Romancing San Francisco Chapter 6 Meeting The Cat

Writen by Dennis Siluk

Chapter Six

Meeting the Cat And the Tournament [The big event]

The tournament was in the makings now, people from all over the United States had arrived, those who were at previous tournaments agreed with the black belts of San Francisco, that the dojo was haunted, and none would stay there, and so from Hawaii, New York, California: Bakersfield, Foster City, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, San Francisco State College, San Mateo, Stockton, Ohio; --they all came. In addition, representatives from such Headquarters as Kent State University, being the Great Lakes Regional Headquarters; New Jersey, the East Coast Regional Headquarters, and the Midwest Regional Headquarters being Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was not really the Midwest, because I was from the Midwest, and Goesi was hoping [I think, and so he implied to me]I would stay long enough to get my black belt, and he'd most likely have me as a reprehensive of the thri-state area to include Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. The Far-West was the same as the National Headquarters in San Francisco, which included Sonoma State University. Notwithstanding, they all came and I met them all.

Gogen had come into the city I had heard, I had not seen him yet though, but Goesi had picked him up last Saturday evening, and today was Monday.

The Physician, Judges, of which Buck would be one of the ten in all;-- contestants, tournament manager Chairman, director, Counselor, treasure were all being put onto the Tournament handout as well, sponsored by Goju-Kai Karate-Do, National Headquarters, and I was the official photographer.

It was hard to believe "The Cat" was here, I told myself as I worked out in the dojo, and then he showed up, I got a glimpse of him, my heart dropped. Then Goesi introduced him to everyone, and he stuck by his son and his wife during this time.

I was teaching the younger students the art of GoJo Ryu Karate do [Kyohan]; when Goesi introduced Gogen to me, it was just prior to the championship tournament. I had been given a picture of him, and he signed it, and I would during the tournament take a picture of him, of which he would also sign: --in all I would have three signed items from Gogen, the cat, but the miracle didn't happen yet, no, it was about to though.

The black belts envy pained and amused me at the same time. To detect the tremor of thin minds, that which frighten them to making threats, I disregarded them with the weight of their own lack of insecurity. But I am getting ahead of myself.

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The Tour to Be

About six-days before the Tournament, Goesi was going to take his father for a tour of the city. Several black belts were going to go along. They had rented three limos to parade through the city. I had just turned 21-years old, I remember it quite clear. Goesi was assigning everyone to a certain limo,

He said:

"Chick, you will ride with my father in back of car…" I looked at him as if he mispronounced it. He did have a hard time with the English language back then. I think I opened up my eyes wider than I had ever done before, took a deep breath, and said: "Really!" What else could you say to something so breathtaking: --a little young grasshopper like me with Goesi and the famous "Cat". No one would believe me if I told them that back home.

I accepted the gift with dignity, and disbelief, and held my breath to see if it would come true, and as the days passed, I was given a free ticket, the camera and told I'd have a ride to the Cow Palace, arena. In the mean time, I was starting to get threats from the black belts who had come to participate in the event, and the ones who were supposedly my friends at the dojo, the local ones also. They were insanely jealous. I heard the threats mounting; at the same time everyone was talking about the Kumite Scoring System to take place, and the Kata Scoring system and the main Judge, and referees and tournament procedures, to include form. I was right in the middle of all this commotion, and the last thing I wanted to do was bother Goesi with the issue of the threats but it was coming to a point of a dangerous dilemma. The Yamaguchi spell was all over the dojo; and their fuss of this matter was marvelous to witness, yet no matter what I still grew to love them, it would be sad justice for me to carry on like them I told myself, so I didn't; --in the first place, I was the new kid on the block, and they were the old worrisome souls at best.

I am not sure what they expected me to do, --maybe forfeit the invitation by way of being sick so someone else might take my place. But it never occurred to me to disappoint Goesi; I would be ashamed to do such a thing. By and large, their silent loitering about during these days, did very little to persuade me anyhow. I got a threat one day that implied a few black belts wanted to kill me, but I couldn't believe that.

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Informing Goesi

I then had to tell Goesi about the threats I was getting. I do not remember telling him about the killing one, I thought at the time the others were bad enough, and would have been too much for him to stomach. He had a lot of pride in his black belts. When I told him, he looked at me with something like an illness befalling him, if not down right shame. He was not only let down but almost lost for words. I told him who had told me these things, one person being Lorenzo, and a few others. He went and talked to a few of the people I had mentioned.

