Part 4 of an interview we did with Noonan Sensei some time ago. Noonan Sensei is currently the most senior ranked teacher of Chito-Ryu Karate-Do in Australia. In this episode he share some of his expereinces training with people from other styles and martial arts, and he also shares his views on what he considers to be the biggest problem with the martial arts industry.
—- Transcript —-Sandra: Welcome back everybody. Today we are continuing with part four of the five-part interview with Noonan Sensei.
Martin: And if you haven't already heard the first three parts, be sure to go back and listen to the previous episodes.
Sandra: Yeah, in this episode Noonan Sensei shares his experiences training with other martial artists and his views on what he considers to be the biggest problem with the martial arts industry.
Martin: We've noticed everybody faces challenges in life, some big and some small, but not everyone has a way to navigate these problems.
Sandra: It's not always easy, but we've found that we always keep coming back to what we've learned from our years in the dojo.
Martin: And that's what this podcast is all about.
Sandra: Helping us all find the solutions to last problems or even better yet to remove the problems before they arise.
Martin: This is Martin and Sandra Phillips and welcome to the Karate4Life podcast.
I'm going to conintue on where Sandra left off and perhaps cover some things from a different angle. And, obviously over the years outside of Chito-Ryu, you've trained with quite a few different people, different martial arts, different styles of karate. What have you taken from that?
Noonan Sensei: Look, I don't want to be a style slob because I don't really believe in that. And I think no matter what you do, if you practice it well, practice it deeply, you're going to find something. But I went to other places because I wanted to find, I wanted to see what people were doing.
I didn't go there arrogant and arrogant and passionate. I went there to learn. And I wanted to find out right or wrong.
If you, you know, my teacher was in Japan and I was here. So access to knowledge was a little difficult those days. And so right or wrong, I decided, you know what, I'm going to go and look at different styles.
And I'd actually asked Sogen at the time what he thought of that idea. And he said, that's a good idea. And I think that shows you what kind of a teacher he is.
That's a very confident teacher that can say, by all means, go and enjoy and see what you find. So previous to me, so previous to going to Japan as kids, we used to go and do some kickboxing and other things like that. But after I came back to Japan, I did study with the Tai Chi with Montague.
And again, he's passed away. But he, I thought he was excellent. I thought he was a fabulous technician, a very powerful man, very practical.
So I didn't agree with everything. But I certainly learned some things from him. I also did Wing Chun, which I appreciated as well.
I found that gave me some knowledge in other areas, various, various styles of karate. I joined him, you know, joined together with, it wasn't that I was there day in day out, but I certainly got together with senior people and talked about karate, trained karate. There was a Tai Chi with Cathy Sensei, he came to Australia.
That was the early 90s at the time. And I went to a camp with him, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was, yeah, there was a whole bunch of people.
But ultimately, I wasn't, you see, I wasn't, I didn't, I never felt that I was going to join another style or this or, ultimately, all I want to do is understand history more. And I thought that if I understand what everyone else is doing, maybe I'll understand what I'm doing a little deeper. So that's, that's the reason for that.
Martin: I guess I kind of ask because I've, in all honesty, I've probably led a very narrow path, very sheltered life. I haven't really looked outside. I should tell you, I found that there's just so much there that I don't feel like I need to look outside.
Noonan Sensei: I agree. I agree with you.
Martin:
But at the same time, I can certainly see the benefit of that. But from that side of things, what sort of advice would you give to other people who might be looking to do the same kind of thing?
Noonan Sensei: Um, I mean, I never tell my students not to do anything they want. But you've got to understand that I was a showdown. And I didn't have anybody to teach me.
You know, if I had been a showdown in your dojo, you know, let's go back, you know, if you were who you are today, and I was an 18, 19, 20 year old in your dojo, I don't think I would have gone anywhere, because I would have had a path, you know, to follow. That's what I really believe now. I don't think anybody needs to go anywhere here, but I never stopped them.
In fact, if they wanted to actually encourage them, yeah, go and see what it's like. Because I don't have any fear that they're going to find something better or leave or anything like that. And I know there's a couple of my students who've gone and done a few other things, but they, it was out of, you know, I guess, curiosity for some people.
