Mr. Mattson,
 
I want to again thank you for the experience of working with you at the 2008 Uechi-ryu Summer fest.  I congratulate you on the successful effort you have made in building your Uechi-ryu organization. Even more importantly, I admired the respect and confident humility exchanged between those members participating.  You should feel proud of what you have accomplished with your associates going way back to 1958.
 
During the nearly forty-five years I have been a black belt, I have known, sparred, fought, taught, and trained with hundreds of black belts from Okinawa. You and I know that during the late fifties and early sixties, Okinawa was the Mecca for learning real Karate. Unfortunately, the majority of those Okinawan (trained) black belts vanished and left nothing of importance behind. 

This vacuum they left does not dignify all the months of training they went through, nor does it revere the sacred virtues for which Okinawan martial arts stood. I never understood why anyone, especially a black belt, would work so hard to get something and then simply give it up and quit. If a fight is worth fighting, then it should be worth winning.  If training hard for months to attain something is worth achieving, then it should be worth actively maintaining to dignify what it stands for. 
 
It is an honor and a pleasure to know and work with a fellow Okinawan black belt, like yourself, who understands and exercises those training virtues and teaching disciplines which dignify that of a true Grandmaster.
 
From one Champion to another,
 
Joe Lewis