It was the decade that ushered in "Chopsockie" movies along with the rise to fame and untimely death of Bruce Lee. It saw the heyday of The United States Karate Association. The institution of Safety Equipment, and the beginnings of Full Contact Karate. Martial Arts magazines flourished. Tournaments were so popular you could find one close enough to attend almost any weekend you felt like competing.

The 70's did not open on a good note for O.J.K.A. Sensei Moore and Dale Brooks had their disagreement, and then a falling out. Moore left Ohio Judo & Karate and opened, "The Martial Arts Career College" in Cleveland, Ohio. Within a year Sensei Moore would leave the area. Year's later Moore would tell me that he left because the way he was teaching Martial Arts no longer held for him what he needed spiritually.

Shortly after his return from Texas in January of 1970, Sensei Herrington began teaching Karate classes twice a week at the Elyria, Ohio YWCA. Originally setting up the program and assisting him was Sensei Clyde Hoover, a purple belt at the time. I joined them in early February and began training and assisting again. This marked the end of the only break I would ever take in training until I was stricken with throat cancer in 1998.

The early part of 1970 Sensei Herrington moved into a three-bedroom apartment I had in North Olmsted, Ohio. We started what I called the great basement and garage tour. Sensei Mike Adams, a brown belt at the time, was a big help. Acting almost as a real-estate agent finding us underground property and garages to congregate in. From one student's basement to another's as needed. Anywhere we could hold classes.

We also inherited the "NASA Karate Club" located at The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Plumbrook site next to Cleveland Hopkins Airport from Sensei Paul Ornowski.

Sensei AlGene Caraulia had actually started the classes. Sensei Caraulia, a Black Belt in Kajukenbo Karate, won many important Karate and Judo tournaments. He founded the Cleveland City Championships, and is director for the Midwest Four Seasons Karate Championships. He was elected to Professional Karate's Hall of Fame in 1974, and named to Who's Who in the Martial Arts in 1975. Just as a note, he was the first brown belt in Judo to win a National Championship.

Sensei Moore took over when Caraulia left, and Sensei Ornowski was keeping classes going now that Moore was gone. But he was being pulled by other responsibilities, and had disagreements with the club directors.

Sensei Herrington and I took over the classes for about eighteen weeks. We taught 12 of them together, I taught the last six alone. Then we left because we could not bring ourselves to teach, what we considered to be, the altered version of Martial Arts that the directors of the club kept insisting on.

Still, our time was not wasted. Sensei Herrington would eventually established contact and begin teaching at the NASA Karate Club in Sandusky, Ohio. This led to that club becoming one of our schools. Our Bayview School of today is an off shoot of that original Sandusky Club.

Also, while at NASA we were contacted by one of Sensei Moore's Black Belts, Sensei Ray Stegura. Sensei Stegura was a welcome inclusion. He had converted a green house in his backyard into a beautiful little dojo where he taught a group of loyal students. This would eventually become our Willoughby Hills Club.

I had collected a handful of private students that I taught in one of their basements twice a week on nights I wasn't at NASA. Sometimes they would attend the NASA classes with me. Sensei Herrington moved out of our apartment in North Olmsted, Ohio and into Elyria, Ohio because he was getting married. In a short time, he and Sensei Hoover opened a school, Karate World, in Elyria. I began going out there three to four days a week to help. It lasted a few months and then had to close.

The next move would be to the spot considered the first actual location of "The Ohio Ji Do Kwan Karate Association". It was Sensei Herrington's basement at 408 High Street in Elyria, Ohio. This is where we first actually used the name and the patch.

Sensei Herrington and I were talking in the corner of the basement after a class. I had drawn up a design for a patch based on the original Ji Do Kwan patch. The name, Ohio Ji Do Kwan Karate Association, so close to Lakewood Judo and Karate Association, my first school. It held a special place in my heart. I really missed it. Looking back, that is what I wanted to recreate.

Sensei seemed to like the ideas. He offered no argument or options. I don't know if he actually cared what we called it. He agreed to the name and the patch design. Mark it late October, early November 1970 as the birth of the association. We have continued uninterrupted since then.

I no longer taught in student's basements. During the next three years I took them to the High Street address with me twice a week. We continued to collect students, attend and give tournaments, and teach classes. We had established a Sandusky Club run by Sensei Robert Cooper, a previous student of Sensei Vic Moore, and a Willoughby Hills Club run by Sensei Stegura.

