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Training
During my second trip to
Japan, in 1979, I traveled with my friend Eric Peters
to live with O-Sensei and train from April to August.
To
finance the trip, I had dropped
out of university – to the consternation of my
parents – and worked as a waiter.
When we arrived, mornings were cold and the Chito-Ryu
honbu was an open-air dojo with bare, almost clay-like
earth in O-Sensei’s backyard. The ground was
so chilled that when we trained at dawn our
feet
would freeze, but never enough to go numb.
No matter how much we swept the ground with bamboo-branch
brooms before training, small stones would remain that
would
send stabbing pains through sensitive feet used to wooden
dojo floors.
Shot in the backyard of the Chitose
home, in 1977, before there was an enclosed
dojo and the weight
room was transformed into a bunkhouse for visiting students.
Front (from left): Yasuhiro Chitose (now known by his
father's name), O-Sensei and Mr. Kuzahara (a school teacher).
Rear: David
Green,
Shane
Higashi, Hidemichi Kugizaki and the patriotic writer.
In his 80s, O-Sensei left the early morning instruction,
during the cold months, to his son and son-in-law.
As we worked out, we would hear him moving through
the
house.
He
would
stop
at
the family shrine, make an offering to his ancestors,
accompanied
by the ringing of a bell. He watered
plants in front of the windows and fed his
talking mynah bird, Kyu-chan, who would sometimes screech
out what sounded like:“Rohai-sho!”
Although engaged in other tasks, O-Sensei always kept
one eye on our training. Often he would whip open the
sliding doors to the house and correct our technique.
* *
One May morning, when the weather warmed up, O-Sensei
appeared in the backyard for our 6 a.m. training, dressed
in gi and a red-gold belt. After some light limbering
up, he led us through a class, which he continued to
do until we left Japan, during the hot and humid days
of August.
As a teacher, O-Sensei was wise and patient
and very hands-on. Instruction was tailored
to the needs
of the individual student. And the core of his method
was to demonstrate what he wanted us to do.
He wasn’t the kind to stand at the front of class,
with arms folded in front, and bark orders.
If he asked you to attack him and, out
of deference to his age, you lobbed a soft one,
O-Sensei would
look disgusted, slap your hand away and say, “Again.” Then
you would attack with a sharp technique and inevitably
find yourself on the ground, with some damn stone sticking
in your back.
Coming from Canadian karate in the 1970s,
which was all kicks and punches and shiai kumite, I
was surprised
by how much of O-Sensei’s karate involved throws,
joint locks and subtle evasions. Fortunately, I had
taken judo when I was younger and Eric had trained
in aikido, so we had some idea of how to fall. But
we were used to doing it on mats, not hard ground.
* *
After breakfast, Eric and I would
walk a couple of kilometers to a Mr. Donuts, for coffee,
donuts and
games of Space Invaders. Along the way we would pass
the same small businesses, and came to recognize some
of the people inside. In one narrow storefront space,
I would always see a young
man with long black hair engaged in the labor-intensive
work
of making tatami, the traditional straw mats used as
flooring in Japanese homes. Although we didn’t
speak, we’d give each other a friendly nod, both
of us curious about the other exotic figure.
At Mr. Donuts, one pretty young
cashier was friendly to me. After weeks of heavy
coffee consumption,
I finally screwed up my courage to ask her out, only
to find that she had just quit the job. Her much-less-friendly
replacement had no idea where she had gone.
After coffee we would, at least three
days a week, return to the dojo, put on running shoes
and our gi pants,
and
then run up a
small local mountain, do kata on top and then
run home in time for lunch. Later in the afternoon,
we usually trained by ourselves in the dojo.
At these times, the master might appear at
the sliding doors to the house and give one-on-one
instruction. Once, as I tried to do Sanchin,
O-Sensei demonstrated the proper breathing and muscle
tension for
me.
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