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Once I arrived in America I started training with 1987-88 Sabaki Challenge Heavyweight champion, Makoto Yoshida. Yoshida's sensei's dojo is in a suburb of LA called Torrance. The dojo has been growing since I last visited in 1989. In 1991 he trained his student Mitsuyasu Shigeta to win the Sabaki Challenge Middleweight championship.
The experience of training with both of them again was incredible; they were both looking very strong and fast. Yoshida sensei has been working very hard on his Sabaki technique. His Sabaki was flawless when sparring with a blackbelt and two brown belts, and altogether his timing and speed was superb. Sensei passed on some new training techniques which he used to improve his own karate. I could not believe it, he was five years older but even better than before.
After two weeks training I left for Japan, and upon arriving
I started training daily at Honbu in Matsuyama. After my third night
at training the head instructor Harada sempai said "Craig-san please lead
basics". I was momentarily dumbfounded; here I was out in front of
30 Japanese students in the HQ of Ashihara Kai-Kan, leading the basics.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be doing this.
After eight weeks training, Kancho Ashihara said out of the blue "tonight
you take promotions
test ". "Osu" I replied. Monday the 11th
April, I will remember this date as long as I live.
Again I led the basics, and after these, all the other students were sat down. I was asked to perform short, middle and long distance combinations; some sets were of 100 techniques. Then kata followed by sabaki. My sabaki was against Hidenori Ashihara (Kancho's son) and another black belt. All this was done whilst the other students were sitting, watching (talk about pressure).
Kancho was pleased with my progress since my last visit in 1989, and congratulated me on achieving Yondan. He said I must still strive for higher technique and I promised I would. I trained for two weeks at Honbu, then continued on to Osaka and Kyoto. In Kyoto I trained with a black belt Japanese friend who has visited Australia a couple of times. I stayed in Tanabe for six days then home to Oz. I'm looking forward to meeting and training with a couple of the sempais from Ashihara when they visit Australia, as they intend to do in the near future.
Overall the trip showed me there is still much to learn in Ashihara Karate-Do.