As there have been numerous people since Taika died a little over
five years ago come forward and start brandishing his name I thought I’d do a
short little blog about some differences in his training over the years. People are tending to throw out his name now,
as if by using it they can claim mastership over anything.
In the beginning, the olden days in Okinawa and the early days here
in the United States, there was a little bit of trust issues that were going
on. Taika really didn’t know who to
trust and he certainly had his share of intellectual theft from individuals,
anywhere from techniques to flat out using the name of his style. This meant that it took Taika quite a lot of
effort to trust anyone.
Outside Seminar Level Contact
Most people’s first level of contact with him once he immigrated to
the United States was through seminars.
During these seminars he would complete a demonstration or two,
thoroughly slamming people to the ground or knocking them loopy, but with
little to no explanation. He would then
walk around to mostly strangers and show a technique or two and then have them
try to repeat it. He would not show
people exactly how to replicate it, he didn’t spoon feed anyone. There was little to no trust built up with
the majority of attendee’s and he felt that if he gave his secrets away people
would pay someone else for his knowledge.
While at these seminars, people might just see Taika on a stage, in
semi-close proximity, or if lucky actually have Taika walk over and talk to
them and their partner. In a six hour
seminar, most people were lucky if they even got 2 minutes within spitting
distance much less a hands on encounter with the man. Taika would water things, for instance;
bending the wrist of your primary hand during tuite, changing the angles of his
body, et cetera. He would quite
frequently say one thing to everyone but do something different with his
body. We have hundreds of examples of
this recorded in our library.
Inside Seminar Level Contact
As things progressed and his association grew, Taika had many
member only seminars. There was a little
more trust built up with possibly the hosting dojo owner, but not all the attendees
were people Taika knew and trusted. Quite
often there would be a large amount of kyu rank students of the host, and Taika
only formally taught yudansha at his dojo.
More on that in a bit. At these a
little more instruction might come out, a little more detail, but he was still
a very guarded man. Most attendees were
still restricted to just a couple of minutes of face time with the man.
Dojo Level Contact
At Taika’s dojo he taught primarily local yudansha and occasionally
allowed a lucky brown belt that was nearing their yudansha exam to join the
classes. At this level, the instructor
per student ratio was anywhere from 15-30 and you could expect during every
single class to get several minutes of face to face time. If you kept at it for years or decades, your
Oyata clock would get rather full.
Secret Group
Taika knew very well that even in his dojo, with 15-30 people at
any given time it was hard to separate his time sufficiently to groom people
the way he needed to so that a large percentage of his knowledge wouldn’t be
lost. He would form a smaller group and
then stress to everyone in it that it was secret and they were not to tell
anyone. Of course, he himself wasn’t
very good at keeping secrets but these again were yet another step up,
decreasing the instructor/student ration from anywhere from two to one to ten
to one. This ratio was great, however
the ability to logistically get the larger group of maybe 10 people together in
secret was difficult, particularly when only two were geographically close. Two to one groups were pretty simple if the
two lived local to him.
Solo Training
And of course the best ratio was the one on one training that
usually occurred in his basement, garage or back yard. Few lucky practitioners reached this stage
and for various reasons. The lucky may
have been picked for their special abilities, their proved trustworthiness,
basic proximity to him, or a myriad of other reasons. Those that have shared their experiences with
me have had nothing more than a basic guess as to Taika’s reasoning for
choosing them for a specific area of training.
These sessions could be related to special weapons, open hand or just
principles and philosophies.
Summary
Oyata clock hour’s aside, the innate ability, determination
and practice regimen of the participant in any of these training
settings makes it so that no two people can be precisely compared. However, the next time someone is touting
their Oyata relationship, check their clock hours. Did they go to two seminars as an outsider
compiling maybe 4 minutes of face time?
Did they go to two seminars as a kyu member, compiling maybe 4 minutes
of face time? Did they train for 1 year
at his dojo compiling a few hours of face time?
Did they attend two large seminars a year compiling about 8 minutes of
time per year face to face for two decades?
Did they train directly one on one with the man, accumulating hundreds
or thousands of Oyata clock hours? It is
really difficult to put a time clock punch card on the table and review the
reality of the training people are touting.
There are far too many people throwing around Taika’s namesake as
their lineage when they only belong to the first category, or even worse their
instructor was in the first category and they themselves never even met the
man. Ask questions of them and the
people that know them. If someone is
touting Oyata’s lineage, you should see it in their body and in their
technique, not hear it in their mouth.
