Journey of a Karate Student

By Hanshi Anthony Jackson-OAM

This book is dedicated to my Okinawa masters that have been the inspiration of my journey through the Shuri -Te Shorin Ryu "DO" and the Goju Ryu of which I am very proud of. The journey begins in Wales in United Kingdom in 1949 and travels many countries through Asia. It depicts the variety of people within the martial arts world, the good and the bad. Hope you enjoy the journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jul 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503507456

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

THE JOURNEY WALES – UK

B orn in Westminster, London in 1938 (the year of the Tiger). My 2 brothers and I in 1941 were then taken to South Wales by our mother to get away from the bombing in the 2 nd World War, and we remained in the coal mining town of CWMFELINFACH where our mother and all her family lived until the war ended and our father returned from military ser vice.

We eventually moved to the city of Newport in 1947 where my journey first began.

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1949:- Leaving school in Stow Hill Secondary walking down the public ramp heading towards St. Mary’s Hall where many sports were conducted in the city of Newport in South Wales. Stopped at the hall to buy an ice cream when I heard funny noises coming from within, stopped at the small hall doorway and saw a couple of my school friends doing some funny moves with others and some adults. I leaned on the door opening to watch, and was then told by one of the parents to leave immediately as instructed to do by the person teaching.

This man was quite short, slightly taller than I and very big muscles with different coloured skin, which appeared very suntanned and close eyes as though they were nearly shut. I ignored the order to leave and remained watching. Finally, after doing this viewing over a week I was asked if I would like to join them, (my father wanted me to do boxing) which I obliged by joining the group and continued from that day onwards

We trained every afternoon after school for near 2 hours, which was just as well as my father often returned home around 5.00 pm. As it eventually turned out, the boxing I was doing was called Kara Te, and the instructor’s name was – Senchi NAKAYAMA or SENCHI Nakayama – depending on which way the family name is positioned. He came from a country called "OKINAWA" long before the war to work on the special project of a suspension transportable bridge across our local river USK which separates Wales from England

Training was hard and at times brutal and my father asked when he saw the bruises how I got them, he wanted to know what was going on, but told him this was the strict method used, which my father told me did me the world of good with discipline

I trained under this man every week after leaving school when he was there as it was easy for me to stop at St. Mary’s hall because my school was only about 100 yards from the hall. The days increased from 2 to 4 days a week and I was getting quite used to push-ups even on my fingers then for a 11/12 year old and was quite proud of my achievements.

Kicking was a problem, as psychologically it was against all the rules of boxing, but as time passed this worry faded away and my kicks became quite powerful even with my skinny legs – NO – I was NOT one of those who was weak as some have depicted themselves, I was not large built but I could pack a punch, as some of the bullies at my school soon found out when they tried to pick on me one day, that was the last time they ever did and I was held in high respect at the school. This was where I met my first love affair – Jean Palfrey – and I was her protector when she went ballroom dancing in the late afternoons. Some of the junior members as time went by dropped off and some new ones kept coming and going and it felt good to be the most senior junior in the class as time went and as the years past as well and NAKAYAMA sensei (that’s what we had to call him) was very proud of me for being so determined to stay and learn and my father was proud as well as my older brother had by then stopped training in boxing classes. Sensei told me one day, that (I have the capability of becoming like him, a great sensei as long as I continued on my road and follow the WAY).

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Clothing in these days was shorts and a shirt of some description, just like you would wear during school sports day. So my mother eventually made me a pair of satin shorts with my initials TJ sewn on, and a black with Gold collar 1940’s short sleeved shirt my father brought home from the Army I Still have this set to this very day as memories.

