L to R, Keith Walker, myself, Mark Harland and Jeffrey. UKKW Summer Course.
In this latest chapter:
More competitions.
Visitors to the Dojo.
Dojo regulars.
Keith Walker.
How the Dojo developed.
Dave Ross can’t take enough credit for his dedication to the Leeds Dojo and his own training. He hardly missed any of the training sessions at the YMCA, he was often the person in charge of transport; to my memory he had a Ford Transit van. If we couldn’t get to a venue via the rail network we would all bundle into Dave’s van.
It has to be said, in those days rail travel was not the major expense it is today and, for me, I had the benefit of a student railcard; it was easy to hop on a train to Doncaster, Sheffield or Newcastle.
Our competition adventures continued. Some time in about 1979, we had entered our team for an open contest in Peterlee in County Durham, eighty-five miles north. Dave’s van was the only logical way we could get everybody there.
Come the early morning of our journey and we found we were one man down. Alan had failed to turn up, so not to be deterred we decided to rouse him from his bed, but we were running late.
Predictably, Alan was not even awake when we pulled up outside his skanky digs. After banging on his door and let in by one of his housemates, we roughly bundled him, and his mattress, into the back of Dave’s van, grabbed his gi and we were off. Alan was apologetic (his alarm hadn’t gone off) but complained bitterly that he had no clothes, apart from the gi. I remember that Mark Harland loaned him his sheepskin coat for the rest of the day. Not that he spent much time competing, for him, all that way up and knocked out in the first fight.
Another meeting with John Moreton.
At a championship in Huddersfield we witnessed the invincible John Moreton in action. He recognised the lads from Leeds and was very friendly, and, exactly as I had been told, Jeffrey (from the Leeds Dojo) volunteered to stand on the side of the fighting area and hold Moreton’s false teeth.
Watching him fight was an experience in itself. The ref commanded the start but really Moreton was the one in charge. I can see it now – he sprang forward with the most ferocious kiai right in his opponent’s face, I swear I saw his hair part. A terrifying visage, a mask of fury, open-mouthed, no teeth, and then he just walked forward, closing the gap on the shaking opponent.
Moreton made no attempt at a guard, his arms just hung down by his side, fists knotted, why would he bother? And then he went to work; a flurry of punches and the opponent was driven into a corner. The ref intervened and for whatever time was left on the clock, more of the same. An easy win for Mr Moreton. Once seen, never forgotten. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.
The land of the Wildlings.
For competitions, the further North we went the crazier it got. In open contests up near the Scottish border we joked about the wildness of the Scots coming over the wall, swinging sporrans and claymores, and when we met them on the competition area they never failed to impress and, to our eyes, live up to the stereotype. These were rough and determined fighters, though modest in victory and gracious in defeat.
At that time, I had tuned my jodan mawashigeri (head-level roundhouse kick) to a good level and I could usually engineer a situation where I could slot one in. One particular Scots fighter I took by complete surprise and hit him in the face with a kick that went straight through his blind spot. Afterwards, he came up to me and smilingly complemented me on the technique. That was good sportsmanship.
Dojo visitors.
Over the years we had many visitors to our YMCA Dojo in Leeds; some drop-in and some organised. Most of which haven’t really stuck in my memory, but a couple do.
Apart from some Kung Fu dudes who I wondered why they’d bothered to show up; they didn’t want to learn anything, just wanted a workout, there was an intriguing American guy. I say ‘intriguing’ because he was a practitioner of a karate system I had never even heard of, Chito Ryu. He explained that the Ryu was founder by Chitose Tsuyoshi (1898 – 1984) an Okinawan whose grandfather was the famous Matsumora Sokon. Although the style was founded in Japan it was generally considered an Okinawan school, mixing Shuri-Te with Naha-Te. He had a distinct way of performing techniques, it was very alien to our Wado way. I think he only did one or two lessons with us. I have never seen any Chito Ryu since that time.
We had a really interesting experience courtesy of Dave Ross. He was attending night school to learn Japanese; we used to joke with him about how he put sticky labels around his house with Japanese words on them, to help him to learn. But, he became friends with a fellow student, another martial arts guy who was a kendo teacher. Dave persuaded him to drop in on our Dojo to give a kendo demonstration.
A group of us in the Leeds YMCA. Bottom L, Dave Ross, top R Keith Walker.
So, on a set date he turned up to the YMCA with three or four of his students. I think he was looking at the possibility of recruiting some of us, but although we were bedazzled by the lacquered armour and the vigour of the training bouts, my Dojo members were either cash-strapped students, or people who could not afford to buy the kit, so it never happened.
In the spirit of a true exchange, I gave a demonstration of Wado paired kata and other kata or kihon. I don’t think the kendo instructor had seen much karate before, much less Wado. He was puzzled about how we worked and trained, but commented that the way we took our guard mirrored the way they gripped the shinai. I suppose it’s a logical comparison.
Competitive exchanges.
We also scheduled in visits from my old Sensei Dave Allsop, who brought the team up for some competitive exchanges. My inexperienced team had a series of humbling encounters with Dave’s seasoned Dojo seniors. We did a similar thing through Mark Harland’s contacts with the Kagami Shin Kai. Although some of the fights were inclined to get a little over-heated; the lower grade students just liked knocking lumps off each other. One particular encounter ended up in hospitalisation for both parties; when from the Leeds Dojo, Chris Bamford. fractured his wrist with the same punch that he broke Les Pilling’s jaw. Les was from the Settle Dojo of Kagami Shin Kai.
‘Jeffrey.’
As mentioned previously, I had inherited Jeffrey as part of the Dojo. Dave Ross was very kind to him as he had a way of stepping over the line. He must have been in his mid-40’s, not particularly tall but solidly built. At times he would try and wind-up Dojo members and it was a real challenge to curb his enthusiasm.
An example being, one lesson he brought in a stack of boards and declared that he was going to break them with his fists; I think I must have just raised my eyebrows and ignored him, but I hadn’t noticed what other Dojo members had seen… Jeffrey hadn’t picked solid pine boards, the standard stuff that was used for tamashiwara, instead, his stack of boards were three-quarter inch plywood. There is no way you could break those, even with a hammer, the grain of each layer being opposite to its adjacent layer making it almost indestructible.
The first I was aware of it was Jeffrey’s kiai, which was more one of pain than anything else. One of the green belts was supporting the plywood while Jeffrey repeatedly mashed his knuckles against it. Of course it didn’t break, but he saw it as a matter of pride and kept smashing away repeatedly. By this time, everyone had stopped to watch. His knuckles on his right hand a bloody mess. Eventually it became obvious to him that it wasn’t going to break and he just gave up.
One of his favourite ways of baiting me was to say, “John Moreton wouldn’t do it like that”. I refused to allow it to annoy me, but it didn’t stop him.
Keith Walker.
Time to mention one of the most significant characters to come out of the Leeds YMCA Dojo.
Keith Walker cut a swathe through UK Wado karate from the 1980’s onwards. Somebody once described him as the most formidable Wado fighter and technician of his generation, I can’t think of many people who would argue with that.
But it all started like this…