realized that we weren't looking at the situation realistically. If someone
pulled a sword on you and tries to kill you, you will fight, even though the odds are
great against you. But since we knew each other, neither of really took the situation
seriously. We weren't involved with the problem emotionally. Another problem was
that we didn't train against a sword regularly. All of our fighting was bare hand to bare
hand. All of our timing, all of our distance, all of our actions were designed for hand-
to-hand combat. The "Muawai" or distance, was different for a sword, and we weren't
used to it.
The Samurai sword is about five feet long. No matter what the person without the
sword did, there seemed to be no way to close the gap to get inside the defense of the
swordsman.
Some people would not agree with this. They try to tell you that the martial arts train

56
you to protect you against anything, even a rifle.
But the truth is, unless you train for fighting against something like a sword, you are
not prepared. You have to train for all different situations for four or five hours a day.
That is what the Army does, the Navy, and so forth. That is their job. But if you leave
your regular job to train karate for an hour or so a day, well, that isn't real training.
Those of us who teach karate know we have to train four or five hours a day, outside
of the time spent teaching our students in class.
If you train for an hour a day, you will at least know how to fight, how to protect
yourself, and how to control your emotions. So that hour a day gives you a better
chance than someone who doesn't train at all.
But the training I'm talking about is really professional training. We couldn't train
everyday against a Samurai sword, because it is very dangerous. And there is no way
to get insurance in the United States to teach other people in this manner. And also,
we were poor instructors.
So we came up with a wood sword, called "Boku-to." We started training with that. If a
wood sword hits, it may hurt and may bruise, but it doesn't end your life. It also saves
on hospital bills. The skin may turn all different colors, but at least it stays in one
piece.
So we started training with the Boku-to on weekends, sometimes on holidays, and
almost every free moment we had. We trained four to six hours at a time, working on
all possible defenses against the sword. We had to discover for ourselves what kind of
footwork, what kind of technique to use. If the swordsman faked his first strike but his
second move was real, the other person needs to be able to tell the difference. How
does he tell? Where does he look? The eyes? The shoulders? The sword?
There are many different ways to hold a samurai sword. You can attack with it from
straight over your head, from the side like a baseball bat, by holding it directly out in
front of you, or even with one hand. Each individual has his own technique, and there
are unlimited numbers of combinations.
We chose a standard technique to start with, and began training against that. Using
one basic pattern of attacking with the sword, we studied how the other person should
position his weight, what kind of stance was best, whether to kick or punch or get
inside to use the head or knee.
And each time, each movement, we did it over and over and over, and then discussed
it to see if it was natural or too fake. And gradually, we improved.
In the beginning, we made our movements by a count. If Mr. Nakamura had the
sword, I started the count to show that I was ready. But later, when I began to feel
more confident, he would have the sword and start the attack when he was ready.
Soon we got to where we no longer had to count, or say "Begin." We began to
understand each other so well, and anticipate what was going to happen, that we
could just begin.
But every time, for the first couple of months, we always got hit by the sword - over
the head, in the ribs, on the shin, or on a finger or elbow. And whenever we showered
afterward, we were so colorful – red and purple and blue and black - that we looked
like artists' canvas or some work of modern art.
Needless to say, if we had been using real swords, we would have been dead many
times over, and I would not have been around to write this book.
After about a year, we began to get a real feel for working with the wooden sword. We
understood about distance, angle, and how to attack in a natural way so that it didn't
look like characters in a cartoon. We gained a true understanding of how to use the
Boku-to, how to attack the body, the legs, the head. We understood the strengths and
weaknesses.
For example, the strongest way to use the sword is to raise it directly over your head
and bring it straight down. That is the most powerful technique. And if you are being

