Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Bill and Marty versus Canada
Every year Watanabe Sensei would hold a tournament in his dojo in Montreal, Canada. I had not been able to attend during the times and father and others went up there. Bill Geissuebel Sensei and myself wanted to, but we were the only two able to make the trip. Lenny Jordan Sensei provided a letter of introduction for us as well as a gift for Watanabe Sensei.
Armed with a GPS in the car, we set out right after class on Thursday night. We were doing pretty well and making good time driving through the night. Eventually we began taking turns taking cat naps as the other drove. The route we were taking had quite a few tolls on it so whomever was driving would pay the toll. This worked out fine until I left my wallet in my lap and when it was time to switch due to fatigue my wallet fell out of the van on the side of the road. We did not discover this until an hour later. We back tracked and as Bill drove I scanned the side of the road in hopes of finding my wallet. We were in upstate New York and I would not be able to pass across the border to Canada without ID. Miraculously I found the wallet, thus using up the majority of the good karma I have accumulated in my lifetime.
We continued onward, getting slowed down be a few detours due to road work. This took us through some mountains and an area referred to as "Little Russia". The sun had risen by that time making it easier to scan the surrounding hillside for Cossacks as we feared the detours were a cunning ploy to lure us into an ambush.
We finally made it to the border, and were greeted at the border station.
"What is your business here in Canada?"
"We're here to fight Canadians."
"Want some?"
Subsequently we had a nice discussion with an armed border agent wearing full body armor who wanted to know about us, our families, when our ancestors came to America, where our ancestors were from and other fun trivia. They take guarding Canada pretty darn serious up there. Rumor has it there was a maple syrup smuggling operation afoot.
Onwards through the barren wasteland that was the Great, not-so-white North, we delighted that the speed limit was 100. I was pleased thinking this country seems alright. Unfortunately it was 100 kph so my glee was short lived.
We arrived in Montreal crossing a bridge which I had seen in nearly every movie and television show I've ever seen filmed in Montreal. We quickly discovered a valuable lesson that everyone should heed if they ever think of visiting that city: the drivers are utterly insane. Sure, you hear that about places, but this was beyond anything I've ever encountered. How we made it to the dojo in one piece was amazing to me.
The temperature was frigid, and we were very glad to be out of the car and indoors. The dojo was on the second story over a bar. It was a large space with offices on one end and restrooms and locker rooms on the other. We arrived right at the end of the morning workout and just in time for lunch. Watanabe took us to his favorite Lithuanian restaurant. The food was very good.
That night we worked out with the class. It was very enjoyable, until one of the exercises involved me taking twenty-five punches to the stomach from Watanabe's student Asa. The combination of the punches and the Lithuanian food earlier sent me the rest room for about twenty minutes. Upon recovering, I only needed to mention where we ate lunch and there was some good-natured laughs. Training continued.
Afterward, we all went down to the bar. They refused to let my glass go empty. It was a lot of fun and our hosts were very hospitable. After a few drinks we went over to a Vietnamese restaurant for a late dinner. On the way I noticed that every dojo I saw in the city was over a bar. Watanabe Sensei explained, "The bars don't complain about the noise." The food and conversation at the restaurant were excellent.
We slept on the floor of the training room that night and woke up with just enough time to have a quick breakfast at the café down the block before the tournament. Thankfully the waitress spoke English because the menu was entirely in French.
The tournament began. The kata portion was much like the kata competitions in tournaments I've participated in before. Bill and I both did well. The kumite was much different from that I've previously experienced. Contact was a bit heavier. It was not a game of tag like open tournaments. I was against their reigning champ, Derrick, in the opening round and did not score at all against him. Bill had a much better showing against his opponent, but he did not advance either.
After the tournament, as with the class the night before, we went down to the bar for drinks. From there we were taken to a restaurant in Chinatown. At one point Bill and i were in the back of a car with Watanabe between us as our driver was completing for a lane with two other cars through the middle of the city at about 60 mph. This may have been business as usual, but Bill and i were looking at each other convinced that we were about to die in Canada and never see our wives again. The tournmanet was no where near as scary as the traffic.
Dinner was very good and we traded stories with our new friends. We left for hom after dinner promising to convey well wishes from Montreal to my father and Lenny Sensei.
Since then, the dojo there has burnt down. We plan on making a return trip once it reopens.
Armed with a GPS in the car, we set out right after class on Thursday night. We were doing pretty well and making good time driving through the night. Eventually we began taking turns taking cat naps as the other drove. The route we were taking had quite a few tolls on it so whomever was driving would pay the toll. This worked out fine until I left my wallet in my lap and when it was time to switch due to fatigue my wallet fell out of the van on the side of the road. We did not discover this until an hour later. We back tracked and as Bill drove I scanned the side of the road in hopes of finding my wallet. We were in upstate New York and I would not be able to pass across the border to Canada without ID. Miraculously I found the wallet, thus using up the majority of the good karma I have accumulated in my lifetime.
