Your Instructor is not a God - Neither Was Mine

Over the last couple of years I have had people debate me online, in emails and face to face about things they know to be true about their instructor. This is usually centered on what their instructor has told them about their expulsion from RyuTe® Ren Mei by the founder Taika Seiyu Oyata.

Let’s face it; people don’t like to be wrong. They usually don’t like to make ‘life mistakes’. I have yet to know a single expelled person that didn’t make disclaimers about their expulsion. Whenever Taika would remove someone from the organization, it was never for anything small or petty. It was always for some major character flaw or a plethora thereof. In almost every case, there were warnings and chances given by Taika leading up to the expulsion. These expulsions were for many things over the years; money, physically inappropriate relations, integrity issues, drug problems, adultery, as well as others and combinations thereof. It was Taika’s organization and he was free to expel them for any reason he chose, and he never did it lightly or because of some big conspiracy. Let’s face it, none of the other yudansha in the organization were coordinated or spiteful enough to plant drugs on someone, hire an underage girl and her mother to tempt an instructor, entice someone to steal money from Taika or cheat him out of money, tempt someone to make yudansha certificates to promote people without Taika’s knowledge, host secret seminars and advertise that Taika was coming when he knew nothing about the seminar, or a myriad of other infractions that occurred.

What frustrates me and others that remain in the association is the very common fiction that ends up being spread. The lack of logic that oozes from these stories is maddening. But we see it with every other conspiracy in every other situation that floods the web nowadays so why I expect any more from the testosterone driven market of the martial world is I guess my fault. I’ve recently had second and third generation students of expelled people challenge my interpretation of their instructor, or instructor’s instructor’s, relationship with Taika.

Please, I beg of you people, look at things from a logical and evidentiary view. Challenge what your instructor is saying. I did, yes I said it. I did not always take what Taika said at face value, he was human. I’m not saying I didn’t trust him, but there was always room for misinterpretation with the language and cultural barriers in place. Plus I am a cop and a historian, so when he’d tell me something I’d want the bigger picture, more facts to go with it. I asked questions, I looked for evidence in many ways. I validated information. When he would tell me something like the island his father was the mayor of, where he grew up, I researched all the information I could find on that island. It was just fascinating information that was now readily accessible due to the internet.

If your instructor claimed to be Taika’s favorite student and still trained with him, why for 19 years did Taika never show up at a single event hosted by your instructor’s instructor? Why were there in 19 years no pictures or videos of the two together? Why was he kicked out of the funeral he was asked not to attend in the first place? Why did his flowers so offend the family they threw them in the dumpster at the funeral home? And a special note on that action, requested by the immediate family, it was the giant capital letters on the cards with the name of the expelled member’s organization that was offensive. It was as if every florist was expressly told that those words and only those words should be in all capital letters. That was like a slap to the face of the family trying to grieve mere days after the death of their father and husband.  If your instructor(s) quit coming regularly or at all to classes in 2000 (after the first surgery scare), and you hadn't even started training by that date, then don't expect me to not sigh in total disgust at your inaccurate 'facts' about what occurred in my presence during my time with Taika.   

I know there have been people asking questions and figuring this out in the past because people had frequently left these peripheral factions in search the real McCoy, one Taika Seiyu Oyata. Numerous times over the years people would train for a while in one or more of these groups hoping to meet Taika and then being crushed when they learned the truth after a senior member reluctantly pulled them aside because they were asking too many questions about Taika. These questions could embarrass their leader. Some choke it down and continued to study with the expelled, and I don’t fault them for that. Many of the expelled were very talented practitioners that just made poor decisions during their crossroads with Taika. They were forced to go a different direction and that is fine. Their skills didn’t go ‘poof’ and hopefully they learned from their social mistakes. Continuing to train with them is their choice. My question remains though, if some people can smell the bull, then why don’t others? If the red flags are there, if the evidence is obvious to some, then why do some people who never met Taika in their life or if they did they went to one or two seminars before their instructor was expelled which amounted to either being in the same room with him once or just walking in proximity to him, want to argue over knowledge they do not possess. The simple truth is they believe their first instructor was an infallible god.

None of my instructors over these decades were infallible nor gods. They were all humans who made mistakes. Taika would talk to me many times during our car rides or while training about the mistakes he made in his life, from childhood to the final days. He was a mortal, though a very talented one.

Ask questions freely of the master or superior for you must strive to understand what you are learning.

There are many people that saw Taika.  There are many people that trained at one of his events.  There are many people that trained in his presence.  There are many people that actually had a hand on moment with the man.  There are few who stuck with him to the end, kept their promises to him, and actually are performing the art the way he taught it in 2012.