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The 1980's
The decade of the 80's saw us making the switch from USKA to A.K.B.B.A. early in the first year. Sensei Herrington found no problem in attracting Black Belts and their schools to the organization. He signed them up by the gross. We threw the "A.K.B.B.A Regionals" in 1980 and the two most successful Northern States Karate Championships ever in 80 and 81.
We rented out the Grand Ballroom of "Stouffer's on the Square" in Cleveland both years. The first year we had a Bill "Superfoot" Wallace seminar Saturday during the day and the "Karate Pioneer Awards" banquet Saturday evening, and tournament Sunday.
The second year we found out at 8:00am Saturday morning that Joe Lewis, who was scheduled to give a seminar that day wasn't going to show up. He couldn't get away because he was filming "Jaguar Lives". Sensei Allan Steen and Sensei Jim Harrison, two Martial Arts Legends, stepped up and each gave a seminar in his place. They saved our rear ends and provided the audience with two spectacular learning events. Later that evening we had "The Karate Pioneer Awards" banquet.
As a special treat for Ohio Ji Do Kwan, Sensei Robert C. Moore was in town for the weekend on unrelated business. He had contacted me, so Sensei Stegura and I met with him the night before and got him to the clinics where he worked as an uke for Sensei Harrison and to the tournament where he judged kata. What a surprise for Sensei Herrington
Tournament day we ran 12 rings and put over six hundred competitors through elimination's from 10:00am to 6:00pm. We had a one-hour dinner break while we set up a ring and chairs. From 7:00pm to 11:00pm we provided one thousand spectators with a marvelous evening show. We had attracted people from all over the U.S., and collected a Who's Who in the Martial Arts.
Special gratification for me was a standing ovation from one thousand Martial Artists, our peers, for our demonstration team "Kicks". For me to write a "History of Ohio Ji Do Kwan" and leave them out would be unforgivable.
A team since 1976, sixteen members who had to earn the right to be on the team, and then had to work, at least, twelve hours a week, besides regular classes, to stay on the team.
It was a time in the evolution of Martial Arts in the U.S. where schools were breaking boards, doing kata, and showing three technique combinations at their demonstrations. We had pushed the envelope so far that it wasn't until the year 2000, almost twenty-five years later, while watching E.S.P.N. that I have seen anything that has even come close.
We traveled with a full sound system, flash pots, explosions, fog machines, lighting, costumes, and staging. While spectators at regular demonstrations were looking for something to relate to, we were setting attendance records at shopping malls doing choreographed routines with weapons to "Earth Wind and Fire", recreating a sound stage at "Golden Harvest Studios", or massive battle scenes, all in the round.
Wherever the members are, God Bless them all. They were real Martial Artists who were true of heart, devoted, a real team, and one of the best promotional vehicles for the Martial Arts the area ever had.
The late 70's had seen us regularly mentioned in Martial Arts Magazines. The early 80's continued that practice. "Official Karate Magazine Yearbook" featured us as top "Midwest Promoters". Another thing we continued was to travel the state of Ohio giving self-defense seminars. This was truly one of Sensei Herrington's strong points and, with his guidance, was developing into one of mine.
We were able to institute the "AOK" rules into use in the Great Lakes Area of the U.S. through A.K.B.B.A. sanctioned tournaments and events. Also, they were accepted for use in the "Cleveland City Championships", which by this time were being run on a monthly basis by the "International Karate And Kickboxing Hall Of Fame".
They were very popular rules because they promoted kicking, but did not overshadow or penalize the competitor who specialized in hand techniques. A five point spread needed to win promoted the matches to reach the two minute time limit and thus the competitors would have a complete fight for their money, rather then being taken out within the first thirty seconds by two quick techniques.
This marked a time when we delved into "Full Contact Karate". Sensei Barbara Niggle of Youngstown, Ohio was throwing a tournament with "PKC" full contact amateur and professional matches for the evening show. She asked if I had any one who was interested in fighting. I had two students that wanted to try so I set up their matches.
I designed a training and conditioning program for them, got them trainers who ran with them and kept time of their circuits when training. Found sparring partners, and rehearsed my crew for the corner. I oversaw everything and had them working every day. I brought in boxers to work with their hands and when they were ready, I put the legs with the hands since kicks for full contact karate are different than what we do for the art or self-defense. I took them to Youngstown for ring work and practice using the ropes.
