Portrait in Linen

Being the fatalist I am, I’ve begun to consider how recent research endeavors over the past few years have led me to the germination of a project I’ve always known I am responsible for producing but previously did not see any way I could even consider, much less approach, the task…Dad’s biography.

People want to know who he was. Martial artists need to establish a verified lineage. Everyone in the family has a breaking need to know where we came from and who our father was before he was our father.

For everyone who wants to know, urgency is the gun-point of time. There are only a select few family members and students who were present during Dad’s formative years; there are even fewer who remember details that might answer some of the questions everyone has, and they’re aging. Once they’re gone, their memories are gone with them. If no one takes up the knowledge now, it will never be carried on.

How does a person begin to write about an individual’s entire lifetime?

The aspiration is intimidating enough if a person lived a relatively quiet life. But Dad…he lived boisterously, intentionally, heavily, purposefully. Everywhere he went, he left influence–friends, soldiers, karateka, high school students, and of course, his children. And every person he influenced would recall him in a singularly dynamic way. How could I begin to peer through the eyes of so many people, get a glimpse of him as they saw him, filter out the brightest rays of perspective, and then blend them all into one beaming light that would illuminate exactly who he was?

Honestly, I still don’t know how I could ever accomplish such a task, but I believe I may be approaching the faintest traces of a design.

I researched (and still do) the history of hula and discovered lines of style, variations in teaching methods, differing places of origin. I learned about individual kumu hulas, who their kumus were, where they learned, where they taught, who they taught, what they taught. Now, I have a rather solid concept of the hula family, from the ancestors preserved in legend, to the current kumu hulas who are at the forefront of the art.

And my research of Shotokan…this truly brings it home for me. I knew of Funakoshi from the research Dad required years ago, so there was at least a small frame of reference for me. I knew how to begin studying the development of Shotokan because I’ve been doing the same thing with hula for years now. And tonight…reading about Takemori in Hawai’i, considering–just considering the possibility Dad may have crossed paths with a master who is directly linked to Funakoshi…. Relevant. Relevant. Immediately relevant. It’s something of a key.

Could I apply the same research methods to Dad’s history? Would it be an easier task, because of my relation to the subject? Or would it be more difficult, for the very same reason? Do I have what it takes to tackle such a broad field of information? Do I have a minimum practical knowledge to be able to recognize important details? Am I skilled enough as a writer to compile all the information into a narrative that will do justice to his legacy?

One fear I have is learning so much, discovering so many things, that it will be too much, and I’ll never see the project through to completion, because it’s just beyond me. (But on the other hand, I know how to narrow down a topic to a manageable scope. Theoretically, I could do the same with a body of biographical information. If the material called for more than one book, I’d write more than one book and not try to cram it all into a huge, cumbersome monstrosity.)

Another thing–what on earth could I uncover? What if I learn something I don’t want to know? I think it’s inevitable I’ll see a perspective of him that will be a complete surprise. He was, after all, not everybody’s daddy. Am I prepared to see those things? Can I maintain an objective viewpoint?

By far, however, the biggest thing I fear is…the emotional involvement. Nope. Still have never properly mourned. Been in an unbreakable state of denial since Day 1. Crack every now and then at a photo, or an item of his clothing…a song, a joke, the thought of his big, brown arms around me…. But beyond that, he’s still in Texas. Just haven’t heard from him in a very, very long time.

***(Edit: The previous photo description incorrectly listed Masatoshi Nakayama as pictured on the left and Teruyuki Okazaki on the right. The correct positioning is Okazaki (left), Funakoshi (center), and Nakayama (right). E kala mai! Please excuse the error. –25 May 2008)***
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Teruyuki Okazaki

I studied a photo hanging on the wall in the dōjō last night. It pictures Master Funakoshi (center)–the only man I recognized–with two younger men who I assumed were his students. The names of the other two men, I discovered, were Teruyuki Okazaki (left, at age 26), and the late Masatoshi Nakayama (right).

Judging from the clothes, I placed the time of the photo in the late 40s or early 50s. I later learned the photo was taken in 1958 (in *an article I read, Okazaki said he was 16 in 1948, which–at 26 years of age–would date the photograph ten years later).

When I asked about the photo and how Master Mikami (local master previously referred to as “Mister Master” here, for the sake of anonymity) was connected to Master Funakoshi, Sensei Sage explained Nakayama was Mikami’s instructor, and Okazaki (still living) was a senior student who trained alongside Mikami in Japan. Okazaki–I was told–emphasizes the philosophical side of martial arts in his instruction and places a lot of importance on the development of personal character.

A bit of research returned some interesting facts about Okazaki.