It was after I had been training for nearly two years that Sensei Nakayama presented me one day after a training session, a WHITE belt made of stitched cloth to wear from that day onwards with the uniform I have been wearing all that time. You can imagine my pride and joy, it was a symbol of being a good and dedicated student (most of those who were training when I joined no longer continued)

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My very 1st White belt presented in 1951

Sadly I left Newport in June 1952 with the rest of the family to head towards London as my father had joined the Australia Army and we had to be near Australia High Commission to be prepared for the journey to Australia. We stayed in a similar house to what we had in Newport in the suburb of Lewisham and I went to the Greenwich Secondary School not far away from the house we were living in. In this house was our first experience of television, as the owner was a Police Officer who allowed us to watch sometimes. Here at Greenwich they had a boxing class, and as they had never heard of Kara Te, I joined the club and went on to compete after I had won a competition in 1951 in South Wales. I have a medal still to this day that I won competing in a Boxing tournament in Greenwich (titled as such as not to offend the people), which was covering the South of England.

I am Very proud of this as the competition was quite fearsome, due to the fact that pride was on the line, but for me it was a case of getting in some good training practice before finally leaving the shores of the United Kingdom to an unknown quantity in a new land. I tried to find someone who may have been to that part of the world but to no avail. Whether they had the kind of training facilities that I have spent these past years enjoying remains a mystery, but that is the excitement of heading to a land unknown.

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We finally left England on 10th December 1952 and spent three week’s at sea until we finally reached the shores of Australia at the port of Fremantle. We had stopped at Naples, Aden, and Colombo on this new exciting adventure. The last stop at Colombo was a bit of a disaster for me as I had slipped on the tiled floor of the swimming pool on board the ship before going ashore and cut my elbow. I dressed it but should have gone to the doctor for disinfecting before leaving the ship. However as I was ignorant of the country and its hazards I caught an infection whilst in Colombo – Ceylon – two days before Christmas

My elbow became more infected and started swelling up. Christmas evening I was in my cabin going through extreme pain while my father held me down and my mother squeezed the puss out of my elbow, and by the time they had finished I was in no mood for celebrating but I survived and my elbow recovered thanks to my mother

The stop was temporary as that day we sailed towards the State of Western Australia and when we arrived, boy was it hot, 40 degrees celsius and you can imagine coming from a foggy England we did not expect this kind of weather. After a few hours stop-over we were then headed for South Australia – our final destination – and to the city of Adelaide and we wondered what was to come next.

The Pine Branch Trembles

As Golden Swan

Swims among dark green moonlit leaves

Singing mournfully

A Tear-stained song sent with love

To the ocean of the sky.

CHAPTER 2

ADVENTURE TO AUSTRALIA

P ulled into the harbour of a place named FREMANTLE in Australia on the 4 th January 1953 with a temperature of 40 C, which we have never experienced before except our father (he had spent time in Africa and other hot places). Next we headed out of Fremantle which was in Western Australia and sailed away heading for the city of Adelaide, we disembarked then caught a train for the city where we will stay in an Immigration hostel overlooking the Torrens River. Now waiting for our father to be appointed to the post where he will undertake his military service in the Australian Army as a drill instru ctor.

He was stationed in a town called INVERBRACKIE near Woodside up in the hills of South Australia, and my brothers and I went to the nearby school called ONKAPARINGA, a country school near the famous race track of OAKBANK. By now I was near 15 years of age and stayed at the school till after I had turned 15 and applied for work instead. My older brother Carl had already found work with a tyre company– Beaurepaire’s – and I finally found work with the Department of Works as a courier boy. Being a government department the hours and wages were good. I was out on a delivery one day, when I came across some guys training in a park doing Karate not far from my work and I asked them where they trained in the system I had learned in South Wales and they told me that the name of their club was called – Shotokan Karate of South Australia and they trained for an hour at lunch time and on weekends, so I was eventually invited to join and continued my training in Kara-te

The members of this club seemed as much wanting to help with the way things were being taught here in Australia, and it was hard at some point to steadily get used to some of the variations of techniques, but I still stuck to and maintained my previous Japanese masters hard and physical training which gave me the edge. The Dojo they trained in was a church hall in Cliff Street just off King William Road and had a good well maintained timber floor which we washed by hand with rags before training and again afterwards (just like we did in Newport, South Wales, as this I was told was the way it was done in Okinawa). We trained for 2 hours every day for 5 days a week, as that worked out well for me because I finished work at 3.00 pm and my bus to return home did not leave Victoria Square until around 5.30 pm at the same time as my brother caught the bus when he finished work.