They were to fight amateur division. This was three two-minute rounds with a one-minute rest in between each round. By the eighth and last week of training they were fighting ten three-minute rounds with a ten-second rest between each round, every day.
The night of the fights they got a full rub down before stretching, then they jumped rope for six two minute rounds just before going into the ring. I didn't want them going in dry, because three two minute rounds is to short a time for them to warm up by fighting
Sensei Glenn Keeney, a friend from our USKA days and the current Director of PKC, was referee for the matches that evening. I had always admired and looked up to Sensei Keeney. He was USKA Light Weight Champion, rated fourth in Black Belt Magazine's Top Ten in 1972, and trained Heavy Weight Full Contact Champion Ross Scott. He was an accomplished and outgoing individual. No ego problems.
My fighters were purple belts at the time of this these fights. They both would eventually become Black Belts. Sensei Gene Madison knocked out his opponent in 1:45 of the second round with a sweet hook that traveled about four inches and caught his guy right behind the ear. He stopped dead, thunder struck for just a moment, then crumpled to the canvas face first like a sack of rocks.
Sensei Hector Rivera literally plastered his opponent with an unending barrage of punches and kicks from all angles until his man staggered around the ring bouncing off first one rope, then another, and fell face first to the floor at 1:45 of the second round also. He knocked his man down five times in two rounds.
Senseis Don and Carol Willis out of Canal Fulton, Ohio had become close friends of ours. They promoted regular tournaments of high quality that were A.K.B.B. sanctioned.
At their suggestion we got together a team for "The A.K.B.B.A. Ohio Hard Contact Championships". We arranged a series of four meetings to take place over the course of the year at their regular tournaments. Each team consisted of four men and one woman all under the rank of Black Belt.
The only protection the competitors wore were hand, foot, and groin protection. To score a point they had to rock or drop their opponent with the technique. I remember in the third meeting we had a purple belt dropped and down for fifteen minutes because he ducked face first into a spin back kick. Eventually they stopped his nose from bleeding, he got up and won his match by scoring three more points before the match was over. And, yes, his opponent got a point for the spin back kick. We eventually went on to win the championships.
Sensei Herrington and I had worked hard and with the help of our Black Belts and students had developed a very good reputation for the Ohio Ji Do Kwan Karate Association covering many facets of the Martial Arts. Quality in students, teaching, and self-defense. Touch, hard, and full contact fighting. Tournament, demonstration, and special event promotion. Forms and weapons competitors of the highest quality. Everything on a local or national level that could be done, we did.
It's only natural when things seem to be running so smooth that adversity will raise it's ugly head.
The 80's saw instability develop within in the association. Actually, since the beginning I had always felt that everything should have been set up on a more formal basis. Information, a common direction, everything should come from the Chief Instructor of the association directly to the Head Instructor of each school.
I wanted Sensei to make it a profitable organization like Master Trias had USKA. An organization that would employ him and take him out of the regular work force and allow him to earn a living at the Martial Arts.
Regular Black Belt classes and teaching seminars, would institute whatever was necessary to keep each school up to par, and thus all schools working in the same direction.
Sensei had always ran kind of a loose ship that was his style. There were always little differences in Kata and small technical inconsistencies that varied from school to school. This is very hard to avoid in the best of situations. However, now he was almost ignoring everything contrary.
He would kick a Black Belt out of the association for bad attitude and poor conduct. Then, overlook the disrespect to his authority when one of our schools would take that same individual in and have him teaching less than a week later.
There had been a time when Sensei would make regular "visits" to the various dojos. Now each school was left more or less to it's own devices regarding meeting requirements.
No real quality control of any kind was in place, no real technical consistency. Eventually we reached a point where, for the most part, the only thing that a few of us shared was the name.
We had schools bringing in "Teachers" of other systems, some of them very questionable. As they say; "There's a sucker born every minute". A few of our people went out of their way to prove it.
We had beginners learning brown belt forms for tournaments, and Black Belts actually changing technique in forms thinking their students could score higher in competitions. Or, using weapons forms and techniques from other systems as requirements on tests.