57
attacked that way, you have to close the distance between yourself and the attacker,
get inside his arms before he brings the sword down.
And once inside the reach of the sword, you have to know what kind of technique to
use. You won't get more than once such chance very often, so you have to make it
count and be sure your first blow will knock them out.
Getting to understand patterns like that was most important. We understood the
timing of fighting against a sword - called Kokyu-u. And once we did, we began to
train with a real sword.
The most exciting demonstration we did began with both people resting on their
knees, facing each other. Then, without any warning, the one with the sword draws it
suddenly, raises it over his head and tries to bring it down directly on top of the
other's head, as quickly as he can.
The other one, the one being attacked, has to reach up and slap his palms together,
catching the blade of the sword between his palms.
This technique is call Shin-ken Shi ra ha-dori. It is a famous technique in Japan, from
the time of the Samurai. It is thought to be almost impossible to do.
We decided that the Shin-ken Shi ra ha-dori would be the finale to our demonstration,
and we began to train to perform it. It is very dangerous, but if you do it too slowly,
people can see you are faking it. If you do it really fast, one could end up dead - or at
least in the hospital having his head sewn back together.
Catching a sword that is coming straight down on your head between your palms is
almost impossible. Catching the sword in this way is called "Toru." But it is not really a
matter of catching the sword. The idea is to hit the sword on either side with the heels
of your palm, at the exact same time. If you catch or grab anything, the movement is
slow. But if you hit or slap, it is much faster.
Sometimes in training for karate, if you are fighting a girl or little boy, it is no problem
to catch their punch or kick with your hand. But when you are fighting someone at the
same level as yourself, and you try to catch their punch or kick, you are too late. You
end up losing your balance, wind up in a weak position, and open yourself up to
attack.
The proper way to defend yourself is to block the punch, by pushing or slapping it
away. The principal is the same in the "Toru." When the sword is coming at your head,
you don't reach out and try to grab it. You hit with both hands on either side, like
smashing something between your palms. And if you do this, you then have one
second to kick the swordsman's body. He will lose his balance, and hopefully loosen
his grip on the sword.
But as I said before, if the sword comes down too slowly, the demonstration is dead.
The dynamics are loose, the power is gone. At the same time, if the swordsman really
tries to split the other's head, it is too dangerous.
So the person with the sword is thinking, "Make sure you do this right, I don't want to
kill you." And the chances are, he will swing more slowly, trying to help his partner
catch the sword.
The partner will sense that feeling from the swordsman, and will get stiff, trying to
anticipate the attack. He will be saying to himself, "He's coming now - no, not yet,
now! No, in a minute, now..."
Both are thinking too much, and mess up the timing. The only way to do this is to
react, unconsciously. Both partners have to reach their unconscious and just react.
And this takes training, training, and more training. It is not training the mind, but the
body. It is doing something over and over, a million times, until it becomes an
automatic reaction, no thinking involved.
Everybody has had an experience where they had to react without thought, to grab
something or knock something down that was coming at them. It is an unconscious
reaction, because if they tried to do it, chances are they would fail. Their body would

58
not move as quickly, as fluidly, and the timing would be off. The physical would get
caught waiting for the mental command.
Whenever a person does something like that, they say, "I can't believe I did that,"
because they know they couldn't have done it if they had had to think about it first.
You see the same thing in any sport, in golf, football, basketball, ice skating. You see
the really great ones, and how they seem to do things without thinking, and it seems
impossible.
How do they do it? By having trained for hours and hours, through sweat and sacrifice,
until that movement becomes a part of them. Of course, they also have a special
talent and physical ability, but that alone is not enough.
So Mr. Nakamura and I worked on this technique over and over, for months, for a
year. Each time, we consciously tried to develop ourselves to where we could reach
that unconscious world where we blocked out all thoughts and simply acted on
instinct.
Finally, we reached a point where we knew we could do it. Whenever you learn your
body like that, and fit that timing with the timing of a partner, you never forget how it
feels.
When we did this, neither of us could talk. We could only "feel." We had to get rid of
all thought, all consciousness. We had to build up to just an instantaneous reaction.
That's what the "Kia" does for you. We begin by saying a deep and powerful "eee-sha"
to help begin to put all thoughts out of our mind. It is not necessary to yell. All you
need to do is Kiai quietly inside, under your breath. You build and build, until you have
forgotten everything else. The Kia helps to reach into the unconsciousness.
The person with the sword would look the other in the eye. The one blocking would
look at a point just below the swordsman's chin. If he returned the stare, he would
begin to think, to try to read. But by looking at a point just below the chin, he could
see the whole body and be ready.
And suddenly, it happens. One attacks, the other slaps the blade between his palms.
It is a dynamic demonstration. No one who sees it will ever forget it.
Now, a confession. We did this many times, more than either of us could count. But
the times we did it perfectly, we can count. Many times, we cut our palms. Sometimes
we cut the insides of our forearms where we missed the blade. And sometimes we cut
our heads.
And when the head got cut, the person would black out for an instant, the pain was so
great. When sight came back, you'd get this warm sensation from your body, and
you'd reach up and feel the spot where the sword hit, and it was burning hot, like
someone had poured hot water on your head. Then you'd feel that warm water - only
it was blood. It came a drip at a time, then a gush.
Still the pain would not be so bad at that point. It was after you got to the hospital,
where they shaved your head and put in 12 to 15 stitches, gave you the antibiotics to
fight off infection, and made you lie down. That was when the pounding started.
The next morning, you couldn't make your head move. Your ears would ring, and your
head felt like it was on fire. Any movement made you feel as if your head would fall
off.
It was a dangerous demonstration. It really challenged us. But it also made a big name
for us all over. Soon, all other self-defense demonstrations faded away after ours.
Of all the demonstrations that we put on, the one we were most careful with was the
one involving the sword. If we made one mistake, it meant a trip to the hospital. And
not just for head injuries. Many times we cut the palms of our hands or our fingers,
and it was very easy to cut the tendons of your fingers. If that happened, the doctor
washed it, scrubbed it, and was very nice to you - but he couldn't give you anything to
deaden the pain. You had to feel it. That was the only way they could check for nerve
or tendon damage.