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I eventually left the Department of Works after 9 months and found a much better job with more free time in the company called LENROCS LTD – they sold the Norton, Triumph and Harley Davidson Motorcycles and this is where I bought my first one – 1951 Acme 125 cc with Villiers engine.

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After that I traded in my motorcycle and bought a 1938 DKW soft top Touring car, which was my pride and Joy.

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I used to drive myself to work from the army quarters at Inverbrackie and sometimes take my brother to work at Beaurepaires not far from where I worked in Pultney Street.

One day returning home going up through the hills of Adelaide, my brother kept saying keep to the left but I finally followed his instruction as a large truck was heading our way, and, low and behold over the side of the mountain I went with both my brothers and sister in the car.

Fortunately the car was saved by a barrier of black berry bramble bushes and we were eventually winched back onto the road. My brother never suggested how to drive from that day on it was great, the training hard as before leaving England and from1953 to 1955 trained weekends, 2 hours after work and an hour at lunchtime.

Sadly, I can remember the Instructor-in- Charge (Cameron DAVITZ (he wore a Black Belt) he was a great, kind and considerate guy, but hard and a technician with Precise technique and much (at the time in my life) knowledge and I enjoyed every moment of his time till for some reason he moved away due to work commitments, so we all plodded along on our own helping each other as every day passed when we could get together and train. In my travels I have tried to find him, but ran up against a brick wall, as I had some problems with these Shotokan kata as they were very close in the fundamentals to the Shuri-Te, there were many variations in stances (too long) and applications but nobody seemed to know anything about ‘Bunkai’.

I did not enjoy the long or wide or deep stances they demanded and they could not see the importance of ‘Balanced legs are stronger’ even though they were never able to sweep my leg at any time, but I could sweep theirs.

I looked forward to the time we could train, and we even used to go to the beach and train in the sand and do kata and kumite in the water which was hard going but great fun as it strengthened the legs for kicking and stances, also balance with the waves. We had a lot of fun together the small group of us and even took it in order to take the class to teach just for variation of ideas.

Those were great days and it was not until towards the end of my time in Adelaide (my father had put in for a transfer to a parachute battalion in New South Wales) that another guy turned up at our training dojo wearing a Black Belt and introduced himself to us as:- Steven Crosslands – and had moved from Melbourne with work. He also had trained in Shotokan system but also had done some training on mainland Japan. He was quite impressed with our level and in particular for me as I had been training now for 6 years and was still wearing a White Belt. It was a great send-off from the guys before my brother and I finally set off in my car for further unknown adventures.

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The only photo of Steve Crosslands 1955

CHAPTER 3

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

U nfortunately I had to say goodbye to Adelaide as the family were on the move again, this time heading for Newcastle in New South Wales, where my father’s new unit was stationed. My brother and I decided we would drive across and meet the family in Newcastle this would give us chance to see different parts of Australia. A wise idea as we went through northern Victoria to Canberra, and then on to Newcastle eventually, driving my1938 DKW. It took my brother & I 48 hours to drive from Adelaide to Newcastle sleeping on the side of the road as we needed the rest after a 12 hour drive between us. Finally arrived in Newcastle, and fortunately, Lenroc’s ltd was a subsidiary company of Bennett & Woods, and that company had a branch in Newcastle, so I was able to start work after I spoke to the man ager.

