Continue reading »]]> Bret Howard Earle, 1970 –2013, Shodan Uechi Ryu karate

It is with a great deal of sadness that I announce the untimely passing of Bret Earle. He and his brother Ted Earle, (currently Yondan) were two of the earliest students at the San Jose dojo. Bret and Ted Earle, and my son Mike Allen were very close friends and trained together. They all received their Shodan (black belt) on May 5, 1985. During those early training years we attended quite a few tournaments and the 3 of them accumulated an impressive array of trophies. They trained hard, and at Bret’s first tournament he performed Kanshiwa kata. The judges complained that his skill looked to too advanced for the division, but I explained that it was his first competition and that it was the basic kyu kata. Bret was tall and strong and became interested in body building. He went on to become a trainer. Bret also was a certified counselor who helped many people overcome addiction challenges in their lives. In the early afternoon of May 8 as he was preparing to work out at his local gym, he collapsed. Efforts to revive him by staff and EMT’s were unsuccessful and he never regained consciousness.

Bret is survived by his wife Sarah, 10 year old son Alden, his older brother Ted, and his younger brother Brendan.

submitted by:

Shihan, Dave Sargent, Kyoshi

OKIKUKAI West, San Jose, California

Continue reading »]]> The Recipe

 learning, earning and yearning.
-Christopher Morley-

It doesn’t matter whether your baking a cake, some gluten free brownies,  (ha ha Susan)

or trying to develop a successful team with a sense of community……… The blending of ingredients is the benchmark of success,  not the ingredients themselves. 

 Grand Master George Mattson, Uechi ryu Pioneer

I’ve never known anyone to taste flour or baking powder then smile and say “mmm boy is that gonna be a goood cake,,,,,,,!”

Often our vision turns out to be something  drastically different than we imagined.

Last night in Plaistow, NH…

 I watched 200 plus people celebrate their Black Belt Graduation. The candidates were joined by an audience 1500 people from the community These students had been mentored by Senseis’ Buzz and Judy Durkin and the Butokukai  organisation of outstanding teachers.
Associations and dojos have alot to learn from Senseis’ Buzz and Judy.

Later during a brief conversation with martial arts legend, George Mattson I discovered an interesting lesson.

I said to George,
“It must be an amazing feeling to know your responsible for all this !”
He smiled and said he hadn’t imagined this.

During a conversation about the release of my latest film project, ‘Anatomy of the Tide’, originally due Sept 2012 now June 6, 2013. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1980038/

I told George I was a bad guy in the film and had used movements from the Uechi Ryu Kata Seisan in my fight scene then curb stomped my opponent.

He said sarcasticly,
“That should be real good for Uechi Ryu..!

Each of us are merely ingredients in the recipe that is our art,  Our family, our style, our dojo …..our community.

 

Robb Buckland, Grand Masters George Mattson & Buzz Durkin, w/ Sensei Allan Azoff

Live life fully while you’re here.

 Experience everything.  Take care of yourself and your friends.

 Have fun, be crazy, be weird.  Go out and screw up!

 You’re going to anyway,  so you might as well enjoy the process.  Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes:

 find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. 

Don’t try to be perfect; 
just be an excellent example of being human

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1960s Boston Workout

Our May 11^th “regional workout” like the previous 2 was a huge success.  Our number of attendees were 50 plus.  They came from all of the surrounding states and traveled as far as 3 to 4 hours to honor us with their participation.

Sensei Gary Wong 8^th dan and I were both part of the competition team from the Boston Mattson Academy back in the early “70s” who had much success in national and international tournaments.  Our workout this time around was some of the simple Uechi techniques which we’ve trained and used in our winning fighting style.  I added some of the effective take downs from our Uechi-Ryu movements.

Looking back, that was over 40 years ago.  Sensei Gary Wong and I are just overjoyed to have the opportunity to pass on some of the experience and knowledge we’ve accumulated these 40 plus years in diligent, open minded martial arts training.

Our next regional workout will be in Plymouth, NH hosted by sensei Christian Maine.  Christian sensei is one of the new, up and coming stars in Uechi-Ryu.  He is open minded and has worked out with numerous Uechi organizations while developing a friendship with all that he’s come in contact with.  To me, Christian Maine leads by example the true road of Bushido.

