“A place for musings and nonsensical articles that pop into my head from time to time.”
- Marc Charles
Through the looking glass by marc charles
In late 1969, I stepped off an airplane at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, a twenty-year-old Marine Second Lieutenant with gold bars on my collar replacing the stripes on my sleeve. Except for Canada, across the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, I had never been outside the United States. The first thing I remember was the smell.
It was a combination of hot soy in a skillet, open benjo ditches and the acrid bite of burning automobile tires as Okinawan protesters snake danced around torched cars chanting “go home” in pigeon. Everything was different. Like Alice, I felt I had fallen through the looking glass.
The world was much larger then. Heartland Americans seldom saw Asians. When we did, Hondas and Toyotas did not come to mind. That would follow. In those days, the derogatory characterizations of fathers from WWII and Korea were our references.
U.S. Armed Forces bases in Asia were bastions of hometown America, designed to give the soldier, sailor, airman, Marine everything he could find in any-town USA--well, almost everything. For what many young men wanted, they found outside the compound gates in the “Vill” (short for Village). Cheap beer and female companionship topped a lot of lists. Besides these baser drives, very few were interested in the history or culture of the country in which they resided.
A small group appreciated their own culture but were curious about the marked differences just beyond the gate. When I found the martial arts, everything changed. I was not repulsed by the differences--I was intrigued. Through books, constant questions to senseis and searching the island on an old Honda motorcycle, I learned the Okinawans had kingdoms and diplomats at the ancient Chinese court in Peking when the Japanese had no cities or cohesive culture and were busy foraging for food on rocky beaches. I learned that the Japanese that came to Okinawa much later did so as the vanquished from wars in Japan and commenced to trample the island culture. The islands had been known by their Chinese name of Lieu Chu for centuries, but the new conquerors from the north had trouble with the “L” sound. In the Japanese language the “L” is sounded as an “R”. So, Lieu Chu became Ryukyu, the name the island chain was known by until the late 20th century. At the time, very few knew this. Most did not care to know.
In 1969 the Okinawan people wanted to be Japanese, not the servants of the American military. Americans ruled Okinawa as a protectorate, a holdover from victory in World War II. I soon learned the Okinawan people, and Asians in general, were not the less-human species our culture assumed. If you took the time, they were warm, forgiving of our oddities and had martial arts that seem almost magical, vanquishing larger foes by controlling their force. This was not common knowledge in 1969. For the next two decades I would spend a lot of time in the orient and I would try to learn from all.
I have walked the Shwedagon in Rangoon and climbed the Badaling Great Wall in China. I have breathed the soot filled air of Shenyang, China and coughed the red dust of New Delhi, India. I have been amazed and humbled by Mother Teresa and her oasis of calm among the slums of Calcutta and dodged unmentionable waste on city sidewalks in the metropolis now known as Mumbai, then called Bombay. I have watched around the clock cremations at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, dined with the Gurkha and wandered the streets of Nepal during a beggar’s moon. I have watched the beaches of Sri Lanka at their most peaceful and seen the aftermath of civil war in the north. I have dodged lightning strikes in Kuala Lumpur, wandered the back alleyways of Singapore, and bartered for a kris in Jakarta. I have taught self-defense in Dhaka, Bangladesh, gotten lost in the tenements of Hong Kong and the maze that is Kowloon. I have done time on Yankee and Dixie station in Viet Nam and explored off the beaten path in Kaohsiung, Taichung and Taipei, Taiwan. I have trained in the jungles of the Philippines and learned to eat bat, owl, and other delicacies from Negritos. I have also ridden Jeepneys, studied Escrima and given karate and kobudo martial demonstrations to Manila police. I have wandered Thailand from Phuket to Bangkok to the Golden Triangle. I have travelled Asia as a Marine on official assignment, sometimes as a traveler, infrequently as a tourist, and always as a student of martial arts trying to accumulate more skill. But Okinawa was the first stop on my Asian odyssey and Japan captured my heart.