59
So you would lie there, and you could see the tendons and bones of your hand, and
you try to keep your face straight, all the while turning red, while blue with the pain. It
hurt so much, you couldn't even cry.
If a student or friend took one of us to the hospital, we always requested that the
doctor put us behind a curtain, or in a closed room. It was embarrassing for them and
for us for them to see a karate master cry.

And always, at parties afterward, we made fun of each other, of the times we messed
up, of the times we cried. So when we were really hurting, we wanted to make sure no
one we knew saw us.
There was a lot of preparation that went into this demonstration. Not the least of
which was that both of us had to be in top physical condition.

That was true of all our demonstrations. Even in the breaking techniques, whether you
are breaking a two-by-four, a baseball bat or a 300-pound block of ice. When the time
comes, you don't think of other people. You think of yourself. If you are in good
condition, you can look at that 300-pound piece of ice and it looks like a thin sheet of
frost. If you feel really strong, blocks of concrete seem no more than plywood.
By the way, a lot of people think a karate master is in top physical condition. But that
is a mistake. A lot of karate masters are just talk. They couldn't run a mile. Karate
masters are human, and must train to stay in shape, like anyone else.
We toured all over the world, doing these demonstrations. We went to London,
Denmark, Brazil, New Zealand, all over Canada, and Japan. We received many
invitations, and could pick and choose where we wanted to go to do our
demonstrations.
Soon of course, people started imitating us. They even began to imitate our sword
demonstrations. Some of the imitators were good. But they weren't in our class. There
was not the same power, the same speed, the same technique.
And I worried about those imitators. We spent many hours, but we still made
mistakes. I was afraid someone, somewhere, would imitate us and have a very bad
accident sooner or late.
There was a big demonstration going on in Washington, of many different styles of
karate. Two guys there did a sword demonstration, and the swordsman stuck his
partner through the ribs with the sword. It went all the way through his body, and no
one could pull it out. The man just lay there, with the sword in his side, until they
could get him to the hospital. The doctors said that if they'd been half an hour later,
the man would have died.
We saw a tape of a show from London, on the BBC, where a father and son from
Japan did a sword demonstration. The son attacked the father with the sword, and cut
his father's little finger completely off. The father looked at his hand, saw his finger
was gone, and passed out on live TV.
Those are just two of the examples of the failures of our imitators. It proves that you
need to really train hard, and if you don't, you should do something else.
At times we were asked to do the sword demonstration, but if one of us felt bad, or
just didn't feel right, we would cancel and do something different. It was just that
dangerous.
But when we felt right, when the timing was right, you could really get a crowd
excited. It was a dynamic display of karate, of movement, power, and speed.
Training this way helped me to understand other sports that I watched. Whether it
was two people or a team, the harmony made them just like one.
I could watch and understand the training, the sacrifice, the sweat that went into such
a performance. And I could soon see who was good at such things and who were the
imitators.

60
I still do the sword demonstration, but now it is with my younger brother, or
sometimes with a friend who is not really my brother, but is as close as one, named
Shihan Miura. The three of us have developed a demonstration involving all of us. It is
more dynamic, more powerful, and more exciting.
And also more dangerous.

61