One of my favorite pictures of all time-Taika Oyata and I at the Yagi Hotel, Okinawa Japan
in 2002. Jim Logue is in the background.
I have always held my teacher and his martial arts in the highest regard!
Public Martial Arts, Private Martial Arts and Martial Arts Infomercials-
Taika Oyata used to tell us "most people will never understand my karate".
As time went by, I understood what he meant. Most people would never spend the time it takes
to truly understand his martial arts. It is not uncommon for people to take the path of least resistance, to focus on the easy tasks, the low hanging fruit. I personally trained, at the very least, a couple of hundred people at two martial arts schools over several years. There are only a few of these people still training, the ones that are still training have become quite skilled.
I will take a little credit, but mainly the credit is theirs-they possessed the drive, the desire to focus on one martial art-to try and learn/understand Taika Oyata's art-they never gave up!
I respect most of the the people from Mr. Oyata's system that are still actively engaged in his martial arts.
It is difficult to teach, especially large groups of people. You have to put a lot of time in, explaining every nuance-it was difficult enough to learn this system, trying to explain it all becomes another thing in itself!
I am currently focusing on our research group and training with/sharing information with a small group of people. We have a dedicated group that has been meeting /training with Hanshi Steve Stark. We have chosen to keep our group private and to not share/ post videos of what we do, what we are working on. I believe at the higher levels, martial arts should be somewhat of a secret-I am not sharing information or techniques with people who have not sweated and bled with me for this art.
I can guarantee you that martial artists from times past did not share their techniques or knowledge with outsiders or people they barely knew. Why would they?
I am inclined, along with our group, to keep my martial arts private. I am a proponent of
private martial arts-small groups of people with shared values working towards a common goal.
To be clear, I refuse to accept money for teaching anyone martial arts-I will either train someone or I won't. I don't expect people to understand or agree-this is my way.
I feel there are some things money should not be able to buy-some things must be earned.
To be quite honest, not every person is worthy of my teacher's martial arts or deserves them.
Some of the old masters felt you should not "eat" off of karate, I feel the very same way.
I am not judging anyone that makes a living teaching martial arts-it is difficult to do
and I wish you continued success, it's just not my way.
I believe there are many traditional martial artists teaching Mr. Oyata's art in a respectful manner. I wish them success, they have my respect and my blessing.
There are currently any number of people posting video online of Mr. Oyata's kata, drills, techniques.
People are free to do/post whatever they want and I will feel free to comment on these events.
Some of these videos remind me of a huckster shilling his wares, trying very hard to sell you something or prove to the world how much they know, how great they are-some of it seems a little desperate to me! Like a bad case of the look-at-me's!!
I guess some people are not content just training and teaching small groups-they need an audience, lots of attention.
My personal feeling is it's hard for anyone to have much respect for people that seem to be trying waaaayyy too hard- selling Mr. Oyata's art.
Don't listen to me, I am just stating how I feel-Do whatever your conscience allows.
I take comfort in the fact that I am not selling Oyata martial arts infomercials-performing techniques on somebody slow punching at me or just holding their arm out for me to perform a technique on.
I wonder if in days past traveling martial artists shilled their martial arts to passerby-
"Step right up ladies and gentleman and I will show you the secrets of tuite, my opponent is going to slow push, slow punch or just hold his arm out, look how I twist him up and take him to the ground, I am truly great! sign up right here!!😆
It is no great secret that many of Taika Oyata's students do not like each other -this group hates that group , this guy hates that guy-it all became very tiresome years ago. Who cares?
I am however, a little concerned about what type of people Mr. Oyata's students have become and how they represent themselves.
I believe there are a few individuals misrepresenting themselves as close, personal students of Mr. Oyata.
If you were a close, personal student of Mr. Oyata, you should have been ,at the very minimum, a Godan level martial artist in his organization.
All of the close, personal students of Taika Oyata, those students he felt were of good character and qualified to pass on his martial arts, received a scroll in his family art, Oyata Shin Shu Ho Ryu.
Not everybody made the cut-there were some individuals he did not allow to receive a scroll in his family art. I truly believe this omission speaks volumes about their character and
abilities.
I encourage everyone in Ryukyu Kempo and Ryu Te to teach for the right reasons-to hold Taika Oyata and his martial arts in the highest esteem and to remember the words of our teacher, his teachings, the Dojo Kun, the Guiding Principles. These things matter greatly.
Taika Oyata had an ideal, it was Oyata Shin Shu Ho Ryu "To strive to attain true moral goodness and express it through one's every action" .
Taika Oyata gave scrolls to those he thought would pass on his martial arts, that were of good character and worthy to teach his martial arts.
I am content to continue my training with our research group and finding a few worthy people to train privately. I will leave the martial arts infomercials to everybody else.