And part of my thing was curiosity. And the other thing was, I wanted to see if what I was doing actually worked against what somebody else was doing. To be honest, that's, you know, I remember doing something with you guys.
And see, everybody, everybody outside of karate has this view of karate, it's tight and hard and stiff, and yeah, and all that kind of stuff. And so when I turned up and trained with them, I presented something totally different. And they were, I don't think I ever got any uncomplimentary remarks.
It was more, there were a lot more compliments than anything else, really. People were quite amazed. I remember people saying, oh, is this really karate?
I said, yeah, karate, this is karate. It doesn't have to be stiff and hard and what you think it is, what you think it's made out to be. So yeah, I wanted to see if I, if what I'm doing works against what they're doing, suppose, or how they did it, or.
Martin: So I guess the other side of things, in mixing with other, other dojos and other martial arts, I guess, listen, one thing that you've been very vocal about is a lot of people out there have done not the right thing.
Noonan Sensei: Yeah, there's a lot of fakes and a lot of frauds out there. And it's an unregulated industry. And later on, you can get the picture, you get a picture of my dog, who now is a 9th Dan.
And she's a 9th Dan and Schnauzer-Jutsu, which shouldn't say something right. So all I did was I got a certificate printed up in Japan. And then I sent the certificate off to a leading, you know, it was supposed to be some leading bureau, a board of black belts internationally, presented them the certificate, there was no research done.
You would have, you would assume if someone said, Schnauzer-Jutsu, that there would be alarm bells ringing. But there was not one question. You paid your however much it was money, and I paid the fee.
And my dog came back, you know, authorised 9th Dan, whatever. And then we just went off to the embroiderer, I got the belt done. She's got a membership card there.
And I just did that to prove a point that if you're looking to do any type of martial arts, do your research, because it's unregulated. And there's just so many people that are pretenders. It's very sad.
Martin: So you have people that are pretending to be experts in this, or attempt on this? Oh, yeah, yeah, we have. How do you tell the difference?
For someone who doesn't know anything, how do you tell the difference?
Noonan Sensei: Well, look, I mean, I don't want to, like, I don't want to paint everybody in the same brush. So I'm going to give you very general rules. And, and some of those rules, you know, there are exceptions to those rules.
But, you know, somebody who's 35 in 10th Dan, I'd be concerned that something's not right there. Somebody who's 24 is Shihan, I'd be concerned that something's not right there, because age and maturity and technique go together. If you're going to be at those levels, you need to be older because your karate doesn't develop until you get older.
It develops more, of course it develops, but as you get older, it further develops and you can't do what you should be doing as a 5th Dan, 6th Dan, 7th Dan. When you're only 35, because you haven't had that time. So that's the first thing I'd look at, people's age.
The other thing is, I mean, I'm not a big fan of multi-coloured uniforms and gears and all those other things. That would be an alarm bell, but that doesn't necessarily mean that because they've got a different uniform that there's something wrong. But it would, it would be something that would make me, if I was looking, I would probably delve a little deeper, a little bit of a red flag.
Other things, it's not so much, if you don't know what, like if I look at people, I can tell if they're clowns or not. Some of them are clowns, real clowns. I don't know how they can embarrass themselves as much to call themselves, I'd be ashamed to say I was a Hanshi or a Kyoshi or something when, you know, I can't punch properly.
But how would, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Smith who've never been to karate, how would they know that? That's pretty difficult. I really think that you've got to look at the history of people and if you find that these people come out of the blue, and of course, they're always writing their own scripts, their own history, you know.
And, you know, I started with, you know, two years old doing boxing and then by three and a half, I was doing judo. And they seem to have all this, but there's no verification of any of that. They kind of just, and then suddenly they're on whatever damn it is.
If you look at their history, it's pretty easy because if you go back and look at me, or I mean look at you, or your lovely wife, you're going to find photos of when you were a kid in Canada with me, right? When you were a brown boy, right? You were probably taller than me, that's not even then, we were now older, we were young men, very young.
