A Karate Story

by Seamus O'Dowd

  All the different dojos held parties after the championships. I was invited to the Honbu Dojo party. Most of the referees and officials, as well as the VIPs, were there. Kanazawa Sensei came over to me and congratulated me on getting to the kata final, and thanked me for doing the demonstration. It was another example of how he acknowledges everyone, and treats every person with respect.

  After a few more days and only a couple more classes at the Honbu Dojo, it was time to make the long journey home. As I left the Honbu Dojo on the final day, I promised myself that I would be back there again. The experiences in Japan were too valuable to miss for too long.

  31. CHRISTOPH

  Some people seem to light up a room when they enter. It is the same in a dojo. Some people seem to have a greater impact on the spirit in a dojo than others. Their enthusiasm and energy become infectious, and instructors always like to have students like that in their classes.

  Christoph von Bültzingslöwen was one such person. He was a German, or more specifically a Bavarian (he loved to tell me there was a difference), who was living in Ireland and studying for a Ph.D. at the local university. When he came to the dojo first, he was already a 2nd Dan from an independent karate organisation and had been training for over ten years. He had been training in a couple of other dojos in Dublin, including a full-contact dojo, and his control was questionable, to say the least, but his talent was immense. He was naturally strong and flexible, and he had perfect technique. He learned quickly, and once shown something was able to do it immediately. He was fanatical about training, and was looking for another place to train to add to the places he already frequented.

  He was a gregarious character, confident and loud, with a love of life. The bigger a challenge something was, the more Christoph liked it. When he did his national service in Germany, he joined the parachute regiment because it was the toughest. And he signed up for longer than he had to, just because that was the type of person he was. His confidence sometimes came across as arrogance, and some of the people in the dojo didn’t like him when he first joined.

  To be fair, a lot of people were on the receiving end of his poor control, so they may have had good reason not to like him. On one occasion, we were lined up with one person facing the line of opponents, each attacking in turn. The person facing the line had to defend and counter-attack. Christoph hit several people both with his attacks and his counter-attacks. I decided enough was enough. I lined up with the others when he was defending. When it came to my turn to attack I hit him with an ushiro-geri (back kick) that caught him straight in the body and lifted him into the air. He landed on his butt, looking up at me, confused. I said nothing, and just went to the back of the line to wait my turn again.

  When my turn came around again, I did a different kick – this time it was mawashi-geri (roundhouse kick), and this time it was controlled. The kick just grazed his ear. Again, I said nothing. My third strike was also perfectly controlled. At this point I stopped the class and turned to Christoph. ‘Hitting is easy,’ I told him. ‘I could have hit you all night long like I did with the first strike. The real skill in karate is in not hitting. Having control over technique teaches us to have control over ourselves – self-control. This is the dojo kun.’

  Christoph told me later that although he had been told to improve his control in several other dojos, the message had never really sunk in. We never had any problems with his control, or his attitude, after that. In fact, soon after that, Christoph stopped going to the other dojos and concentrated all of his karate training at Shin-Do-Kan.

  When he started training with us at first, Christoph asked me about grading with Kanazawa Sensei. I explained that his current grade would not be recognised by SKIF, because it was not issued by a recognised organisation, so he would probably have to test for 1st Dan again. He dismissed this suggestion, and said that he would instead work towards 3rd Dan in Germany with his old federation. He trained any chance he could, and often asked if we could meet up for extra sessions. He had great energy in every class, and this spread to everyone else. After his slightly shaky start, he became very well liked in the dojo, and it was always noticeable if he was absent.

  After training with us for a couple of years and after a few seminars with Kanazawa Sensei, Christoph asked me again about grading with Kanazawa Sensei. I reminded him that, at best, he would have to grade for 1st Dan, or possibly even for brown belt. His reply this time impressed me. He said that he didn’t care if he had to grade for white belt. He just wanted to grade with Kanazawa Sensei, because he had so much respect for him. He said that a white belt awarded by Kanazawa Sensei would mean more to him than a black belt awarded by anyone else.

  We applied to the national organisation, and because he was so well liked and respected by everyone in SKIF-Ireland, he was given permission to grade for 1st Dan at the next seminar.

  The harder the training, the more Christoph thrived. We used to do all sorts of conditioning and stamina training, and I always tried to come up with different things to do in class. We had two heavy punch bags in the dojo, and one night I decided that we should have relay races. I split the class into two groups, and we lined up at the back of the dojo. The first person in each line had to sprint to the top of the dojo and back, passing a baton to the next member of their team, and so on. We used the heavy punch bags as batons! We had to carry it any way we could – over the shoulder was easiest, but some people tried carrying it in their arms. We did several rounds each and, after Christoph passed the ‘baton’ to the next person at one point, he caught my eye. ‘You’re crazy!’ he laughed at me, obviously loving it. That only encouraged us all to do a few more rounds.