I would eventually become a Roku-dan (sixth degree black belt) in Okinawan Kenpo Karate and a Roku-dan in Kobudo (the weapons of Okinawa). I would also obtain a Sho-dan (first degree black belt) standing in Shorinryu Karate and study under some brilliant instructors in Judo, Aikido, Aikijujitsu, American Kenpo and other art forms. I have founded Okinawan Kenpo and Kobudo schools in Virginia and Hawaii and taught hundreds of Marines on aircraft carrier hanger decks, amphibious well decks and Embassy Marine houses in every clime and place.
I have trained in backyards, garages, alleyways, and some very small dojos as well as some of the grandest. Whether searching for a kris in Jakarta or katana in Kamakura I tried to cobble out a sense of history in each one of the countries visited while adding to my arsenal as a professional Marine. I have spent much of my adult life studying, working, and living in Asia. For many years I have been blessed to be married to a remarkable university educated Japanese lady who claims I know more about Japanese history than she. She is wrong, I do not. But I have made it a point to learn about the unique warriors of Asia and especially ancient Japan and modern Okinawa.
Japan’s history has been one of strife. Remains found in burial tombs ranging from the fourth century AD are ringed with swords, spears, helmets, shields, bows, arrows, and all manner of martial gear attesting to the military sophistication and mindset of the people. The culmination of this warrior ethos led to the establishment of a military government in 1185. Yoritomo Minamoto seized control of Japan when his unsophisticated bushi warriors easily defeated the more civilized noble army of the Emperor in engagements known as the Genpei Wars.
Yoritomo did not want his tough country warriors to fall victim to the bureaucratic malaise of other conquering armies as they adjusted from conquerors to rulers. He also was a little paranoid―looking over his shoulder and listening for footsteps of the next ambitious warlord from the provinces wielding a sword and a bow, looking for glory. Yoritomo moved his army and his paranoia eastward to Kamakura and established the Bakufu (government). It was the first centralized government run by a military junta in Japan’s history. Some form of this junta, with Samurai at the helm, would rule Japan for the next 683 years. In 1868, the last Tokugawa shogun would resign and power shift back to the Emperor (Meiji Restoration) ending the rule of the Samurai.
The word “Samurai” derives from the verb saburau, “to serve”. The Samurai and their earlier cousins, the more proficient bushi warriors, were unique in the annals of history. Their allegiance to their overlord was fanatical. Their willingness to die and the ritual suicide of seppuku (more commonly termed hara kiri—belly cutting) set them apart. A Samurai’s life was to be “light as a feather” and he had to be ready to lay it down at a moment’s notice.
Another tenant of the Samurai that set him apart from other ruling classes of the world was the code of the warrior—bushido. In the 19th century Nitobe Inazo would write a best seller (President Teddy Roosevelt bought five dozen copies for family and friends) Bushido, the Soul of Japan. Bushido teaches that men should behave according to an absolute moral standard, one that transcends logic. What’s right is right, and what is wrong is wrong. The difference between good and bad and between right and wrong are givens, not arguments subject to discussion or justification, and a man should know the difference. The Eight Virtues of Bushido were: 1) Rectitude or Justice; 2) Courage; 3) Benevolence or Mercy; 4) Politeness; 5) Honesty and Sincerity; 6) Honor; 7) Loyalty; and 8) Character and Self Control. Upon these pillars rode the chivalry of the Samurai.
The death knell of the Samurai was sounded with the ascension to power of Ieyasu Tokugawa and the 268 years of peace he and his progeny presented the country. In 1600 he was victorious at the battle of Sekigahara. Three years later he became the founder of a Shogunate in a dynasty that would last 268 years –until 1868. These 268 years of virtual peace reshaped the country.
Once control was established, people could move about. Intra-country trade flourished. Harvests stabilized, subject only to natural disasters, not the ravages of war. Hunger was still an issue, but not on the grand scale of the preceding 200 years of the Warring States Period.