No one was truly responsible or answerable to the head of the association for anything. In most situations like this adults and professionals police themselves rather than take advantage of the temporary absence of control. Bad attitude's, egos, and low maturity level, therein was the cause of our instability. This was not Sensei Herrington's fault.
Sensei was becoming increasingly involved with a personal fight. He was beginning a compound illness that would eventually end his life.
He truly was not always himself in thought or action. Attention to association matters became difficult and truthfully petty compared to his current situation. He fought back against a series of strokes doing everything He could do to function normally.
Sensei faced his time of trials. In one hospital then another. First one procedure, then something else. The roller coaster ride that starts with good news and then bad, or good days and then worse.
I made up my mind to keep association standards, requirements, and traditions in trust. Sensei Stegura and I had trained with Sensei Moore. We well understood the discipline and commitment to quality that had directed his teachings as well as Sensei Herrington's.
I had seen to it that the teachers and instructors at my dojo were teaching the same technique and kata the same way, at the correct rank. Requirements were equal and the same for every student. No promotions without tests. Special attention to technical aspects. No favorites among the students. The other schools of the association could travel into whatever direction they wished.
I had always continued to train on a daily basis. I studied other systems and arts starting as far back as 1975 and was still doing so. I had been in charge of aligning the forms and designating the technique for the association. The line exercises were unquestionable as to content. As was the Karate technique. Sensei Moore had put them all into instruction manual form in 1962. Anyone who didn't follow the program had to make a decision not to.
As mercenary as it might sound, I felt this the perfect opportunity to prepare the association for the future and allow the riff raff, the dishonorable, the know it all's, the wanna be's, and the half-interested to weed themselves out.
I was a full time Martial Arts Instructor. I had no other employment. A few months after the day we opened, I was putting in a minimum of 50 hours a week at the dojo, and spent three out of four Sundays at tournaments, seminars, or clinics. The Martial Arts had become my way of life. I lived in a GI.
This point was the first time I actually realized how I had spent the years of my life. While most Instructors were teaching two or three times a week, I was teaching as much and more per day. I was constantly under the influence of the arts and all that went with them.
My Senseis had long ago given me a beautiful gift. Like a plant. If they asked to see it, I could show them the same plant they gave me. Healthy, growing, every leaf there exactly the way they passed it on to me. Or I could show them a large beautiful plant that had grown, flowered, and developed into more than it was when I got it. I decided on the second option.
It's the evening of March 26, 1988. Sensei Herrington and I along with some of our Black Belts from the association are at a small banquet for a tournament that will be held the next day.
In attendance is Chuck Norris who was in town on a book signing tour. Traveling with him as his bodyguards were Bob Wall of "Enter The Dragon" fame, and Howard Jackson, Full Contact Champion. Also there was Jim Harrison, Norris' training partner for many years. John and Mary Townsley, John was to receive the "Karate Pioneer Award", Mary, famous for her many years with "Official Karate Magazine" was covering the banquet and tournament for some publication.
Rounding things out were Sensei Dan Soward "founder" of the "International Karate and Kickboxing Hall of Fame", Sensei George Baker, representative for the Hall of Fame and well known national competitor, Sensei Dearwood Daniels, school owner and tournament promoter, and Kim and Barb Hartman owners of Wolverine Brand Manufacturing, once the makers of the best GI in the U.S.
We were having a wonderful time mixing and taking pictures. Of course Norris was in demand for one picture after another. We talked about Bruce Lee with Bob Wall, about Allan Steen and Skipper Mullins skiing at Aspen with Chuck Norris. All about the old U.S.K.A. days with Jim Harrison, John and Mary Townsley. It was a very enjoyable evening. It had been quite a while since some of us had been together.
As we arrived at the tournament the next morning we were greeted with the news that the head of our Sandusky School, Sensei Cooper, had went home directly from the banquet and died of a heart attack. Sensei Herrington had gone home, and went into insulin shock. He was in the hospital and they were monitoring his condition. It looked like he was going to be there a while.
This more or less set the tone for the end of the 1980's and beginning of the 1990's.
Forward • 1960's • 1970's • 1980's • 1990's • 2000 and beyond...... • Acknowledgements
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