It reminded me of the time when Buck his right hand man, and my friend took me to the side of the dojo and told me Goesi wanted him to spar with you; I at first took this as an honor, but what he was really saying was that I was getting a little too careless with my speedy hands and fingers for my own good, and hurting people in the dojo by blinding them for a moment, and then taking advantage of that moment; --which he was right, I was doing exactly that. And so Buck was to teach me a lesson, and he knew I had too much pride to avert the free-style fighting with him along with too much bull-headedness, which I'm sure I displayed now and then: -- we fought, and fought and fought, not really knowing how long but it seemed like forever. I got to the point I could hardly hold my hands up, and Buck would knock me down again, pick me up, wait for me to get into a stance, and knock me down again. I got the message loud and clear, and deserved that, plus I got to fight with a 4th degree black belt, whom I loved; it didn't matter if he beat the shit out of me, I've had that before. None the less, I stopped the eye contact, and got on with business. You can't hold grudges when you know two people are trying to show how mad they are.

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And I was right there, living in the middle of all this. Up to this point I had learned a lot from Goesi, especially GoJo Ryu's style of karate, which was more for defensive I felt, which would come in handy in the future, and save my life a few times [not knowing it would save my life in less than a year in Augsburg, Germany by two thief's with knifes, but that's another story]. And with such a style --what you do is counter your opponent, which leaves him at a disadvantage being the aggressor, or offensive. An example might be, -- should he blink an eye, or throw a punch, and I block it at the same time of the counter I could go for a deadly blow, should I wish. And of course that is what got me in trouble with Goesi, and my ass kicked by Buck. That is, blinding people by poking shut their eyes; --knocking them off balance, and knocking off their glasses, and contact lenses. In any case, once you found your perfect balance, which is really the main thing, you go through your combinations. Matter of fact, it keeps occurring to me to put in how it saved my life in Germany, by balance.

I was walking in a dark alley in Augsburg, Germany, and out of the blue came two black guys with knifes. One stood to the left of me, while the other in back of me, with his hand around my neck as he walked me to an area where there were a bunch of cars. They had already taken my billfold, and I told myself, leave well enough alone, but now this was a new agenda, they were going to kill me. And so as I walked I leaned forward on my left foot, leaving my right one to back kick the person, and I took my right arm grabbed his wrist, and pulled the knife away from my throat while kicking him in the stomach, he flew down like a rock. Then I shifted into a cat stance, and his friend flew away like a scared bird, as the one on the ground was rolling around like a snake, he got up and ran like hell.

But going back to the ill-look on Goesi's face, I almost regretted I had said anything, what now was going on in his mind. It was a scene I was not used to, inasmuch as, it seemed to me to become a bit out of control. Goesi told me He'd take care of it, and walked over by the register behind the counter slowly; --I left well enough alone, not knowing what he was going to do, just that it was enough said. But I was assured in my mind for some reason it was over for me; that is, Goesi would settle it once and for all.

Notes: When I took pictures of karate exhibitions, events, etc, I often found I was capturing the moments of the black belts point of contact, along with Buck and Goesi, also. But with many of the black belts I got them in what they considered awkward positions; --meaning, they did not like it that I was capturing them being hit. It was kind of a no win situation, --that is, someone had to loose. One black belt told me, "You never get me in a good offensive move; it's always when I'm getting hit." If there was truth to that, it was not on purpose. But I was like the green horn sticking my nose where it didn't' belong to them; yet not really knowing it. The truth of the matter was Goesi and Buck always gave a good if not awesome performance. They were throwing combinations so fast that the camera when it caught them, it caught one of the person's combination, while the other person was blocking and shifting and in the mist of a counter. I wanted to end my stay in San Francisco on a high note, not a bitter or jealous one and so the bulls of the arena, the black belts got no disrespect from me.

In those days there was enough civil unrest in the country, as well as in San Francisco. There was at that time a gun shooting that took place downtown San Francisco, I remember it quite well. I thought it was quite a thing, for people to ride by, shoot out the window at another car. But when I showed a little disbelief, if not shock, I got the eyebrow, as if to say, 'You're just a hick.' So I learned to hold my emotions somewhat.

On another note, I had found a number of good friends, in the bar, at Lilli Ann, at the dojo, and else where, and felt in the passing world, and for my own safety—for I had some months in the city—I need not make any excessive preoccupation with the threats, for the most part, they were premature anyway. I needed to work, keep a roof over my head, and eat.

Peace Was Restored [The Cat and the Mouse]

Some how I felt like the mouse in all of this, but none the less, another two days passed, and not a word about "killing," or "hurting" me was spoken. I was on guard for it but it never came about again. I went on the ride around the city, --sitting with none other than with Gogen in the back seat, Goesi and the driver in the front. Gogen was around 63-years old at the time, to my understanding. We ended up at Fisherman's' Warf, we all walked around, everyone taking pictures, etc. And when we got back into the limo, Goesi who was sitting up front in the automobile looked back towards us, his father inches from me: --I guess he couldn't help but look back now and then to see how we were getting along. I caught a few smiles, as if he was happy for both of us, and for his decision for Gogen and I to remain in the back seat, he seen we were getting along quite well for a Master karate man that could not speak English, but it didn't matter, we got along with the language of sound and facial expression, and simple body language. Gogen pulled out of somewhere a small looking camera, and shook his head, looking at it as some kind of American puzzle; --Goesi still checking us out, I took it from him,--with his permission of course, and showed him how to use it. Then he got on his knees on the back seat looking out the back of the car window and started taking pictures, just like any tourist. Goesi smiled again, and left him and me to ourselves. It was a grand day to say the least, and it seemed neither one of us felt uneasy; --to the contrary.