In the discussions with him, he told me that there were Martial Art clubs up on the hill past the ocean swimming pool, he was not sure what type, but told me what times he saw them walking to the sports building after work. I did this and found out there was Judo, Jujitsu and a small karate class was being conducted. Karate classes on a Monday, Wednesday and Saturday Evenings How happy could you be, so I joined them, they were quite surprised that I actually had some past knowledge so the transition was made easier. The style they were doing was called SHOTOKAN which was very similar to what I had experienced in Adelaide, with some variations of technique and movement especially in Kata. They were intrigued with what I had been taught with Shuri Te in the years gone by in the U.K. As my father was a member of the Australian Parachute Battalion, he was away a lot, so I could go training, but sticking to what I was actually taught by my very first Teacher – Senshi NAKAYAMA – as I did not want to deviate from his teachings. The instructor in charge of the training classes was an ex- Army Sergeant and very strict on discipline, which was good for morale and training. His name was Clarrie Fitzgerald who apparently had trained in Japan whilst on military service. I checked with my father, and he confirmed that the same gentleman was the same instructor in Williamtown for the 16thParachute Battalion in hand to hand combat. After nearly 6 months in Newcastle I decided to join the armed forces like my older brother, but, enlisted in the RAAF instead as I liked the flying like my Uncle Ivor who was a member of the RAF in England. Hehehe, wasn’t very popular with the Army guys.

Through the purity

Of the moonlight silenced

Both nightingale and

Cricket, the cuckoo alone

Sings all through the bright-lit night

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My Mother and I while on leave

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L-R: My father, our Dog Rex and I

This move was beneficial to me as it turned out, as I was able to really put my training into action against other military personnel during combat training against bayonets and rifles. I entered Richmond training base in New South Wales on 22nd August 1955 and spent 3 months in basic training and it was well worth it, as the Corporal Drill instructor had me helping him teach some of the Self - defence and basics that I had been taught since 1949. My 2 best mates (shown below) enjoyed the extra training we did together in the airforce gymnasium in our spare time, and we had a few of the more regular airforce personnel became interested and joined in the classes with us.

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It was during this time that I met by accident, a Japanese man in the hotel bar not far from the base. Fortunately, his English was reasonably good and got into a conversation with him. As it turned out –surprisingly-, he was from Okinawa and was working near the base. How lucky can you get, as it turned out he was trained in the Shorin Shuri Te method – his name Sensei Sakato Sassagawa –who had been training for some 30 + years.

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Myself 4th from the left in second row

Boy did we have a lot of knowledge from him, and as it turned out he actually lived at Redfern near the Airforce Stores depot, so after leaving Richmond, managed to be posted to that base, after my initial Technical training conducted in Wagga Wagga. It was at this time, that a Karate (Boxing) tournament or competition was being organized for ALL service personnel. It was confirmed this is the Annual Inter-service championships to be conducted in Sydney. I entered my name and was selected in my particular weight division and the open Kata section. I was getting quite excited so trained hard and even went for early morning runs to boost my stamina. Eventually the time arrived and headed off for the weekend. We were accommodated at Penrith so not far to get to the venue. What a wonderful event and I finally won the overall Champion trophy for Kata particularly and winning most of my Kumite rounds. Mother and Father were so proud as my father was stationed at the Williamtown Airforce base with the 16th Parachute Battalion. I returned to Wagga Wagga airforce base a hero and we partied well, I was even given 3 days leave to go back to Booragul to spend time with family, and you can possibly understand why we had such a grand time, and I still have that trophy to this very day tucked away in my museum dojo. When I returned to Wagga Wagga, I was asked to start the Karate classes and was allowed to use the Officer’s gymnasium as it had more ‘work-out’ equipment for building the muscles and doing speed work on bags and other equipment. This helped enormously and the members patted me on the back for gaining a coupe over the officers.

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1956 saw me being transferred to the Airforce base in Laverton Victoria and I was advised I would be taught the same system when he referred me to an instructor of our system in Melbourne. Before I left New South Wales, SAKATO sensei advised he was going to contact his master in Okinawa to recommend me to be able to wear a Black belt (as I had already turned 18 years old) Certificates were never issued so I was told, it was what you did and how you trained that more important, and how true it was then.