Around this time, we aligned ourselves with "The Korea Taekwondo Association", by way of a friend in Texas, Master Sonny Thompson. Master Thompson was proficient at Judo / Yudo, Ju-Jitsu and Taekwondo. He spent part of every year in Korea, and was a representative for the Association. We also aligned ourselves with The United States Karate Association. Sensei Herrington had been a member while in Texas and felt it would be good for us to be a part of USKA. It was now time to move out of the basement and into a storefront.

We looked around in the Lorain / Elyria area. There was only two other instructors operating out of storefronts, and we didn't want to impose on their territories. As was the habit of the time we notified the other instructors we knew of in the area that we would be opening a school and would keep it as far away as possible from another dojo.

Lorain at the time was considered a depressed city. We found a building in the heart of the "downtown" area. It had been vacant for six years. If nothing else it had six years worth of dirt and dust in it.

October 1, 1974 The Ohio Ji Do Kwan Karate Association opened it's headquarters dojo at 720 Broadway Lorain, Ohio. At the time there was a natural gas freeze imposed by the Federal Government. As a result we were unable to get the gas turned on. So the first two years we trained in our bare feet on a concrete floor covered in tile without any heat. Of course no gas also meant, no hot water tank.

In the winter the small electric heaters we purchased meant little. At the reception desk up front you could see your breath. The changing rooms were freezing. There were even times the top of the water in the toilet bowel was frozen.

Sensei Moore had told us stories about training in Korea. They would go into the mountains and run in the snow wearing only their GI and tennis shoes. There was a small training hall where two sides rolled up and allowed the wind and snow to blow through while they worked out. This made them tough. This developed character and gave them self-control and self-confidence.

720 Broadway became our mountain. So we persevered and actually began attracting more and more students. We did the construction work of building offices and walls while classes were going on. We confronted all adversity and developed a respect for training under rustic conditions.

To this day I will not allow air conditioning where we train. It's like camping with a mobile home, complete kitchen, t v, videos, and a satellite dish. You may be in the woods. You may be dressed like you're in the woods. You may even have a campfire. But, you certainly aren't a camper, and you certainly aren't camping.

In June of 1975 Sensei Herrington found it necessary to drop out of the headquarters school and devote more time to his home situation. All of a sudden I owned my own Martial Arts School.

Later in the year Sensei began having classes in his basement and that became, once again, our "Elyria Club". The State headquarters title for U.S.K.A., and eventually Regional headquarters for A.K.B.B.A. went there. The title of headquarters for Ohio Ji Do Kwan Karate Association stayed with my dojo in Lorain, where it resides today.

Also at this time, we were accepted into The Ju-Jitsu Kai Federation, which certified our Ju-Jitsu rank. So by the end of 1975 we had established our ranking on a National and International level of accreditation for both our Karate and Ju-Jitsu. We had established ourselves as national promoters by throwing The Northern States Karate Championships in September of 1974 and 1975. And, Sensei Tom Boyd opened our "Vermilion Club" in his garage, which brought our association up to one school and four clubs.

Jerry and I had been friends since we were thirteen, but the end of High School and his tour of duty in Viet Nam had separated us and we lost contact with each other. I stopped to get gas and there he was. It turns out that he was the manager of this nearby gas station that I usually never stopped at.

In just a few minutes of reliving old times we discovered that we were both Black Belts. He was Sensei Jerry Judd, a Black Belt in Isshinryu Karate under Sensei Ken York. Sensei York a well known local individual, a very tough and accomplished Martial Artist. I knew him and he is one of those "real" people that is easy to admire. As is Jerry.

Sensei Judd was teaching a group out of his garage at home. I told him that Wednesday nights was sparring night, and invited him and his school to come work out with us.

That began a standing invitation that continued unbroken for years. During that time we traveled to tournaments together, Sensei Judd and I began a Martial Arts supply store, and began manufacturing wooden weapons out of exotic woods. We made the only eight sided double taper Bo staffs on the market.

He and his students were traditional Isshinryu. Hard, straight line, and you could count on that reverse punch sooner or later. You couldn't hurt them. They took pride in that "punch me again" attitude. They called themselves "The Troglodytes". They even came to a Halloween party we had all dressed like cavemen.