Ieyasu was a visionary and an intricate planner. But like the law of unintended consequences, many of his edicts eventually proved counterproductive to the government that wrought them. His burdensome taxation of large landowners brought many of them down releasing a flood of master less samurai onto the economy. These ronin (or wave-men who floated from place to place without allegiance to a master) were warriors in a land of peace. They had no jobs and no way to get them. Many put up their swords and became laborers or artisans. Many did not and became bodyguards for gangsters or outright brigands themselves, abandoning all the precepts of Bushido.
Another unintended consequence was kyodai goroshi or relative killing. Ieyasu had been specific in dictating the way his successors would be chosen. They had to come from his line. Whether legitimate or not, any male progeny was to be considered by the Chamberlain (the departing Shogun’s chief of staff), the Tairo (Greater Counselors) and the Roju (Lesser Counselors)—a total of about eight men.
Unfortunately, Ieyasu left many progeny. Because many owed their livelihood and power to continued favor of the Shogun, they had a vested interest in who might ascend to the Shogun position. Some attempted to influence the outcome. Many of the progeny would not live to make the trek to Edo for an audience and evaluation. They would die of mysterious causes, suddenly and without warning or fall victim to “bandits”. Of course, none in the government wanted a scandal tied to their actions, so third-party assassins were used. Who better to employ for such a task than Shinobi no mono (children of the grass—ninja)?
The Tokugawa’s gift of peace to the land meant the Samurai had no wars to fight. The constant honing of martial skills was not required. Bushido gave way to getting ahead in a country where merchants controlled trade and money. The country’s hierarchical symmetry was turned on its head. Samurai had few skills with which to make money. They did have power, still being at the apex of government. Corruption was rampant at every level. As always, the commoner paid the price. Young Samurai were either schooled in the art of corruption and influence peddling or taught the old ways of Bushido with few means to get ahead or to test their ability. One way for the dedicated to test their martial skills was musha shugyo (warrior’s pilgrimage).
The acolyte would travel the county stopping in dojos (martial schools) trying to perfect his skill with the sword. If he lived, he might become famous. If he died, then he had been true to Bushido. But whether he became famous of not, if he lived and adhered to bushido he was relegated to the life of a pauper, living off the largess of others. The era of Tokugawa peace had simply made the Samurai obsolete.
The history of Okinawa and Japan fascinates me. I have written historical novels about them. See my Death Among Brothers trilogy on this site. While I fell through the looking glass in 1969, my 24 plus years studying the countries and cultures with a focus on martial arts have led me to believe I did not fall through the looking glass, I became the looking glass, reflecting the cultures that shaped me.
Mystical martial arts by Marc Charles
I was a young Marine Second Lieutenant the first time I encountered a mystical martial art. On Camp Hansen, Okinawa in 1970 the choices for afterhours entertainment related to sports, drinking, or chasing nasans in Kin Village. I was not opposed to chasing nasans, but it was expensive. The strict Japanese translation for nasan is “older sister” but with our limited Japanese vocabulary, the term was applied to any single Okinawan female found beyond the gates. Drinking did not suit me. I never really developed a taste for it and found the disorientation and throbbing head of the morning after a poor tradeoff for the loss of inhibition. That left sports. On the base you could find anything from bowling to ping pong to baseball. Being a wrestler in high school, I opted for something more individual and oriental. I was in the land of the rising sun; why not try martial arts?
Karate was the art de jour. A short walk outside the gate into Kin Village and you could visit a master’s dojo. I do not mean a “master” in the sense of the scores you see lining the yellow pages today. I mean a died in the wool, by God, tenth degree black belt with a pedigree going back a hundred years or more.
Eizo Shimabuku taught on Monday’s, Wednesdays, and Fridays his traditional Shobayashi Shorinryu karate in his Rendokan Dojo. You could find his brother Tatsuo Shimabuku instructing his system of Isshinryu karate, a system he had compiled from Shorin, Shorei and Goju styles. He taught on base at the Camp Hansen Martial Arts Gym (a huge World War II Quonset hut divided in half, the front side for karate and the back half for judo).