Please keep in touch with me and I will announce Christian’s workout plans as soon as I receive them.  This workout will be held in New Hampshire which is beautiful during the summer season.  Plan to spend a little time there before or after the workout as I’m sure you will love the scenic area.  My students and I are going to plan this as a min vacation/road trip and get a great workout also. Hope to see all of you soon.

A special thanks goes to Barry Chu, John Hwee, Harry Skeffington and friends from Boston Chinatown whom I have not seen or worked out with in a long time since I’ve open my Plymouth dojo.  It was wonderful to have this opportunity to work out with them again.

Darin Yee

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This is just a quick note to thank you for joining me for the annual kung fu dinner in Boston.  This was always a great reason for Uechi people to get together for festivities outside of a workout.  We get to join the largest martial arts organizations in Boston’s Chinatown and their associates from the entire eastern seaboard.

There were approximately 500 in attendance.  Over 70 of the attendee were Uechi-Ryu people from the New England area.  The Uechi-Ryu people came from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts.  I apologize if I did not contact you in regards to this event.  I will truly try to include you next year.  Please do not hesitate to remind me if you are interested for next year.  This event will only get bigger as years go by.

This event included demonstrations by the Tiny Wu Shu School who came with 25 young ladies between 5 to 12 years of ages to perform their fan dances.  The Wu Ching White Crane society performed some of their most well know forms.  The Wai Lum School showed a wonderful performance of their flexibility and agility.  In attendance was a Shaolin Monk accompanied by a few of his student who stepped up and demonstrated their version on training.  We also saw a master of marital arts from India demonstrate their weapons training and their 2 person hand and weapon sets.

The anchor performance was our Uechi-Ryu people proudly showing the connection between Uechi-Ryu and all that everyone knows about their kung fu systems.  My Tai Chi group performed our competition hand set, weapons and ball exercises.  Sensei Tom Hallahan demonstrated the power we possessed as Uechi-Ryu practitioners.  Sensei Fedele Cacia wowed the crowd with his body conditioning tested by Sensei Peter Blackman.  Sensei Fred Lohse and his students demonstrated the Feeding Crane Forms.

A few of my students whom you will certainly hear about in the near future as they will be some of our up and coming greats also joined the show.  Melissa McCarthy, Brianna McCarthy and Jordan Lippman demonstrated Seisan kata in unison proving how can smoothly flow and still maintain a maximum degree of force.  David Wu demonstrated one of our methods of training to enhance our reflexes and movements while using a weapon.  Sophia Candlen, Cassie Candlen and Araceli Sandoval demonstrated how we develop our aggressive fighting combinations.  Jordan Lippman came out again to prove young people have tremendous power in their kicks with proper training.  The big finally was 5 years old Patrick Candlen sparring with Ignacio (Nacho the “no man”) Sandoval.

They all proved there is a bright and successful future for Uechi-Ryu.  As a teacher, there is no greater joy then to see the results of your dedication to these talented and wonderful children.  They are the future of our system.  “Teach them well and let them lead the way”.

Again, I want to thank you for your participation.  I’m sure the 10 course meal which included lobster, steak, chicken, fish, fried rice, an assortment of vegetables and different sea foods provided plenty of food for everyone.  I also like to give a special thanks to our friends Sensei John Griffin and Sensei Tom Piacentini from Connecticut for traveling such a great distance to celebrate with us.

Sensei Pat Saunders was there also.  I have such great respect for her as a teacher and maybe some of her students will join us next year and demonstrate what a tremendous job she is doing at her dojo.

Darin Yee

Continue reading »]]> As an American Lama, martial artist, county sheriff and actor, Steven Seagal continues to produce politically powerful messages.  I found this on my Facebook page today, sent out by one of my friends who cares about Mother Earth.  I hope you will take the time to watch this message.

Here’s the link:

Dr. V

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Van Cann’s 80′s Competition Team Members

Amazing how many videos, pictures and memories one can accumulate in a lifetime. I have a storage locker filled with memorabilia that I’m trying to catalog and digitize for the future Martial Art Library my friends are creating. Hope you enjoy some of the memories that didn’t make it into my last book, “The Way of Uechi-ryu Karate”.

