The Gift

Ed McGrath had only wanted one thing. It was his goal when he first started training in Isshinryu karate: to make it to brown belt. Brown belts, apparently, stood out as the most determined and spirited fighters in the dojo he trained at. Eventually he did achieve the rank of ikkyu (brown belt). He had been training at that level for some time when one day after finishing a round of basics, the chief instructor, Don Nagle, had everyone sit down. McGrath and another student were told to get up and were motioned to the center of the deck.

Hajime!

One by one he was made to fight every student in the school. The year was 1959, and during karate's formitive years in the States, kumite was rough-and-tumble. Punches and kicks were rarely pulled, and knockouts were common. It should come as no surprise then that karate's ultimate rite of passage - the black belt test - was a brutal affair. After over twenty grueling matches, Ed McGrath was promomted to shodan (1st degree black belt). Master Nagle presented him with his own obi (belt) - the same one given to him a few years earlier by his sensei - Isshinryu's founder, Tatsuo Shimabuku.

Ed McGrath eventually opened his own school, and in time gave away his black belt to one of his own senior students. Through the years, Don Nagle's original obi was passed down through one generation after another of dedicated students, each one realizing its significance. When Master Nagle passed away in 1999, the last student to receive this belt returned it to the Nagle family.

In any act of giving or self-sacrifice we somehow gain something. I've never expected anything in return for all the belts I've given away. But I still have my original black belt and white belt. During his final days, Jigoro Kano - judo's illustrious founder and progenitor of the colored belt ranking system, asked to be buried with his white belt. "You can have my black belt; wear it proudly", he told one of his students. "Where I'm going, we're all white belts anyway."

...we have only what we (can) give. - Carl Jung

Retro Ads

Yes, now you can learn martial arts the fast and easy way in the comfort of your own home! That's right. All you need to do is scrape up some pocket change and we'll rush you deadly Asian fighting secrets never before revealed!

Martial arts enthusiast Dan Kelly has compiled an interesting albeit hilarious collection of mail-order self defense courses from yesteryear. Talk about "buyer beware"! I know I'm giving away my age here, but some of these ads I actually remember. They were typically found on the back pages of many popular comic books which also carried products like X-Ray Glasses and the now classic The Day Mac Became A Man ads that were run by bodybuilding guru Charles Atlas. The credentials of some of these so-called karate masters that were featured on these courses were questionable to say the least. Needless to say, most of the ads were geared toward testosterone driven young men who either thought that learning martial arts overnight would turn them into chick magnets, or had visions of becoming the next Kato (Bruce Lee's first TV gig as a kung fu crime-fighting superhero c. 1965).

There was still some public naivete in the West about the martial arts during the era that these ads ran; it was a time when judo was popularly used as a generic term to describe any martial-art style, and black belt "holders" were regarded as invincible warriors.

I truthfully never knew anyone who actually sent away for one of those pseudo-self defense courses. One friend of mine did get the Charles Atlas Dynamic Tension muscle building program. I got the X-Ray Glasses. And somewhere Bruce Lee is having a really good laugh.

Giri: The Concept of Obligation

Many years ago, my father worked as a longshoreman on a New York waterfront for a busy shipping company. He made union scale wages (good pay) and worked a 4-day week - an excellent job. His duties included unloading cargo and taking inventory of received goods. One day, the presense of an unscrupulous element became known, and it was suggested to him that he look the other way when certain shipments came in. He was assured he would be reimbursed for his cooperation. In those days, dimedropping (whistle blowing) was not a wise option in a mob controlled industry, and my father felt he had no choice but to quit his job. "I refuse to be obligated to the wrong people", he explained.

Giri (Jpn; pron. "gear-ee") loosely translated means "obligation", but with profound moral and ethical connotations. This is a concept that is pronounced in the teacher-student relationship in traditional martial arts. The classical ryu (martial arts school) was not run like a business, and there was no exchange of money or goods between a master and his disciple. The student, however, was expected to carry the obligation of loyalty to his teacher, school, and the other students through perpetuating the art.

True giri entails performing acts of service to everyone we are in some way dependent on; service to your family, co-workers, community, and society. It is the pursuit of fulfilling one's duty that is not be confined to the dojo, but to be practiced in all walks of life. But giri that expresses itself for the wrong reason (giri literally means "right reason") can easily be warped into something less than honorable, like that situation my father found himself in all those years ago. The day he walked away from that job, it was for the right reason. My father had fulfilled his giri.