Soon, Sensei Stegura started showing up on Wednesday nights also. It was a long drive for him so sometimes he brought students and sometimes he didn't. However, he was always there. Every Wednesday, ready to fight and workout.

Our association with them taught us all about the brotherhood of the Martial Arts. About the mutual respect and admiration that comes from good hard fighting between people of honor. About an area of understanding that just talk can not take you. How that type of a relationship elevates you and your vision, then leaves you more than you were. Our time with them was, and will always be very special.

The 1970's rolled on. 1976 was our Nation's 200th birthday. That year we attended the U.S.K.A. Grand Nationals in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was a three-day affair.

I had gotten there a day early so Master Trias invited me up to his suite to meet Sensei Chuck Norris who was releasing a movie called "Good Guys Wear Black".

We sat and talked for a while and they asked me if Sensei and I would have our students do some demos at theaters to promote Norris' movie. I said that of course we would. They gave me three boxes of promotional flyers.

At that time Sensei Norris was know for being in "Return of the Dragon" with Bruce Lee. But more than that he was known as a top notch tournament fighter. No wimp. He could take it and dish it out. He was a major competitor at the 1968 Texas State Championships that Sensei Herrington threw before coming to Ohio. We use to laugh because Black Belt Magazine covered it as "Blood Bath in Galveston". Ah, the old days. Later in the year we hosted the USKA Regionals.

The USKA tournament circuit was dynamic. Wonderful people and everything always first class and fair. The tournaments were big, but not so big that you couldn't take a break from a ring, and have a cup of coffee and a visit with friends. They were as much social events as competitions. We traveled primarily the Midwest hitting as many as two to three tournaments a month at times.

It was not unusual for Sensei Herrington and I to be given the duties of announcers and end up working the microphones for evening events, full contact matches, and demonstrations. Always, if we were there when Master Hidy Ochiai was doing his sword demonstration.

We really enjoyed doing that together. We went over well and had a lot of fun.

1976 also marks our second trip to The United States Karate Championships in Dallas, Texas. This time Sensei Herrington spent time discussing with the host, Sensei Allan Steen, the possibility of bringing the organization "The American Karate Black Belt Association" back to the Ohio area. Sensei Herrington was particularly interested in the fighting rules they used. They were called "AOK", Amateur Organization of Karate.

Our fourth annual Christmas party took place 12/23/77. As a surprise for Sensei Herrington, I had tracked down Sensei Moore and found him in Texas. Sensei Stegura and I bought Sensei Moore a ticket to Cleveland. I picked him up at Cleveland Hopkins airport. We also arranged for all of the old crew that trained together in the 60's to be there. There was about fourteen to sixteen of us.

Sensei Herrington was close to an hour late for the party so I called him. He was in bed. He had pneumonia. He was not feeling well at all. When I told him Sensei Moore was at the party he got dressed and came over.

We had a wonderful time. Sensei Herrington stayed much longer than one might expect. Eventually he was just so sick that he had to leave. We had taken roll after roll of film. Sensei Moore had presented Sensei Herrington, Sensei Stegura and I with a document. A Charter. He made us officers of The Ji Do Kwan Order in The Korean Kong Su Do (karate) Association of Su Bak (Ji Do Kwan). This charter still hangs in my dojo today.

We stayed until sometime around five in the morning. As always with Moore, it sooner or later made it around to demonstrating hip and body checks, kata bunki, 1-inch punch. The more we drank, the more bizarre it got. It was the last time the entire crew from the 60's ever got together again at one time.

We moved into the end of the 70's preparing a switch from USKA to A.K.B.B.A. Sensei was moving up from Assistant State Representative for USKA to Regional Representative for A.K.B.B.A. I would take on the duties of his assistant.

As I look back, I finally realized in the late 70's that Sensei Herrington was interested in functioning on a national level. He was geared to working with and for the national associations. He was very, very good at it. Where as I have always considered the Ohio Ji Do Kwan Karate Association to be my primary purpose and love. The development of the organization and the system was all, and is all that concerns me.

This is not to say that Sensei Herrington didn't care about Ohio Ji Do Kwan. Of course he did. He loved the association and the people. But it shows where our interests and strengths were, and lays the groundwork for how we occupied our time in the up coming years.