  Our syllabus in SKIF is different to what Christoph had been used to in Germany, but he had been training with me for a couple of years by now, so he knew our methods and structure quite well. When he was told he could test for Shodan with Kanazawa Sensei, he worked even harder to make sure that he knew all of the requirements. He trained three evenings a week in our regular classes, at least twice more by himself, and all the black belts usually met at the weekends for extra training. By the time it came to the grading, he was more than ready.

  He did an excellent grading. For the previous couple of years he had trained in every single class on the seminars with Kanazawa Sensei. Whether it was white-belt classes or black-belt classes, Christoph didn’t care. He just wanted to train. Because of this, Kanazawa Sensei knew him already, and knew his karate was good. When we submitted his paperwork for the examination, I included his grading records from Germany, which showed that he had been a 2nd Dan with that organisation for several years.

  Kanazawa Sensei not only passed Christoph for Shodan, but also gave him a rare honour. When he announced the results, he told Christoph that he had passed Shodan, and that he was also going to waive the usual requirement of having to wait two years before testing for 2nd Dan. He said that Christoph could test for 2nd Dan at any time. Christoph didn’t understand what Kanazawa Sensei meant, so he came over to me and asked me to explain what had been said. I told him that it was a rare privilege, but that he had been given permission to test for 2nd Dan any time he liked. With his infectious enthusiasm, Christoph exclaimed: ‘Maybe next week in London?’

  Kanazawa Sensei was standing about ten metres away from us, talking to some people, and obviously overheard him. He turned to us and replied ‘Maybe tonight!’ and laughed. Then he came over to us and congratulated Christoph on such a good grading. Christoph asked him if he really could grade again soon, and Kanazawa Sensei said he could. However, I interjected at this point and said that maybe he should wait and grade in six months or in a year, when Kanazawa Sensei next came back to Ireland. I explained that Christoph’s karate was certainly at 2nd Dan level, but that he would need to study the 2nd Dan syllabus some more.

  Kanazawa Sensei turned to Christoph with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Your sensei is very strict,’ he told Christoph, ‘but maybe wise.’ And with that he turned
and left us to celebrate.

  Unfortunately, Christoph never did get to grade again. A few weeks later he had a minor accident on his bicycle. He got knocked off it and banged his head. It was a bit of a bump, but no real harm done, or so we thought. Soon afterwards, he started getting headaches. When these persisted for a few weeks, his father – a doctor in Germany – suggested that he should get a scan to see what the problem was. The scan revealed a large brain tumour. The tumour was not caused by the accident, but had possibly started to grow as a result. He had surgery to remove the tumour almost immediately. It was a very aggressive form of cancer. He received lots of radio and chemotherapy and was quite sick with all of that. He was told not to do any karate because his brain was very tender from the surgery, and he was weak from the treatment.

  I visited him in the hospital and at home frequently. We chatted endlessly about karate. He never lost any of his enthusiasm, despite his illness. When Sensei Stan Schmidt came to Ireland, I told him all about Christoph and his love for karate. He insisted on coming with me to visit Christoph, and spent an hour sitting and talking with him. That meant the world to Christoph. He kept looking at me during that visit, shaking his head and grinning at the same time. He couldn’t believe that someone like Stan Schmidt would be willing to sit and talk – and pray – with him. I was very glad to have been able to arrange it.

  One day, as we were talking, Christoph became pensive for a little while. Then he turned to me and said, ‘Do you know why I respect you?’ he asked me. I shook my head.

  ‘I have had several different sensei over the years,’ he said, ‘but I respect you the most. Most of the others that I trained with were good at “training”, but you are good at “teaching”, and there is a big difference.’ I blushed, but he was not finished yet. He continued. ‘I know that I am more talented at karate than you are,’ he said, without any hint of a boast, ‘but you are better than me because you train much harder than I do. That is why I respect you.’

  I left his house that day with tears in my eyes. He certainly was more talented than me – by a long way – and I was starting to see how wise he was too.

  The tumour was diagnosed in May. The following January, Christoph came to the dojo. The doctors told him that he was in remission. They warned him that this type of cancer usually comes back, so he may as well go and do the things he loves while he could. So he came to karate class.

  January is traditionally a month of tough physical training in our dojo, so it was an ideal time for Christoph to be there. It was great to see him back in the dojo again, and for us to feed off his spirit and energy. In one class we were doing slow push-ups, stopping halfway down, at the bottom, halfway up, and at the top. It is a tough exercise, and after only a few repetitions my arms were shaking. I looked around, and everyone was in agony. Yet there was Christoph, looking up at me with the biggest grin you could imagine. He was in agony as well, but he was loving it. I suppose the pain reminded him that he was still alive. I shouted at the class. ‘Christoph is grinning at me – these must be too easy. Let’s do more!’ Everyone groaned and laughed at the same time, but again it was Christoph’s spirit that drove us to do more than we thought we could.

  The remission didn’t last long. At the end of January he was told the tumour was back already, and this time it had spread. The surgeon operated again, but this time he could not remove the entire tumour. More radio therapy and more chemotherapy, but no more training. It was a particularly aggressive tumour, and the doctors informed him that he had only a few months left at the most.