Two of the best tourney fighters of the time – “Moto” & “Tanaka”

Probably the best fighter of the era, Nev Kimbrell

]]> http://uechi-ryu.com/gem-library-archives/feed/ 0 http://uechi-ryu.com/first-mattson-academy-group-picture/ http://uechi-ryu.com/first-mattson-academy-group-picture/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:30:12 +0000 George Mattson http://uechi-ryu.com/?p=3776 Wow! Either 1959 or 1960 group picture of my advanced class at the first outdoor workout in a park in Newton, MA. I can still identify a couple of individuals. . . Me, Tom Bruno, Charles Couflin. . . Can you identify any of the others???

Continue reading »]]> From my Newsletter Archives – 2003

North American seniors meets with kanei uechi circa 1984

Uechi-ryu Family of Organizations!
by Steve Goss

As many of you know, the late 1980′s heralded a major shift in organizations practicing Uechi-ryu. Prior to that time, most of us were members of the Uechi-ryu Karate-do Association. Now there are many more associations. During my last trip to Okinawa I was told there are currently as many as 15 different associations practicing the system we all know as Uechi-ryu. In my opinion, it was inevitable that this kind of change should occur. There is a “maturing” of the practice of martial arts internationally, and with the passing of Kanei Uechi, arguably the tie that kept the Uechi-ryu Karate-do Association together, there were individuals and groups of vast experience and skill who would form associations and groups of dojo with the purpose of practicing the system as they understand it.

In order to accommodate these changes, I have heard more than once of the intent coming out of Okinawa to maintain a “family of organizations”-a loose affiliation of support and maintenance of the system. Different organizations include kobudo in their training and practice different yakusoku kumites, but the agreed upon exercises that are to remain constant are Sanchin, Seisan, and Sanseiru. At this point I would argue that the other five kata should be a part of the core system, but that is a discussion for another time.

We have witnessed the changes occurring in other systems and the results of those changes. In some cases the changes were drastic and included personal agenda (to put it gently) and the end result is that, often, one does not even recognize a system as being the same from one dojo to the next. I would encourage all who practice Uechi-ryu, by whatever name, to work together to see that this does not happen to us.

There are a number of things of which we can be proud in the practice of Uechi-ryu, not the least of which is the fact that we can walk into any dojo in the world and know what to expect and what is expected of us. With the exception of minor technical differences, we all do kata the same way. We all need to work to keep it that way.

I encourage all, especially the young people training and coming up in the system, to support the concept of a family of organizations and to actively work to maintain that ideal. One does not become a better practitioner by saying anything negative about the “other guys”-one’s skill and understanding of Uechi-ryu should be demonstrated on the dojo floor. Accommodate differences in training. Practice the different yakusoku kumites developed by the different associations. Keep an open mind. And work to keep us all together.

We have the rare privilege of practicing a pure system. We can trace our history straight to Southern China with no “forks in the road”. Let’s keep it that way.

Steve Goss
California

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Note: May workout changed to Saturday, May 11th!

March 9^th, the “HUT” hosted a regional workout lead by Sensei Paul Giella and Sensei Vinny Christiano.  This was a classical workout conducted by 2 “down to earth old time instructors” with a lot of skills and teaching experience.

The workout was invigorating and intense.  We covered everything from exercises, kata and techniques.  Paul Sensei introduced and worked on a 3 part San-Chin.  This 3 part San-Chin went from a posing kata to a blocking kata and finished with a striking/attacking kata.  These drills were both interesting and challenging.  They worked our coordination and forced us to focus as each step incorporates a different mindset and a different process in movements.  Sensei Paul was constant in his insistence on stances and a good base.

Vinny Sensei, as always, introduced his innovative ideas and variations on kata and dan kumite.  A lot of what Vinny Sensei emphasized was our softer aspect within our system.  We explored the strength within our core and the generation of power from rotation.  We are always in search of the hidden power within ourselves.  Vinny Sensei worked diligently throughout this seminar to help us realize how to find our strengths.