But you're going to find you as a kid doing karate, you're going to find a snapshot with you in a tournament somewhere, you're going to find a snapshot with your dojo ladies, you're going to see you a bit later in life, you're going to see the biggest, and you're going to see a history of what you've really done. The guys, and you'll have dates, people will know that was in 95, that was in, you know, I mean I go back to 1980, that was in 1980, 1985. And those people won't have that because they just haven't done time.
I don't, I'm not, I have no criticism of mixed martial arts or anything like that, and some ranking systems are different to ours, and I'm not criticising other ranking systems. You know, maybe there is such thing as a 20th man, but that's got to be put into perspective of what that ranking system is, right? But you really have to look at things from a logical perspective and not a kind of, you know, martial arts can be a bit mystical in a way, and it turns people, people are afraid to ask you a question, but if I was looking for a karate school, and I call everything karate, whatever, it's Taekwondo or whatever, I just label it as karate or martial arts.
If I was looking for a martial arts school, I would ask the instructor, where did you start? Who was your teacher? And then you will find a video of a guy fighting, like you'll find me, like you'll find yourself, like you'll find a host of other good people.
You'll find those photos on the internet or whatever, you'll see them on their Facebook page, and you know, that's, I think that's one of the keys, that some people just seem to come from nowhere, and they paint their own history, but anyone can say anything about their history. I can say I started, you know, I was adopted by ninjas when I was two years old, and you know, and now I'm the 74th master of some type of ninjutsu, paid me a lot of money.
Martin: You could all say that, so I would say, okay, well, let's say somebody ticks all the boxes, you've gone through this checklist, you've given a few ideas there. I know you, from your perspective, your experience, you're able to look at somebody within a couple of minutes, you'll be able to make a pretty quick impression of whether they really know what you're talking about. But at the end of the day, what is it that makes a good teacher?
What is it that makes a good dojo?
Noonan Sensei: Yeah, well, I think you've got to trust your gut. What makes a good dojo? Well, that's kind of a different question, what makes a good teacher in a good dojo.
We are, we're not, well, I don't see ourselves as coaches. I don't see ourselves that way. Coaches don't need to even play the sport to be a great coach, right?
So coaches don't need to, and I won't name names, but there are various coaches in various sports that haven't even played the sport, or can't, or play lousy when they're great coaches. Even some music teachers, they may not be able to play music that they can teach. But I don't see karate like that.
I think for what we do, we have to walk the path and train. It's because we're not winning anything. You can go to tournaments, and that's different, but the path of karate is you're not, you don't get a medal every time you come to training.
You're not winning anything. You're walking the path, and it's very hard to tell people about that. It's very hard to explain that unless you've done it.
So I think the first thing is they're going to do it. They're going to have their own personal training regime. They're going to still be training.
They're not training. They're not doing karate anymore. So that's very important, training.
I mean, other than that, I think there's a lot of personal preference in it, some people will gel better with other people. Some people's approach to training, to teaching will be different, and that'll gel with some people, and others won't gel. I'm not saying what makes a good teacher.
All I'm saying is how to differentiate someone who's trying to tell you something that's not true. That's very different from being a good teacher. So I mean, I was, don't you get this book, but I was in Japan recently, as both of you know, and I go to the hotel that I was staying at, it's a nice hotel, and they've got a lovely gym, and they have a little yoga room, which at five o'clock in the morning becomes the kata room.
I renamed it, and I tell the hotel managers, I've been back there many times, they know that I open that before I get down there, so it's all ready for me. And I go there early, because I'm not there to show everyone what I'm doing, I just want to try, and I like to get out of the way early, and then do other things. So I go down, and a gentleman walked in, every morning coming in, he'd do his own training.
