The Lighter Side Of Karate

Any one who has spent a few years in the martial arts will know that it isn't all sweat, aching muscles, bruises and Neanderthals with no teeth. A few classic funny moments pass into legend, and a few are recounted below. My apologies in advance to any one who doesn't share the sometimes basic humour of the martial artist, but as they say in the Army ''if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined.''

In the latter years of the 1980s Bujinkai Karate was holding a grading at St. Austell for all their students in Cornwall. As usual, the morning's training passed quickly, and as we were about to wind up and get ready for the grading itself I noticed that the Chief Instructor was not looking very happy.

He turned to me and expressed some displeasure that a number of female Karateka were not wearing the correct Bujinkai uniform - namely that they had various coloured T-shirts on under their gi. The rules state that only women are allowed to wear a T-shirt under their gi jacket, and that it should be a plain white T-shirt "Leave it to me, Sensei", I replied.

Ten minutes later as we bowed off, I asked all the female Karateka to stay on for a moment. I reminded them of the rules, expressing particular regret that one of my own first Dan students was wearing a bright green Garfield T-shirt and should have known better! I praised those with the correct T-shirt, and gave the others thirty press ups to remind them to wear the correct uniform next time.

One group went off to prepare for the grading, another group ambled off and did their press ups (cursing me under their breath), leaving a solitary woman standing in front of me, smiling. "Is this all right, Sensei?" she asked as she pulled her gi jacket wide open, revealing that she was wearing nothing at all underneath.

"Er... Yes, that's fine", I replied.

Ken got fed up with bringing his son to Karate twice a week and sitting and watching the session, so he asked the Sensei if he could train as well. Unfortunately Ken had been in a mining accident and had lost a leg, but it was agreed that he could try. Ken had a special leg built for him so he could swivel and execute kicks 'after a fashion', and he compensated for his limited mobility with very fast and devastating hand techniques.

When Ken was an orange belt he was sparring with a blue belt twenty years his junior, and got caught with a thrusting side kick that sent him sprawling. As he fell the straps holding his artificial leg broke, and as Ken was prostrate on the floor his leg ended up spinning round and round beside him.

We have a sort of unwritten rule during sparring.. if your opponent falls, slips, trips or is thrown to the floor you finish him/her off immediately before they can get up again - failure to do so resulting in a penalty of twenty press ups!

The blue belt hesitated a moment, then went in to deliver the killing blow. As he moved in, Ken grabbed his artificial leg by the ankle and hit the blue belt on the side of the head with it, knocking him over and stunning him. The whole room collapsed into fits of laughter as Ken hopped around the prone blue belt waving his leg and cried ''that'll teach you!''

Eventually Ken had to stop training as he got an evening job, but he graded to purple belt, and the last time I saw him he was jogging seven miles a day to keep fit.

We like our students to be knowledgeable in other martial arts and sports, but this is going a bit too far. (Shihan Whale has the rather dubious honour of being runner up in the 1995 Cornish Sumo Wrestling Championships).

Isn't it strange how every time you try to take a photo of a Karate competition you always seem to end up with the two protagonists either looking like they're desperately in need of a trip to the toilet, or doing the latest disco dance (very badly!) A classic newspaper shot from about the early 1990's - Alex Blamey (left) Vs. Robin Whale (right). Thanks to Becky Curtis for the clipping - she's the one sitting on the floor just behind Sensei Whale's left hip. We have no idea who was refereeing - suggestions welcome ... ... as are any other "embarrassing" photos and/or stories ...

Sometimes you get exactly what you asked for, and I asked for any other "embarrassing" photos and/or stories. Thanks to David Croft, a photo of a rather fetching performance of Pinan Sandan at the British Karate Association National Championships, way back when Noah was an apprentice carpenter!!! The question is, "how come all these embarrassing photos from the past all feature the same person?" Come on, guys, there has to be some ancient cave paintings of other sensei out there somewhere, or some embarrassing tales that won't get us arrested.