We continued onward, getting slowed down be a few detours due to road work. This took us through some mountains and an area referred to as "Little Russia". The sun had risen by that time making it easier to scan the surrounding hillside for Cossacks as we feared the detours were a cunning ploy to lure us into an ambush.
We finally made it to the border, and were greeted at the border station.
"What is your business here in Canada?"
"We're here to fight Canadians."
"Want some?"
Subsequently we had a nice discussion with an armed border agent wearing full body armor who wanted to know about us, our families, when our ancestors came to America, where our ancestors were from and other fun trivia. They take guarding Canada pretty darn serious up there. Rumor has it there was a maple syrup smuggling operation afoot.
Onwards through the barren wasteland that was the Great, not-so-white North, we delighted that the speed limit was 100. I was pleased thinking this country seems alright. Unfortunately it was 100 kph so my glee was short lived.
We arrived in Montreal crossing a bridge which I had seen in nearly every movie and television show I've ever seen filmed in Montreal. We quickly discovered a valuable lesson that everyone should heed if they ever think of visiting that city: the drivers are utterly insane. Sure, you hear that about places, but this was beyond anything I've ever encountered. How we made it to the dojo in one piece was amazing to me.
The temperature was frigid, and we were very glad to be out of the car and indoors. The dojo was on the second story over a bar. It was a large space with offices on one end and restrooms and locker rooms on the other. We arrived right at the end of the morning workout and just in time for lunch. Watanabe took us to his favorite Lithuanian restaurant. The food was very good.
That night we worked out with the class. It was very enjoyable, until one of the exercises involved me taking twenty-five punches to the stomach from Watanabe's student Asa. The combination of the punches and the Lithuanian food earlier sent me the rest room for about twenty minutes. Upon recovering, I only needed to mention where we ate lunch and there was some good-natured laughs. Training continued.
Afterward, we all went down to the bar. They refused to let my glass go empty. It was a lot of fun and our hosts were very hospitable. After a few drinks we went over to a Vietnamese restaurant for a late dinner. On the way I noticed that every dojo I saw in the city was over a bar. Watanabe Sensei explained, "The bars don't complain about the noise." The food and conversation at the restaurant were excellent.
We slept on the floor of the training room that night and woke up with just enough time to have a quick breakfast at the café down the block before the tournament. Thankfully the waitress spoke English because the menu was entirely in French.
The tournament began. The kata portion was much like the kata competitions in tournaments I've participated in before. Bill and I both did well. The kumite was much different from that I've previously experienced. Contact was a bit heavier. It was not a game of tag like open tournaments. I was against their reigning champ, Derrick, in the opening round and did not score at all against him. Bill had a much better showing against his opponent, but he did not advance either.
After the tournament, as with the class the night before, we went down to the bar for drinks. From there we were taken to a restaurant in Chinatown. At one point Bill and i were in the back of a car with Watanabe between us as our driver was completing for a lane with two other cars through the middle of the city at about 60 mph. This may have been business as usual, but Bill and i were looking at each other convinced that we were about to die in Canada and never see our wives again. The tournmanet was no where near as scary as the traffic.
Dinner was very good and we traded stories with our new friends. We left for hom after dinner promising to convey well wishes from Montreal to my father and Lenny Sensei.
Since then, the dojo there has burnt down. We plan on making a return trip once it reopens.
-Sensei Marty
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Letting the kids know their place
While the kids class was getting in a bit of quality time kicking the heavy bag, my father and I were making technical critiques. One of the kicks through an alright kick, and I knew the boy tries very hard, so I had a couple of words of encouragement. Then the allegation came forth.
"You like David better than the rest of us."
This of course brought the class to a brief, yet screeching halt.
"I hold no prejudices or biases in this dojo! I hate you all equally!
-Sensei Marty
Monday, January 4, 2010
Hindu for the holidays
Whenever there was function that required the use of the church social hall the club had to move elsewhere to work out. This wasn't much of an issue in warmer weather. We'd just go outside. However in the colder months we'd have to try to find another spot in the church. Since there were times when the clubs membership was pretty small we were able to use one of the Sunday School rooms at the other end of the church. It would take a while to move everything out of the way and to put it all back like we found it, and you could maybe get two people doing a kata at the same time if you were lucky, but we made it work.
It wasn't much of an issue one year when we were flushed out of the social hall for a preparation for a Christmas event and had to take refuge in the room at the end of the hall. We only had six kids in the kid's class so it wasn't an issue. The adult class consisted of myself and Alex De La Zerda that evening. Everything was peachy and then Mario Sensei (AKA Dad) got out our old friend the rubber knife.
