I belong to a forum where former students of a martial arts called Okinawa Te (started by Gordon Doversola in the last 50s) get together and talk the art and the old days. One of the subjects was "Stories from different school locations."
Past students post some stories of where they trained, and what happened. There were no more than five or six Dojos open at one time in the US. A few in New Zealand. I know there's actually one in New Zealand now and two 'official' dojos in SoCal still under Gordon Doversola and the Okinawa Te banner. Most of his students left, opened their own schools and basically, went on their own - Masterless so-to-speak.
Here's one of my stories (and I have several). It's a serious blast from the past...
Straight out of a movie script it would seem…
Training Dojo: Atwater Village
I think it was 1988...
I got a call on a Friday afternoon from Bobby Sanabria (one of my training partners and friends) about driving to Laughlin, NV for a trip to the Annual Okinawan Martial Arts Tournament. I wasn’t going to go because I couldn’t get a ride and had to be back for football practice (I was coaching a Highschool team) on Sunday. I wanted to go so bad because Shihan (my Master – Gordon Doversola) told me he was going and I was training for it for months. Shihan rarely went to tournaments back then so it was a special occasion. We (students) would just come back from a tournament, hand him back the higher belt he told us to fight with and share great stories of how we’d clean up on the competition! And yes, we cleaned up on most occasions.
I had won two ‘prep tournaments’ going into this one and was very depressed that I wouldn’t be able to make it. But Bobby saved the day by waiting till I got off work in order to take me up to the tournament - so I decided to ride up with him and Sensei Mike (Mike Pecina) then fly back down right after the tournament on Saturday.
Sensei Mike and Bobby picked me up in Mike’s convertible and we made the Friday night traffic filled trip to Laughlin, NV.
I was able to relax in the back seat with the wind blowing in my face and my walkman on the whole way there. I listened to my “Bad Company” tape all the way. I remember looking at the pitch back desert sky which had a blanket of stars. It was beautiful! And by midnight, we were in Laughlin!
That night, as we walked around the new developing city of Laughlin. That’s where Mike gave me a cool black jacket with the Okinawa Te patch embroidered in the back. It was way too small for him now as he wore it when he was a 120 pound kid. It was perfect for me because I weighed 120 pounds at the time! I wore it with pride.
Saturday morning –
The tournament was a madhouse. Just signing in was hectic. It seemed like there were 10,000 people there that day. I’ve always hated waiting for my matches. Sometimes I’d wait all day just to get a few fights in. But today, I had to make a plane flight at 5:00 PM and with all these people, who knew when my match would start.
Finally, at around 2 PM, they called all the fighters up. ALL the fighters. I’ve never seen so many fighters in one division in my entire life. The line went out the tournament floor, to the stairs and down the stairwell. They (the organizers), for some reason, put all the white and colored belts into one big division. No weight separation, no belt separation. Just white and colored. The browns and blacks had their own divisions. So I was a purple belt fighting, well… EVERYONE! Big guys, small guys, good guys and beginners. There were more than a hundred fighters at the very least.
The question was… how many people was I going to fight?
I think I fought a total of eight guys. So you do the math, the bracket breakdown and you figure out how many were entered in this division. It was hell.
Believe it or not, my hardest fights were the smaller guys. My size. The rules were simple. Pulled punches to the face (focus shots were okay as long as technique was there), crotch shots legal, and only front sweeps were allowed. Three points per match. It was much different than today’s tournament format. Needless to say, every technique, move or attack counted – or you were out in a manner of seconds.
Eight guys in two hours. Yes, my match actually lasted two whole hours. They needed two hours to get through all the fights. Crazy huh?
Well, here’s where the Hollywood story comes in.
My seventh fight came around and I was exhausted from 1) fighting five guys and 2) having to wait around for a long time between matches. I’d be warm, cool down, and have to warm up again seconds before a fight. The sixth fight was tough. And I remember attacking with a reverse punch and getting side kicked in the ribs. The call was a ‘clash’ but I was in pain. They made me sit to catch my breath before we continued the fight. I had no attacks. Every hand technique I threw hurt so I was on the defensive after that.
That’s when ‘that kick’ Sensei Mike taught me leading up to the tournament came into play. I had used it in the last prep tournament and it worked like a charm. Mike was on the side telling me to do it by doing a spin motion with his hands. The other six matches prior to this were both against easy opponents and then much harder, more experienced faster fighters. But this one was the fight I needed to win in order to get to the Final Match!
So I let my feet do the talking. I faked a back hand and side kick, (you know the drill if you trained in Okinawa Te) and the guy backed up. A slight pause and I threw “the kick”. It was a jump spinning crescent kick which missed by a foot. But that’s all I needed because all my opponent knew was that I was wide open after the kick so he came in with a punch. But that’s not what Mike taught me. He taught me to follow up, in the air, with my other leg for an inside crescent. While the guy was coming in for what he thought was a sure point, the inside part of my foot smacked him on the side of the head. I came down to an incredible roar from our Okinawa Te organization. All of them - Semi, Monrovia, Thousand Oaks, Lancaster, Atwater, etc. It was great!
But I was in pain. So much pain it was hard to breath.
Bobby brought me back to Shihan. I had the final fight in five minutes. Shihan’s wife gave me some aspirin while Shihan taped my side up as tight as he could. “What should I do?” I pleaded for instructions. And it seemed like it was straight from the ‘Karate Kid’ when Shihan replied, “Fight with your other side forward.”
I was like, HUH?!?!? But that’s what he told me. And that’s EXACTLY what I did.
I bowed to Shihan and went to face my opponent. With my other side forward of course. The guy was a higher belt and he dominated all his competition. When I watched him fight earlier in the day, I would have put money he would be in the championships. Of course he was bigger and more experienced than me. And of course he had to throw smack talk my way.
But back then… I loved the smack talk. It made me want to kick his ass. And usually – I’m a passive fighter – a contradiction in itself.
I looked over at Mike. “Do the kick.” He mouthed.
The rest is history. After getting a point off of our Okinawa Te side kick which sent him flying into the people in chairs watching the fight, he was NOTHING to me. He attacked, I sidestepped, I faked backhands, faked some kicks and I got him to get aggressive with me. And that’s when I knew I had him. He wanted me and all I had to do was the jump double crescent kick. The first kick took his hands down and he went for the kill but remember, my inside crescent was still to come. And it took care of the side of his head. I think he was dizzy after that so the next time I faked a backhand and did ‘the kick’. This time both landed and the fight was over to loud cheers and a hug from Bobby. I won the Match!
And I was going to miss my flight!
I rushed to change in the bathroom and as I changed I was in so much pain. Black belts from other Okinawan style schools kept complimenting me. They had smiles on their faces, they were telling me how amazing the fight was, and couldn’t believe I beat one of the top fighters at the tourney. One of the judges came up to me and told me it was one of the greatest fights he’s ever seen. “You’re like The Karate Kid” he said. And yes, the whole situation felt like The Karate Kid.
I ran downstairs, got in a cab rushed to Laughlin’s small airport where I just made it in time to board a 19 passenger plane that would take me to Colorado where I’d connect on a bigger plane to LAX. The problem was, my trophy was so big they had a hard time finding a place for it on the small plane!
But it all worked out, I made my flights and I came hope a champ! I’ll never forget that night, that whole day, Shihan at the tournament and his words of advice… “Fight with your other side forward.”
Thanks for the memories Sensei Mike and Bobby!!!
Those were the good old days!
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