In the outside world

You are measured by your deeds:

In the spiritual world,

You are measured by your inner strength

CHAPTER 4

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

A fter arriving in Melbourne and settled into the base Unit, I finally made contact with the person I was instructed to train under. He lived in the suburb of Tottenham, which was not that far from Laverton so I was able to drive my Morris Mini back and for. OCHIDA Koshiki sensei, again, was a hard task master and was not worried about using a bamboo stick to get his point across. We trained hard for four to six hours on Saturdays, Sundays (unless on special guard duty), and then I was fortunate to be transferred to the Airforce unit in Tottenham itself, so I had less distance to travel and more freedom to do more training after work and free weekends. Still again we trained in shorts or tracksuits as there was No specific uniform to wear to designate what we were doing or who we were. Finally, I was advised by Ochida Koshiki that Sakato Sasagawa had received approval to test me to the level of a Black Belt. This took place in 1957 in the afternoon of Saturday at Tottenham Dojo beginning at 1:00 pm. I had NO idea what I was in for, but was determined to do the best I could so that my parents and my teachers would be proud of me. Both Sakato & Ochida oversaw the session for my promotion level. It finally stopped at 10:30 pm that night and was advised it would resume the following morning at 9 am on that Sunday. No indication as to how long I will need to go to complete what they had in mind for me. How can anyone forget that date of the most traumatic, strenuous and physical day in your life:- 30 th and 31 st March 1957. The end came at 12.30 pm on the Sunday and by then I could hardly walk, then I was proudly made to face both whereby they placed the Black Belt in front of me to show I had earned their respect and admiration.(I STILL HAVE THAT VERY BLACK BELT(Kuro Obi) TO THIS DAY of 19 th September 2014 and plan to pass it on to a worthy member. All the training I had done finally hit home when I was flown in a Canberra Bomber to a place called– BUTTERWORTH. It was a RAAF base in northern Malaya nearest the eastern border. On the flight was a group of British Airmen who I had got to know during my time in Laverton and were – as the story was meant to go, on a Meteorological study – but like us, that was not the case. The Canberra Jet is a Bomber and used Butterworth as a ‘jump-off’ for bombing the jungles of guerrillas and drug l ords.

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Our position was tracking through the Malay jungle on patrol to try and eliminate the in-coming drug traffickers and the guerillas that crossed the border.

The Wisteria

Sweet mauve flowers growing wild

In the dark forest

Unseen, unwanted, purple

Weeds among cherry trees

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that is me 4th from the front just behind the Malay tracker.

My daughter and son-in-law found this photo in the Canberra War museum. After thoroughly checking with the museum they were allowed to take a photo so they can present to me as memories.

We returned to base and watched Allan get blown up on the same tarmac by a mortar shell. I know I should not have felt malice, but, I did against these guys. Once you have faced that separate moment – as my father and brother faced in their military service with WW 11, and Vietnam – you dwell on it for a moment but have no time to linger, you get on with the job and do it well and try to survive. We were all flown back to Australia that week and I never returned till later in life. Made very close friends with the English Airforce guys and spent a lot of time with them. This helped to forget to a degree the things we saw and did in Malaya

At last back to training in Melbourne under Ochida Sensei along with Sensei Sakato Sasagawa, who had who had travelled down from NSW to join us and train with Ochida sensei. As it turned out, he was returning to his homeland in Okinawa that week and was saying a farewell to us all, and invited us to make the trip to Okinawa one day.

During this time in 1958, I met by accident, someone who eventually would become my wife on the Base at Tottenham. We met in the August, got engaged and before I knew it, she had got discharged and flew to her home in Western Australia (I should have woken up to her scheme). We got married in December (yes you may say – too fast), and I agree, as the marriage was doomed from the start To maintain sanity I returned to Melbourne to my work in the airforce until I found out the wife was pregnant and wanted me back in W.A. Fortunately I managed to get a transfer in 1959 to the airforce base in Pearce at Bullsbrook, a 30 minute scooter ride from home. I began teaching regularly at the airforce base, and in August 1959 was able to make a visit to Okinawa - Japan while my holidays were available.