Dad had the knife and struck at me with a horizontal slash. I blocked and spun in to secure a standing armlock to try to make him drop the knife. I was still working on the technique. He twisted and I missed the lock. I kept my grip and tried to readjust hoping to make lemonade out of of lousy technique.
That didn't happen as Dad yanked all 150 pounds of me into the air and put me on my head. I still had the arm with the knife and wasn't about to let go. I pulled it to the center of my chest and while upside down went to kick my legs around and secure an armbar. I needed a second to make it happen, but that's too long against Dad and he planted his big ol' knobby middle knuckle dead center of my forehead.
I was fine of course as most everyone who reads this knows full well that hitting me in the head isn't going to damage anything important. However, its kind of hard to armbar someone as they're trying to make sure they didn't hurt you. We broke it up.
The end result was a round bruise in the middle of forehead perfectly shaped like Dad's knuckle. This was a bit tricky to explain to Gran'ma at Christmas dinner.
Well, it was easy for me to explain. Not so much for Dad.
It wasn't much of an issue one year when we were flushed out of the social hall for a preparation for a Christmas event and had to take refuge in the room at the end of the hall. We only had six kids in the kid's class so it wasn't an issue. The adult class consisted of myself and Alex De La Zerda that evening. Everything was peachy and then Mario Sensei (AKA Dad) got out our old friend the rubber knife.
Dad had the knife and struck at me with a horizontal slash. I blocked and spun in to secure a standing armlock to try to make him drop the knife. I was still working on the technique. He twisted and I missed the lock. I kept my grip and tried to readjust hoping to make lemonade out of of lousy technique.
That didn't happen as Dad yanked all 150 pounds of me into the air and put me on my head. I still had the arm with the knife and wasn't about to let go. I pulled it to the center of my chest and while upside down went to kick my legs around and secure an armbar. I needed a second to make it happen, but that's too long against Dad and he planted his big ol' knobby middle knuckle dead center of my forehead.
I was fine of course as most everyone who reads this knows full well that hitting me in the head isn't going to damage anything important. However, its kind of hard to armbar someone as they're trying to make sure they didn't hurt you. We broke it up.
The end result was a round bruise in the middle of forehead perfectly shaped like Dad's knuckle. This was a bit tricky to explain to Gran'ma at Christmas dinner.
Well, it was easy for me to explain. Not so much for Dad.
-Sensei Marty
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The beginning.
The Club began in May of 1990. Prior to that my father, Mario Nozzarella Sensei, was teaching one night a week in his garage in Kings James Colony in Chesapeake. He had two main students, Wayne Brewer and Robert Hill. The garage was spacious enough, but not terribly comfortable in the dead of winter, and summer occasionally included making sure no snakes had gotten in before a workout. Mario Sensei approached Reverend Jim Mahaffey at Salem United Methodist Church about possibly teaching in the church social hall. Reverend Mahaffey approached the district board about the proposition and after some deliberation and an explanation from my father as to what he was planning on teaching there they finally approved.
The Salem Karate Club started. There were a generous amount of youth that were interested, so the kids class was off to a great start. My brother, Matt, and myself returned to training, joining Wayne and Robert as well as my cousin Carrie McGranahan and Mrs. Rose from the church.
The social hall looked much different than it does today. The air conditioning was courtesy of a set of window units. The floor was covered in linoleum held down in strategic locations by duct tape. We shared the space with one of church's grand pianos. Also about a third of the space was taken up by a raised stage blocked off by a curtain.
Mario Sensei was teaching Shorin-Ryu Karate which he had learned from Don Page Sensei and "Chito" Fernandez Sensei. It was much different from the Karate we are teaching now, but same good principles have always been there.
And that's how a bunch of folks started spending time in church beating each other up and praying for each other to get better.
The Salem Karate Club started. There were a generous amount of youth that were interested, so the kids class was off to a great start. My brother, Matt, and myself returned to training, joining Wayne and Robert as well as my cousin Carrie McGranahan and Mrs. Rose from the church.
The social hall looked much different than it does today. The air conditioning was courtesy of a set of window units. The floor was covered in linoleum held down in strategic locations by duct tape. We shared the space with one of church's grand pianos. Also about a third of the space was taken up by a raised stage blocked off by a curtain.
Mario Sensei was teaching Shorin-Ryu Karate which he had learned from Don Page Sensei and "Chito" Fernandez Sensei. It was much different from the Karate we are teaching now, but same good principles have always been there.
And that's how a bunch of folks started spending time in church beating each other up and praying for each other to get better.
-Sensei Marty
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