  His long-term girlfriend, Olive, told him that she wanted to marry him before he died. The wedding was to be held in Cork, and I was going to travel to it with Kevin Flanagan, one of the senior members in the club. After I set off that morning to collect Kevin and drive to Cork, I got a text message telling me not to make the journey. Christoph had taken a bad turn, and the wedding was being cancelled. The priest that had been due to marry them was instead going to give him his last rites. In shock, I drove to Kevin’s house and we sat for a long time in silence, drinking tea. Within a few hours, however, the news was better. The priest came and administered the last rites, but Christoph’s condition improved sufficiently for the priest to marry them – with Christoph still in the bed! I am sure that quite a few brave people get married shortly before one partner receives the last rites, but I doubt if many get married after one of them has received them! Olive showed herself to be a very strong and brave lady, and cared for him brilliantly throughout his illness. Fortunately, Christoph recovered sufficiently to return to Dublin a few days later. His spirit was not beaten yet.

  In April Kanazawa Sensei came to Dublin. Christoph had become stronger again. He was not able to train, but he cycled to the dojo to see Kanazawa Sensei and to watch a class. He was quite weak and thin by now, but his grin was as wide and as infectious as always. He came out for dinner with us that night, thrilled to be sitting and dining with Kanazawa Sensei for the evening.

  By way of illustrating the respect that people had for Christoph, the university where he was finishing his Ph.D. allowed his supervising professor to submit the thesis even though it was not yet finished, and also allowed the professor to sit the oral examination on behalf of Christoph. They awarded his Ph.D. just a few weeks before he died. He was very proud of this, and told me, ‘At least I will be able to call myself a doctor for a few weeks.’

  I visited Christoph as much as possible over the next few weeks. He became more frail every day, and the tumour was now affecting his eyesight and hearing. But his spirit always remained strong. The last time I saw him he was almost unrecognisable. His once-powerful physique was now skeletal. He had lost his eyesight, was nearly deaf, and was slipping in and out of consciousness. Kevin came with me that day. We knew that we were going to say goodbye.

  Olive brought us to his bedroom. On the windowsill sat his black belt and just one of the many trophies that he had won over the years. I recognised the trophy immediately. It was the one that he had won with Kevin and me for team kata little more than a year earlier. It was frightening to see how things had changed so much in such a short period. Christoph was in bed, too frail now to move. His once-powerful legs were just skin and bone, and his face looked gaunt.

  Olive had to shout to wake him from his slumber. ‘Seamus is here,’ she yelled in his ear.

  ‘Where? Where?’ Christoph said urgently, trying to sit up. I sat beside him. ‘I’m right here,’ I said, catching his arm. He grinned.

  ‘You look like shit!’ I said cheerfully to him. He laughed. ‘Same as always then,’ he replied. We all laughed, and I marvelled at how he kept his sense of humour throughout his illness. It had often felt like he was looking after us and counselling us, instead of the other way around.

  We didn’t stay very long. He wasn’t able for visitors. As we got up to leave, I told him that I was going, and to take care. This time he did sit up in the bed and faced me.

  ‘Oss! Sensei!’ he said, with such strength that it was like being back in the dojo. Then he collapsed back down onto his pillow, exhausted from the effort. A karate-ka to the end, I thought as I left the house that day, once again with tears in my eyes.

  Christoph slipped into a coma the following afternoon and died peacefully a few days later, on the 31 May 2003. He was thirty-three years old.

  I had promised him that I would put his picture up in the dojo, so that he would be with us every time we trained. He had loved that idea. His picture is still in my dojo, and those of us who remember him think of him often. He taught me far more than I ever taught him.

  32. 2004 – LONDON & SCOTLAND

  I was kindly invited to attend another seminar in London with Kanazawa Sensei in 2004. Nobuaki Sensei was going to accompany him there, and then continue on to Scotland to teach a seminar for Sensei Jim Palmer. Sensei Ray, Garry and I decided to go to the UK and make the most of the opportunity. This was the first of many trips that the three of us
took together.

  It is always great to spend time with Kanazawa Sensei, on or off the dojo floor. On this trip we got to do both. We went out for dinner as a group with the seniors from SKKIF – one of the SKIF organisations in England – and made some good friends. Garry is a very entertaining person, and everyone around us fed off his humour so the whole table thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

  At one point on the seminar Kanazawa Sensei selected Garry and me to demonstrate some of his kumite syllabus. We did the five-step partner work first, and then we started the three-step (Sanbon) partner work. Kanazawa Sensei has a numbered syllabus, and he explained to the class that there were five different defences for Sanbon kumite. We did Sanbon number 1 first, with me attacking and Garry defending. Then Garry attacked as I did the defences for Sanbon number 2. Then I attacked while Garry did the defences for Sanbon number 3. I was panicking at this stage, because although we knew that there were numbers 4 and 5, at that time I had only ever done number 5 with Kanazawa Sensei and didn’t know number 4. Garry knew what my fear was, because he didn’t know number 4 either. I started having flashbacks to the seminar a few years earlier, when I struggled with Gojushiho-Sho.