• He helped establish (c. 1955?) the Shotokan instructor curriculum, which seems quite stringent:
  - 43 written reports (concerning scientific aspects of martial arts, like bio-mechanics)
  - 34 practical training courses (how to practice alone, how to teach others)
  - a degree from 4-year university
• He was sent from Japan to Pennsylvania in 1961 as part of the effort to bring karate-dō to the U.S.
• Initially, a language barrier cost him 80% of the 200 students he began to train at La Salle College.
• He still resides and teaches in PA, primarily at universities.

An interesting quote from the interview:

Other sports…emphasize how to win a gold medal or be champions. We never do that, we are practicing Martial Arts or Karate-Do to develop ourselves to be better human beings. So that once we are better human beings we can contribute to society. So that we can make a better society. So we can extend that and make better countries, and a better world. Always we teach that.

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My Shotokan Lineage
Through my reading, I was able to construct what may be my lineage under Gichin Funakoshi.

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Hirokazu Kanazawa: Shotokan in Hawai’i

Something else I find intensely interesting…Hirokazu Kanazawa was sent by Nakayama to bring karate-dō to Hawai’i sometime between 1961 and 1963–the same time period Okazaki was sent to Pennsylvania, and Mikami was sent to (Kansas first, then) Louisiana.

During those years, Dad was in his early 20s, had just joined the Army, and was probably stationed somewhere on the mainland. I just couldn’t find anything that gave details about how long Kanazawa taught in Hawai’i, so I don’t know whether or not he and Dad might’ve crossed paths. But I do know…

…one of Kanazawa’s first students was Victor Takemori, who currently resides and instructs in Pearl City on O’ahu. He was definitely present in Hawai’i when Dad returned in the early 70s. By then, Takemori was between 40 and 50 years old, and was no doubt teaching karate-dō.

If Takemori was teaching in Pearl City in the 70s, and Dad was teaching on Schofield Barracks (central O’ahu) during the same time, it’s quite possible the two of them crossed paths at some point. I have to wonder….

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Questions:

• Are the instructor requirements Okazaki helped to establish still used for instructor training now?
• Did Victor Takemori and Dad ever cross paths?
• Did Dad ever meet Kanazawa?
• Did Dad ever belong to a Shotokan dōjō? If so, where? Who was his instructor?
• While Kanazawa was establishing Shotokan in Hawai’i, where were the “Big Five” of Kenpo, and what were they doing during the same time period?

Next topic for exploration…Who was Masatoshi Nakayama? I have no doubt Funakoshi writes about him in Karate-Dō, so any preliminary research I do on the man will be clarified once I get to those chapters in the autobiography. Exciting….

* A Google search for “Funakoshi, Okazaki” resulted in (among others) two interviews with Master Okazaki. One is titled “Okazaki Interview at UCLA,” and the other is titled “Okazaki on Shotokan.” The content is identical, except the latter page shows the interview was conducted by The Dragon Times, which is a .org website. I don’t know much about the magazine at all, so I’m still a bit foggy about where the interview was actually conducted.

Irony of ironies…psyche appointment cancelled due to an act of God.

Tornado hit the business center overnight. I have to laugh about that. To borrow a word used by character Detective Smecker (who derided another detective’s abominable misuse of the English language) in Boondock Saints (1999): The “symbology” of that–natural disaster supersedes/reflects/fulfills personal disaster–is astounding.

What is also laughable is the latest manifestation of “The Laranang Curse.” Previously, sibs and I frequently alluded to a dreaded “Laranang Luck,” which dispenses benign-yet-monumentally-aggravating quagmires like being that one unlucky jerk…

• who–every single time–gets the malfunctioned merchandise after saving and anticipating a purchase for months in advance
• whose paperwork is inevitably and mysteriously “lost” by the handlers at the most critical moment so that everything unravels from there
• who predictably gets the wrong food order so she has to either 1) exchange and wait, thereby holding up the line and pissing everyone off because she’s “that person,” or 2) she has to eat what she paid for but didn’t get
• who consistently looks like a jerk because someone else has committed an infraction and fled, and she’s the only one standing there when everyone finally notices something’s amiss
• who gets rained out
• who gets held up
• who is the jerk in line right behind the last person served

Well, Mother Nature seems to have it in for all of us, and she’s made no secret about it. In a matter of two weeks…

• tornado hops over Biggest Sis in Missouri
• tornado hops over Little Bro in Georgia
• tornado hops over Littler Bro in Oklahoma

On the phone with them in the aftermath, I pointed and laughed. “It could be raining everywhere else in this city but over OUR HOUSE. Looks like we escaped Laranang Luck this time.”

ha ha.

Early in the A.M., tornado hops over ‘Ailina and Littler Sis in Louisiana, and wrecks her psyche appointment. Who’s the jerk in the long line of Laranangs who got a chicken bone shaken at them?