It is needless to say I respect and admire both of them as martial artists and teachers.  My only wish is to have more chances to work out with them and the many talented people who work out at the Hut.

The next regional workout will be hosted by me, Darin Yee, on Saturday, May 11.  The location is 8 Natalie Way, Plymouth, MA 02360.  The start time will be 12 noon.  After our workout we will go next door to a well-known Hibachi restaurant named New Tokyo for Japanese food.  There is both hot and cold food.  They have also agreed to give us a discount.

The presenters will be Sensei Gary Wong and I.  We have both studied Uechi-Ryu since 1969.  Gary and I have also spent as many years studying Chinese Kung-Fu.  Our seminar on May 18^th will introduce many movements we’ve studied in Kung-Fu and relate them to our movements in Uechi-Ryu.  As we have been taught since the beginning of everyone’s training, our Uechi-Ryu from Okinawa was derived from “Pong Gai Noon” the system taught to our Grandmaster Kunbun Uechi.

Sensei Gary Wong and I, through our 50 plus years of studies and training in both avenues of martial arts, will demonstrate and teach different uses and understanding for our similar moves.  We will also drill on some of the fighting techniques which help us become the  successful competitors we were in the early “70s”.  Hope to see you here on May 181at 12 noon.

Continue reading »]]> I know it has been awhile since my last post and the reason is due to the fact I have been working out of Chicago since just after the new year.  Many of my friends, including Sensei Mattson, have questioned my work location choice and have commented on it being “ass backwards”….I should be working in Chicago during the summer and enjoying the winter in Florida!!  Although this absolutely makes perfect sense, even to me, there is a MAJOR REASON for this choice.  As the title of this post states: 22 PER DAY…EVERY DAY…is the reason I am working to eliminate this number….This number represents, as of February ,from www.military.com the latest increase from 17, the number of veterans committing suicide DAILY here in the U.S. due to PTSD.  (which will now be referred to as PTS due to the fact the powers that be don’t want to refer to it as a “disorder”)  This number also only takes into account over-doses and gun related suicides and not intentional car wreaks, knife-related deaths or other forms of self annihilation.  Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow…this is truly our “national tragedy” and it is a project I am committed to reducing to ZERO!  Next Friday, March 15th at the Union League Club of Chicago, an event will take place to bring awareness of this nation-wide issue and how “faith-based” organizations can get involved by learning tools necessary to stop this unnecessary loss of life.  The system currently in place to assist our returning vets is broken and the fix is an integrative approach, anchored by Traditional Oriental Medicine.

The following graphic representing the March 10th broadcast of a new documentary on this subject by CNN, should assist in bringing this national tragedy to light and commence our collective efforts towards ending this daily horror.

I promise to keep you all updated as my work with establishing new Healer-Warrior programs in the VA and with the VFW continues.  Please make time in your schedule to watch this powerful documentary on March 10th!!

Thanks!

Dr. Vishnu

ESCAPE FIRE Premieres on CNN March 10th! We’re so excited to announce that ESCAPE FIRE was picked up by the newly formed CNN Films and will be the first documentary to air on the network under this initiative. It will premiere on Sunday, March 10th at 8pm and again at 11pm ET. CNN will replay ESCAPE FIRE on Saturday, March 16th at 8pm & 11pm ET. This is an incredible opportunity to engage millions of people in a conversation about fixing our healthcare system. Pledge to join the millions who will be watching! The premiere will be immediately followed by a roundtable discussion led by CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta centered around the themes in the film.  Dr. Steven Nissen and Dr. Erin Martin from the film will be joining a number of special guests for the discussion. Please join us by hosting a viewing party at home, at work, or on campus during the broadcast. Voice your thoughts during the screening by following @EscapeFire and #RescueHeathcare on Twitter! And help us spread the word: Click to download the Invitation Click to post on Facebook Click to Tweet This is a huge milestone on our incredible journey with this film. We hope you will join us for the ride. With best regards and gratitude for your support, Matthew Heineman Director/Producer, ESCAPE FIRE www.EscapeFireMovie.com Friend on Facebook Follow on Twitter Forward to a Friend

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