Tiered Training with Oyata - All Training Not Created Equal

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.