A short cab ride would bring you to Agena where other real masters trained. While I wanted martial arts training, I was not sure I wanted the rough and bruise ready punishment I witnessed in visits to these dojos. I was not ready to hideously scar my first two knuckles on each hand by constantly striking the makiwara board, nor mix it up with a room full of eighteen-year olds beating the hell out of each other. If they pulled punches and kicks during sparring, I did not see it. Besides, the young hard-hitting Marines might not want to pass up an opportunity to thump an officer. In those days (with the rare exception) you would never find an officer in a dojo. Discretion became the better part of valor and I opted for the art that I thought more closely resembled wrestling and might keep me from losing teeth. I went to the back door of Camp Hansen Martial Arts Gym and enrolled in judo.
I enjoyed judo. It was different. I learned to fall and became proficient in many of the basic throws. Both would hold me in good stead in later years. The sensei was an old white hair gentleman named Tomaki. He was a legend on the island. Every Okinawan I spoke to seemed to know him. He certainly stood out. At six feet tall, he was a giant among the Okinawans. He spoke little English and had to rely on a sempai, a Marine Staff Sergeant married to an Okinawan girl, to translate. It did not take much, as unlike the karate dojo that was always full of striking, kicking, and shouting Marines, our little judo dojo consisted of Tomaki, the Staff Sergeant, me and two others that rotated in and out continually. The teacher to taught ratio was excellent. Pointing and a few grunts went a long way.
Tomaki taught responsibility. Both the uki and the tori (throwee and thrower) had responsibilities to each other. If you were executing ippon seoi nage, the one armed shoulder throw, it was your responsibility to make the throw clean and the technique perfect so your opponent had an opportunity to turn over in the air and slap the map and not be injured. Anything less reflected poorly on your character and the character of your teacher. The “do” in judo stresses “the way” to better yourself; unlike jujitsu, its predecessor which is a combative art meant to harm the opponent. It was also unlike the judo I would study in the states years later that was thoroughly non-Tomaki sensei as it stressed getting a point even if it meant driving your opponent through the mat.
I learned a great many things from the old man, not the least of which was the value of a master’s teachings. I have since been exposed to many martial artists, but the students who have studied in a master’s dojo have a little something extra. Uchi deshis, or house students, have a little bit more. The students who have been “live-in students” to a master tend to reflect that master’s persona and powerful simplistic grace so difficult to duplicate. Tomaki sensei was the first martial artist to mystify me.
One evening, after a particularly hard workout, Tomaki sensei instructed the Staff Sergeant to retrieve a karate man from the dojo next door. The Staff Sergeant returned with a large, muscular brown belt. Tomaki instructed the Marine to strike him with a lunge punch to the chest. The Marine complied and launched a powerful fist into the center of the old man’s chest. It did not land. Tomaki sensei moved slightly and trapped the fist in one of his hands and struck the Marine with the tip of his other thumb between the attacking fist’s first and second knuckles. The large Marine screamed and dropped to the floor trying to get away from the pain. Tomaki released the pressure and massaged his hand and the Marine left baffled, but none the worse for wear. Tomaki sensei explained the technique was from the fifth book of judo. The Staff Sergeant explained the fifth book was a holdover from the jujitsu days where atemi blows to key pressure points were learned.
It was my first introduction to kyusho or pressure points and while I had always treated my judo sensei with respect, his little demonstration elevated that treatment to something closely akin to reverence. The true meaning of the martial arts started to germinate. Knowledge over power; harmony over aggression. I decided to redouble my efforts in learning my chosen art form. I had obviously missed some things.
Over the years I have seen many truly gifted martial artists but have been mystified only twice. The second happened in Bangkok many years later in a two-hour training session by a master of a Japanese aikijujitsu system--but that is a story for another time. Tomaki sensei and I were never close. My schedule did not allow me to make every session, we had a language barrier, and we came from different worlds. But his eighteen months of off and on teachings and a five second demonstration on a karate brown belt mystified me enough to realize I had embarked on a journey that few Americans would take and one that would continue to capture my imagination for a life time. Domo arigato, Tomaki sensei!