He was doing, you know, a bit of weight things, and treadmills, and whatever else, but he would watch me, really watch me, and to the point of me feeling sometimes uncomfortable, you know, when someone's watching you feel a bit uncomfortable, but I realised, you know, he's a Japanese guy, and I thought maybe he's obviously got something to do with karate, or he's fascinated that, you know, this white guy's doing karate, this westerner's doing karate, and he came, approached me, and started to talk to me, and he asked me some really deep, kind of philosophical questions about karate, and so it became instantly obvious that this guy was not a, you know, not a novice, and I'd obviously answered him well enough for him to continue talking to me, so we spent a lot of time just sitting down, like, you know, one of those balls or something, or in a corner, between, you know, sets of things, discussing karate, and then of course, I asked him, well, you've obviously done karate, tell me about that, and he said, oh, I was Mas Oyama sensei's secretary for the last five years of his life, I never left his side, basically, I said, oh, wow, okay, and he said to me, I did some training with another gentleman, he's a very famous kickboxer, and Thai boxer, and a champion, a title champion, we do some training here, on whatever night it was, it might have been a Tuesday afternoon, please join us, and so I said, that'd be great, yeah, like, we met the gentleman, Naruto, I think his name was, Naruto something, he was, and he was a gentleman, lovely guy, and I, so they did their, the way the training went is, they just had to, you know, do a few things, and they did this and stuff, and then they said, now you have a go at it, and of course, it came to hitting the pad, the first thing was, they had a pad, you know, palm striking, and when I hit a pad, you know, the guy flies back, and the guy was talking, he was, you know, shocked, and he says, anyway, by the end of the training session, I won't go on with it, but by the end of the training session, and we did, the other thing was the knife, and we talked about stuff, and knife defence, and I said, well, okay, just, you know, have a go, and bang, bang, bang, the guy's on the ground, and he looks up at his friend and says, did you see what happened? He goes, I didn't see what happened, all I knew is, I was just staying up on the ground all the time, so we had a good time, and I earned their respect, you know, that's where I'm going with this, and these guys were serious people, and the last thing I was said to them, the Armistice Secretary said to me, I'd like to take you to dinner, I'd like you to meet someone, and he gave me the details, and he said, oh, someone will pick you up at a certain time, that's what they'd tell, anyway, a big limousine came and picked me up, and we went to a very exclusive part of Tokyo, and I was surprised, this was like, well, you don't know what's going on, what's happening next, you know, and it was a private function, and I said, you know, big, quite a big room with a lot of, there's plenty of alcohol, friends, champagnes, and wines, and beer, and everything, and I said, who's coming? He said, it's just you, and me, and Royama Sensei, and Royama Sensei happens to be the current head of one of the large Kyokushin organisations, there's a couple of them now, but he's one of the larger organisations, and he says, he told me before I was meeting Royama, he said, I want you to meet him, I want you two to talk, because you'll have a lot in common, I know that, and I want, and he was, I won't say what this particular gentleman does, but he had a translator working with him, and he said, I'm bringing my translator so you can speak deeply, and this translator was like, you know, when you watch the UN conferences, and these, you know, someone speak, it's like instant, she was amazing, and the minute Royama Sensei got there, we just, you know, hit it off, and we started to talk karate, and I was very surprised, I mean, I won't go into all the stuff, but it was, I was very surprised that the paths were so close as you get higher, the longer you go, you know, I expected from what I've seen in Kyokushin, I had a lot of Kyokushin friends, I expected the bigger movements and heavier stuff, he was very light, fast, and very relaxed, and so that's why I got the book, he bought this book, and I won't tell you what he said in the cover, you know, he's written on all that, what his basis is, train till you die, work hard every day, I thought that was, you know, considering what we're talking about before, but that's what makes a karate person, and, you know, you don't get these clowns and bozos that are pretending, they're not going to be training in the gym, and someone's going to say, you come and meet one of the heads of the, the head of one of the Kyokushin, they're not going to get that at all, because they don't know what they're doing, but it, you know, the belt is just a, it doesn't really, really mean much, it's just a belt, and some of these guys are, it's more important for them to be called a certain name, a certain title, wear a certain belt, look a certain way, than actually be able to do the stuff, but, you know, they, they're going on now, like, karate tours to Okinawa, and I know for a fact, and I said that, they go do a little training here, a little training