In the meantime my wife was resting up as we found out that she was in the early stages of pregnancy and was not due until sometime in November so all going well it will give me the chance to establish myself with the airforce as a self-defence instructor using my Karate knowledge and get a transfer permanently to RAAF base Pearce where I can ride my scooter from Fremantle to the Base and with on-base accommodation can spend the time teaching when I am on special duty, which can happen if you get a posting in one the Telecom units, which are high tech and of secret standing whereby you have to be available over the weekends. As Pearce has a Gymnasium and a basketball court we can train in both facilities free of charge. The wife may not be happy with that but Karate-do is part of my life and has been long before I ever met her and will continue on to the future, besides the airforce my karate is my life.

CHAPTER 5

A NEW WORLD

W ow, what a change in environment from what I have just left behind in Australia, landing at the Airport in Naha city.

I was met personally by Sensei Heihatiro Okada the Head of the Shuri Te Shorin Ryu Karate-do and another member who it came to light as Kentaro Sato one of the junior students and I was a bit concerned about whether they could speak English or not as my vocabulary of Japanese was limited to karate training only. But, it did not take me long to be able to talk to them as their English was quite good due to the classes conducted on the island by the American Airforce and military stationed all over the island.

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I met this great guy just outside at the dojo of Naha in Okinawa – Usui MASAAKI and we became close friends and are still to this very day. Training was incredible so much knowledge and internal energy and power transmitted outwards, we also trained with another famous master who is so respected and admired worldwide as well – Master Teruo Shimabukuro of the Shobayashi Shorin Ryu training with a mixed group of Americans, British, French and all had landed at different times during the week before and after I had landed in Naha.

I vowed that I would return whenever I had the chance, and would work on the finance as well to make regular trips.

It was great working with all these European’s and we all could not help but converse about the training we were receiving and the variations of technique, knowledge and wonderment we are all witnessing with the basic blocks, strikes, kicks, and the importance of balance centre-lining the body against the opponent. I slept every day in the dojo and trained from 7 am doing relaxation exercises like Tai Chi and stopped at 8 am for breakfast (yuk, rice again with raw egg) with an occasional slices of toast which were yummy. Training began again at 9.30 am and continued till 12 noon, these sessions were going through the basic blocks but not the way I was shown in my earlier years, it was the same action but with a much higher technology that was surprising in its impact point, this also applied to all the moves of strikes, kicks and adjusting the stances to suit. This was the program every day, and after lunch began again till 4.30 pm (after cleaning the floor before and after the lessons) when it was time for junior class to attend, they finished at 6.30 when 7 pm the seniors arrived, and training continued until 9 pm or sometimes later. So much to have learnt over the 2 ½ months training, and my duties in between were to clean the dojo all over every 2nd day, it was worth the effort indeed and I made many friends which have lasted a lifetime.

When I returned back to the airforce base in Australia, life went on as normal, but I had a huge new curriculum to work with and our training was made harder

By the time I was discharged in 1961 from the airforce – my wife told me she would divorce me if I re-signed on, which I wanted to do. In that time we had lost 1 child through her negligence, and then had another in 1961 who survived. Looking for work in civvy street (as we called it) was hard, and I was not settled as moved from one job to another trying to earn money and raise a family. From the day we got married till the day we finally divorced(11 years later) my wife NEVER worked a day in all that time – so life was tough, but I kept up my training and small classes. My final job was working on the Fremantle waterfront, and I used to get into good training when I was working on the Japanese Cargo ships, as some were Jujitsu and karate from the mainland of Japan. Shotokan and Shito Ryu were the main styles I came across, and they were