The undertaker By marc charles
It’s 1972 and I am back in “the world” after two years in Asia. I am assigned to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. It is culture shock on many different levels.
The first shock was driving through the same tunnel under Pacific Highway that I had travelled four years before as a frightened Marine recruit. Four years earlier, Drill Instructors controlled my world for eight weeks and held positions of demigods. Now Drill Instructors saluted me. The second culture shock came when I tried to find a place to continue to “play” Judo (a term used in those days by all judoka, students of judo). There was none offered on the base. After much searching I found a dojo in town on University Avenue, paid my money and participated. I didn’t like it from the start.
The responsibility element drilled into me in Okinawa by Tomaki sensei was sorely missing. The tori had no responsibility for the uki and vice versa. It was the antithesis of the judo I loved in Okinawa. After a few weeks of getting driven through mats by bad technique, I developed the desire to jump up and punch my opponent for rudeness. I decided if I was going to want to resort to such violence, I had better learn how. I started looking for a karate dojo.
There were two options on base at the time. Kajukenbo was run by a disbursing sergeant black belt and his minions. The other was a class mentioned almost in whispers having something to do with the close combat headquarters down by the obstacle course inside the restricted Recruit Training Regiment area. I worked with Drill Instructors in the Recruit Training Regiment as a Series Officer and was familiar with the close combat instructors but could not find the elusive dojo. Because I could not get a line on this mystery class and because my fellow officers advised me to give the close combat area a wide berth, I opted for the paid Kajukenbo class. I do not remember much about Kajukenbo except I thought I was making good progress in sparring. It was a large coed class with about one third beginners, one third who knew a little , and one third seasoned practitioners.
During one training session a man walked in dressed like an undertaker. He was a well-muscled black man with a shaved head, black sun glasses, white shirt, black suit and a skinny black tie. He walked over to the bleachers, took a seat among the spectators and never said a word.
The black belts and senior brown belts had a lot to say, albeit in whispers. They went on with their training, always looking over their shoulders, keeping the undertaker in sight. The undertaker watched for about fifteen minutes, got up and walked out the way he came. When he had gone, the senior Kajukenbo leaders huddled up for a discussion. During the break I wandered over to ask questions. “Who was that masked man?” The responses identified Gunny Jones, the Close Combat Chief Instructor for the Recruit Training Regiment. Even though he was no longer in the building, they kept their voices low. Everyone had an opinion. He was the “real thing”. No one could beat him. He took on all comers in Southern California and broke ribs, closed eyes and crippled opponents.
I listened to the scuttlebutt for as long as I could take it and went about searching for this urban legend. Why should I stay with Kajukenbo when one visit by the Gunny caused my instructors to tremble?
His name was Gunnery Sergeant Jones and the legend was more fact than fiction. I found him in his Quonset hut headquarters off the obstacle course where few officers trod. I told him that I heard he “played” karate. Bad mistake! He pushed his campaign hat up to look me in the eyes and said, “Sir…I don’t play.” Message received. I apologized and asked if I could train with him. His response was he only trained his staff and wasn’t looking for any students. Over the next several months I repeated my request until he relented and said to show up and he’d see how long I lasted. I lasted two years.
Gunny Jones’ theory on martial arts had two principles. To do damage and to take damage, you had to be in good shape. Secondly, there was no such thing as a block. Every block had the potential to be an offensive break. Over the next two years, he got me into the best shape of my life, introduced me to bruises and tiger balm and taught me how to hurt people.
Everything he taught emphasized power and he had a yoko geri kekomi (side thrust kick) that was crazy. When executing it he would cover half the mat at tremendous speed but so low to the ground that you were mesmerized for a second, not sure what you were seeing. Then he would launch the kick out of the low stance, striking upward, targeting upper thigh, hip or whatever was exposed. The kick would land as if from a mule causing primary damage, and then slide up into the rib area causing excruciating secondary damage. It was a technique almost impossible to defend. The gunny struck with the quickness of a mongoose but with the power of a sledgehammer.