there, a little bit there, now, what was your time like in Japan, did you get any break, or did you get a choice to go a little bit here, a little bit there, you were stuck in a dojo for, I don't know, nine months or something, ten months stuck in a dojo, and, you know, I won't say physically beaten every day, but pretty much under the, you know, hammer, under the iron sledgehammer of Soke, beating your body into what he wanted out of it, you know, making you the karate man you are today, from the austere and hard training, and so, I feel that's, now it's got to a point where serious people went to Japan, but now, every man his dog wants to go, and they'll find someone to affiliate with, they'll find someone to, you know, give them a great summer if they pay enough, it's really a disgrace, and it's, I think it's really bad for the public too, because they're not getting, they're not getting what they're paying for, and they're giving, and every, every karate instructor, I mean, I come across as pretty strong about this, and I've had plenty of run-ins with these people, but every serious karate teacher should be incensed by this, because it's, it's, it's, it's, it's casting a very dark shadow across everybody, because people don't know, and people, when a person has one bad experience, well, they're not going to turn up to my dojo after that, are they? One bad experience around the corner from you or whatever, they don't think, oh, that karate dojo's going to be different, they just tell us all with the same brush, unfortunately, but, so, that gets back to my, my point, you've got to train, you've got to train, you've got to have your personal training, you've got to have your own advancement, and you should be doing that for a long, long, long period of time, if not your life, and the day that you don't want to do that, you want to start thinking, am I really, do I really want to be a karate teacher, you know, and you see, I feel, I don't feel sorry, that's, that's the wrong word, but, you think about some, some guys try really hard, and he's a sandan, or a yondan, he's worked really hard, he's a good karate, good karate, you know, a guy, a girl, a good karate guy, and they've achieved, and that's a very serious level, sandan, yondan, yondan, but, it looks like nothing these days, because, you know, there's a million eight things, and nine things, and hunches, and everything else around you, and, and so, it kind of, you think, it's just upside down, and I don't like it at all, I have nothing good to say about these people, I don't care if they're helping people, I don't care if they're helping people, we're not a philanthropist, or a philanthropic organisation, right, we're a karate school, should we help people, yes, it's good to help people, yes, but the first thing is, it's a karate school, if you just want to help people, call yourself something else, and karate is attractive to people, it's probably the most common name that's ever used in martial arts, and to the novice, what would they, everything's karate, people still tell me my kids did karate when, when they do, and it was a Taekwondo school, but they did karate, but it's okay, because it's a common name, well, if you've got a, such and such a school, you want to have karate in your school, because you know it brings more people in, so they create, some of them haven't even done karate, and they've got a karate school, they've done other things, so anyway, people know how I feel, if anybody does in person, they know how I feel, and I think I've made myself clear in many different forms, and I've made myself clear today, that's how I feel about it.
Martin: Well, I think we're running out of time very quickly, so we'll have to wrap things up for now, we've certainly got a lot more, a lot more questions we'd like to ask on the technical side of things, but we might save that for tomorrow. Absolutely. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to today's episode on the Karate for Life podcast.
Sandra: If you found this episode useful, please comment on our website, karate4life.com.
Martin: Share it with your friend via social media, and don't forget to tag us, hashtag Karate4LifePodcast. And if you've got a topic that you'd like us to cover in future episodes, or a question you'd like to ask about karate or life…
Sandra: … please send us a message, we'd be more than happy to share our thoughts.
Martin: Thanks again for joining us, and stay tuned for the next episode, where we put Noonan Sensei in a hot seat, and ask him a number of questions from some other Chito-Ryu instructors from around Australia.
Here's a brief highlight of what's to come.
Noonan Sensei: One thing I would change is, I would be very careful about how much impact work I did on heavy bags, makiwara, and those things. Personally, young people out there, if you can see me like this, it will happen to you.
So, what I'd do differently, well, I would probably not do as much kicking the makiwara with the tip of my toe, because I do suffer a little bit in that area at the moment.
Martin: What are the key skills and concepts that students should practice at various dan grades? Not to get too deep on the final question.
Noonan Sensei: And these are all impromptu questions, by the way, so this is all off the top of my head. I haven't prepared anything, I haven't shown you any questions.
