The Salisbury Tales - part five As the Yellow Belt Darkens

As I recall all of these events in my first year of training I can see how the beginner retains events from their special time of newness. It was a time of training, more training and tournaments. Always new adult beginners and the experiences they offer. 

One night we were being drilled in basics by Mr. Lockwood and one of the new beginners was having trouble with their uppercut drill. As Mr. Lewis’ dojo had a wall of mirrors, Mr. Lockwood told him to go back to the corner and work on his uppercut facing the mirrors, practicing hitting himself in the jaw. A short while later Mr. Lockwood looked up and an amazing expression formed on his face. I turned my head to see that beginner practicing striking himself in the jaw with his uppercut. 

 I realized I wasn’t very good in kumite and as Mr. Lewis’ students had formed their own Isshinryu clubs over the Eastern Shore of De., Md. and Va. I began to visit those schools on off nights for more training. 

 The first visit was to Reese Rigby’s club, then held in a church in Dover. I asked him if I could train and told him I knew I need more kumite practice, so of course I got what I asked for. When we got to kumite I was assigned to a green belt named Bill. In the middle of our fight he came at me with a jumping kick, and out of reflex I swept my left hand up under his legs. He ended up horizontal to the floor and dropped, hitting like a rock. I thought I had killed him but it turned out he was also a black belt in jujutsu and just did a hard break fall. Still, for whatever reason, when something works it’s a good night. I did get more kumite practice too. 

 My wife’s indoor volleyball league concluded and she decided to join the Isshinryu program too. I never saw anyone move through the white belt program faster. Of course since she was a physical education instructor and having watched me practice for months, her overall knowledge of training helped her. 

 One Sunday she came to the club when I was cleaning and I tried to show her how to spar. She leaned forward and ended up with a black and blue eye, a tradition that continued for years. When we sparred, somehow something happened such as she’d kick me and in turn hurt her ankle (hospital visit) or punch me and sprain her wrist (another hospital visit) and I ended up being the ‘brute’ hurting her. When it came time for her first kumite, I could see some of the other’s faces showing we have to take it easy on Victor’s wife….alas. Her first move was normally to bust anyone in the mouth with a backfist strike… not just a phys ed major, she had two older brother and…. 

 That spring I went to NYC with a group of the club to attend the tournament at the Sunnyside Gardens to raise money for a memorial for Shimabuku Sensei. It was a gigantic Isshinryu affair. There’s quite a backstory about the event, but that’s not my tale to tell. 

Sunnyside Gardens was a hall Professional Wrestling events were held in. The day of the tournament when you stepped out of the locker room and took two steps your white gi turned black. It was the dirtiest tournament floor I’ve ever seen. The tournament officials were moving around the floor with hammers driving nails down so we didn’t step on them.

I gather most of the seniors in the Isshinryu system were there, and Shimabuku Kichero flew in from Okinawa for the event too. 

My yellow belt kumite division was run by Don Nagle. I met Steve Armstrong and discussed with him for a few minutes, a recent article he had in Black Belt magazine. We had dinner with Harold Long between the tournament and the evening show.

 All participants received a very nice certificate to remember the event. 

A friend of Mr. Lewis’ Karl Hovey who was originally from Okinawa gathered up all of our certificates and went to ask Shimabuku Kichero to sign them for us, but that didn’t work out and they weren’t signed. 

The most memorable things I remember are the huge gathering of Isshinryu seniors present. 

A brown belt from MYC with the nickname Quick Draw McGraw wining his fights by throwing a flurry of knife hand stirkes. 

I remember Mr. Lewis taking 2nd place in Men’s Black Belt Kata, and at the evening show watching Shimabuku Kichero going through Chantan Yara No Sai. 

A night at a hotel while the Black Belts attended the Black Belt evening festivities, and of course a long ride home to Salisbury the next day. 

 A month or so later George Iberl was hosting a tournament in York, Penna. As my family lived 10 miles from their my wife and I went up for the weekend. Of course she had to win 3rd place in Women’s White Belt Kata. It was quite a well attended tournament, and like many in those days there was to be an evening show. 

The star attraction was Bill Wallace who would be hosting a clinic on kicking the next day, but the most memorable performance was that of Ted Volrath. Volrath Sensei lost both his legs in the Korean War in service to our country. Later he studied Isshinryu and proceeded to give a self defense demonstration that included him leaping from his wheelchair while taking down his assailant. 

In his demonstration he described how he had a role in the movie ‘Pusher’s Die Hard’, and his wheelchair had been custom built for the role. He was on the stage talking to the crowd seated below when suddenly he grabbed the armrests on both sides and pulled them up. Two double barreled shotguns popped up and shot off blanks. The entire crowd dropped back into their seats. Volrath Sensei was not going to let a handicap stop him from being a karate-ka, but that demonstration had a cost. He had landed hard from that leap and injured himself, later going to the hospital. 

 The clinic with Bill Wallace the next day was sparsely attended, but he paid no attention to that. Bill Wallace had the nickname ‘Superfoot’ and lived up to it. Not only were his kicks superfast, he could kick innumerable times without putting his foot down. The clinic was 3 hours long and for over an hour he pushed us in just stretching, drill after drill, and that was the easy part. Next came the kicking. Bill Wallace had injured his right leg long before and only kicked with his left leg, but his flexibility was such he’d raise his knee so it against his chest, and his raised leg and standing leg were almost in a straight line. He only threw Side Kicks, Roundhouse Kicks and Hook Kicks, but in any combination without end. His leg was literally as controlled as his arm, 

He could slowly raise his leg to brush your hair back off of your forehead, or he could tell a strong black belt competitor exactly which kicks he was going to throw and you’d see them helpless to stop them. The remainder of the clinic was kick, after kick after kick, the most intense kicking drill I’ve ever done. The longer we kicked the lower our legs went till they were down to the ground and Bill would walk around growling like a DI to raise or legs and kick harder. A very intense demonstration combining unique personal ability and lifetime intense drilling. 

 Bill Wallace wasn’t perfect, he has been beaten, but you had to go a long way to do that. It was about that time he switched over into PKA full contact style fighting, and made quite a name for himself there too.