Innocence

In a world where there is little innocence left to measure, I seemed to have found a bit in both Goesi and Gogen, and possible they had found some in my ignorance of youth. But the innocence I found can't fully be defined. And yet, if I were to try and define it, it was one of those moments that I caught Goesi looking back at me, in the back seat of the car with his father. I didn't know what I was doing, for the most part, other than grabbing the moment, I was only a kid trying to grow up, and had some karate cloths to show off in, and quick hands, --and here I was with two of the worlds most profound karate Masters, kings of Karate, one might say. Even the well known Bruce Lee had met Goesi, wanting to free-style fight him, and after seeing him to a three-strike flying kick, changed his mind. That was before I came, but Lorenzo was at the dojo when it happened; and I do believe he told me the truth.

But as I was saying, here was two giants in the karate world with me in their car, such people like them knew the consul General of Japan, the faculty Adviser of San Francisco State College, and they were the Heads of the National and regional Headquarters of the USA, and of the Japanese Karate do in Japan. Here was the man "The Cat", that knew the founder of Go-Ju-Ryu, Shihan Chojun Miyagi, in a back seat of a car with Chick, the little-grass hopper. And so, history would record.

The day would end, as all days must, but this would be one of the great days we all wait for in life, and go back to throughout our lives. I think Goesi knew this. And then came the championship day.

Championship Day

I arrived at the Cow Palace, as the chairs and tables were being set up, and Goesi caught a glimpse of me, and walked over, gave me instructions on the area that the contest was going to take place. As always he gave me a smile, and joined his father and other judges as everyone readied for the tournament. It was at trying day to say the least, although I didn't seem to be any more frazzled than anyone else, matter-of-fact, I was much less. I kind of walked around half-hazardly, not quite knowing what to do to keep myself busy. If anything in life, I was restless. My mother once said as I sat at the kitchen table when I was about twelve years old that she counted my moving the pepper and salt shakers thirteen-times in one minute, or was it ten seconds; something like that. I guess she was timing me. And often she'd tell me to get out of the house and go run all my energy out of me, I think I could drive her crazy; but it simply was me. And she knew if I didn't go out side, I'd stay in and walk back and forth like my grandpa did all the time, it was in the blood you know. My family just could not hold still. Matter of fact, my son Cody, and his son Cody Jr. are both the same to this very day.

And here I was doing just that, like a hungry lion, I was walking to the outside doors, and back to the tables and here and there, all over the arena. I knew all the black belts from the San Francisco, Headquarters, I was hoping one would win, and to be quite honest, a few of the people at the dojo not from around the Bay Area, felt no one would allow anyone but the San Francisco Black Belts to win; thus, taking the title out of San Francisco was unheard of…. I thought this a little rude, and said nothing, I guess if it was true I didn't want to believe it, plus they were saying the judges were biased then, and that would have included Buck, Goesi and Gogen. So I swept that thought out of my mind, true or false.

GoJo

All of a sudden the lights were dimmed, and the speaker came to the stand, there was not many people in the bleachers, about 20% filled only, I was a little disappointed. And then the names were called and the fights started. I laid along side the fighters getting within a few feet of them looking up at them as I snapped my camera as they performed their katas and free styles fights exhibitions. Later on Goesi would look at these pictures, and be astounded at how good they were. For some reason I was quick enough to get out of the way when need be, and close enough to get great pictures. Again Goesi knew me better than I knew myself. As the fights ended, it was a long day for all involved. And the champion ended up being this tall first degree black belt. I was surprised he won it. I guess I thought he was a little slow, and not quite as flexible as I would have thought he should be. Maybe too muscle bound. But he won, and it couldn't have been to a nicer person. I talked to him a number of times getting dressed at the dojo, and he always was friendly, a big kind of fell-a.

Then I caught Goesi squeezing his nose. He gave me the strangest look. When I showed him the picture a few days later, after the tournament, he laughed and shook his head

After the fights and demonstrations [one by Buck and Goesi], Gogen went into the center where the fighting had taken place, put a rug on the floor the lights went out, and just a few on him remained, and he did some karate and meditation movements [Yoga]. He was fascinating. Later on I would have him sign one of the pictures I took of him during this very demonstration, for myself: --of which I still have and prize.

See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com