Two images in his dojo define my time there. The first was the appearance; or lack of it. It was the back half of a run down, World War II Quonset hut with a crazy quilt of land fill rejected wrestling mats on the floor. Along the walls, the tops of old derelict recruit mattresses were nailed vertically. Because the sides of a Quonset hut bows outward, the tops of the mattress were nailed to a series of 2x4s and the bottom hung straight down and away from the wall. All had stains, most were torn, and several had blood on them. I almost laughed when I saw the elementary construction. Then one of the gunny’s side thrust kicks picked me up from the center of the mats and sent me into the opposite wall half-way up the vertical mattresses. It shocked the hell out of me, not to mention knocked the breath out of my body. I had never been in a fight against such unabashed aggression and raw power. I became a believer in vertical mattresses.
The second image was of “gunslingers”. That is what I call a constant parade of black belts wanting a match with Gunny Jones. Many were sailors off the ships in San Diego. Some were Marines from Camp Pendleton. Some were civilians. All had two things in common. They wanted a match with Gunny Jones and all were good.
The Gunny would use the traditional Okinawan procedure of having the challenger fight with a student first. My time came. I was a neophyte, trained in only the rudimentary sequences of blocks, punches and kicks offered by the gunny’s training. I was up against a taller and more muscular sailor who could kick the ceiling. What advice did I receive from my mentor? "Even a bird has to land sometime; when he does, hit him". He landed. I hit him using a simple reverse punch to unprotected floating ribs. He went down and stayed down. When he could manage it, he left without bowing. I never saw him again.
Once, a challenge was accepted by the Gunny himself. I presumed the Gunny saw something lethal in this gunslinger that evaded the rest of us. The challenger was a civilian. He was fast and he kicked hard. The challenger set up his kicks with a flurry of punches to the head. It took a while for the gunny to calculate his timing. When he did, an explosive front thrust kick to the solar plexus lifted the challenger off the mat and drove him into one of the vertical mattresses landing in a fetal ball trying to suck air into his lungs. The gunny let him turn a nice shade of blue before motioning one of us to turn him on his back and elevate his hips by pulling upward on his obi (cloth black belt). The blue turned to green as the air rushed back into his lungs and the pain set in. We stood him up, helped him out the door, and never saw him again. What was curious to me was the fact that none of the defeated gunslingers ever came back to seek instruction.
By 1975, when I left San Diego, I had been fighting black belt gunslingers and winning for two years and I was still a white belt attired in judo gi pants and an MCRD sweat shirt. Promotions and the normal trappings of a dojo meant nothing to us…learning and fighting did. Sensei Jones' theory was simple. If you wanted to be good, you had to work hard.
When my brother Glenn, a college professor and Shotokan karateka, visited me in San Diego, I took him to the dojo to watch. He had two questions. Where did we find enough meat to feed Gunny Jones and how the hell could we spar twenty or thirty minutes at a time? The first question had to do with the gunny's massive physique. The second had to do with our stamina ensured by his training regimen. We would start with pushups and sit-ups and side straddle hops until there was puddle of sweat under each of us. Then we’d stretch until everyone screamed. Next, we executed simple punching and kicking drills, forever. Lastly we sparred until the cows came home. I don’t mean the controlled; don’t hurt your opponent stuff of my Kajukenbo experience. I mean the; you’d better block that punch or something on your body was going to break sparring that truly was close combat.
The gunny would transfer to Okinawa and I would receive one letter from him telling me he couldn’t find the type of karate he wanted on the main island and was traveling off island to Hamahiga for kobudo (weapons) instruction. I responded, but never heard from him again.
Sensei Jones taught me many things. After two years with him, if I wanted to jump up and punch a rude judo opponent, I now had the tools to do it. Secondly, I was extremely confident in my ability to protect myself. We didn’t swagger; that wasn’t how we were taught. But I realized that having trained with Gunny Jones now caused people to whisper about me. As the young Marines in Vietnam used to say, “It ain’t nothin but a thang…” meaning: it doesn’t matter; they could whisper whatever they wanted. My martial journey was continuing.