Chapter 12. Karate, an alternative story.

Leeds to Essex.

The last days of Leeds.
Suzuki Sensei in Skipton.
Miriam Llewellyn.
Fight training.
Essex
Job interview.
Trying to establish a karate foothold.

I had three years in Leeds which took me through to my degree, but I wasn’t ready to wave goodbye to the city. To my mind I had unfinished business, I was having too much of a good time, I had fallen in love with Leeds, it had everything that Mansfield didn’t have, but the reality was that I struggled to see beyond it.

The only half-baked plans I had were based upon wanting to create more training opportunities. I responded to two ads for teachers in Japan; I was quite prepared to relocate to the other side of the planet, but my applications were met with silence. I suspect this was not the fault of the Japanese side of the equation, but my cack-handed, ill-advised and naive letters of application.

At this stage I was a complete free-agent. I had a summer in the USA (see my blog post on my adventures training around the southern states, https://wadoryu.org.uk/2022/05/31/sample-part-23-foreign-parts/) this experience gave me the idea that nothing was off-limits.

The plan I had was vague. To buy myself time, I applied for a Post Graduate Certificate in Education PGCE at Leeds school of education, based at Beckett Park, training to be an Art teacher. At the time, it wasn’t a serious thing, more an extra qualification I could fall back on, but as is often the case, once the ball is rolling and the momentum is created, it’s a difficult rollercoaster to step off.

At the same time, I was embroiled in relationship issues, which have no real part in a narrative dedicated to karate training. But, if I were to tell the bigger story, then the complete complicated and messy tale, told in an unalloyed no-holds-barred way, might help to explain the fuller mindset that drove my thinking at the time. But, I will spare the reader that experience.

The final year in Leeds.

I had extended my karate contacts. Some of this coincided with Suzuki Sensei seeing the advantage of developing a bridgehead in North Yorkshire. He had a useful connection in Miriam Llewellyn who was a lady Wado Dan grade who had moved from the south of England to North Yorkshire and was actually very close to Suzuki Sensei.

Miriam was a dedicated karateka who was determined to create a hub of Wado karate in Yorkshire, in the Skipton area. To his credit, Suzuki Sensei did his best to support her efforts and frequently came up to her Dojo in Cononley, Skipton.

The Dojo was part of an old factory complex from the industrial age. It occupied a single capacious floor of the building and was entered via a winding stairway. In the winter it was impossible to heat, despite bought-in Calor Gas burners; so warm-ups had to be vigorous.

I attended courses with Suzuki Sensei in Cononley whenever I could, it was quite easy to get to from Leeds. Often, Sensei would use me as his Uke. As was typical of him, I frequently felt the full force of his technique and his sweep take-downs, which he would gleefully execute without warning. It was a real pleasure to me to get that full-on ‘Suzuki body-feedback’, something that has stayed with me.

Group photo taken at the Mill years later, this time with Suzanne Genery (2^nd L) Geoff Thompson (4^th L), Janice Argyle (5^th L), Andrew Genery (3^rd R), Miriam Llewellyn (2^nd R) and Steve Greenwood (Far R). Photo courtesy of Steve Greenwood.

Fight training.

Miriam realised that as a female instructor she had her weaknesses; one of those was that she struggled to teach fighting. I don’t think it was one of her strengths, and also she was sailing against the wind in a somewhat macho Yorkshire environment (although it wasn’t an exclusively male Dojo).

Very early on she felt she needed to tap into the willing resources of myself and Mark Harland, assisted by Keith Walker. ‘Can you come over and run a fighting course?’, ‘Yes, no problem’. But it wasn’t that easy.

Although the first time we did it, in our enthusiasm we threw everything into it. But, it was too much for the Cononley regulars, we gave them a royal Leeds-style fighting experience and so the second time Miriam booked us, they voted with their feet and hardly anyone turned up.

Miriam was not to be deterred, so she got sneaky; she booked us to run another fighting course but didn’t tell her students. So, they showed up, expecting a normal class and then we walked through the door, oh no… we could see their faces drop.