A Tribute to Shogo Kuniba, Soke

It would be four years after visiting the Seishin Kai Hombu Dojo in Osaka, Japan, in June, 1969, that I would get to train with Shogo Kuniba, Soke.  At that time, I was in the middle of a tour of Vietnam and  I was fortunate to be able to also frequent mainland Japan.  I was a member of Seishan Kai from September 9, 1965 to 1981.  Richard P. Ballargeon and James A. Benko were head of the organization.  Shogo Kuniba was known as head family and T. Hayashi was Kaicho of SKKU.  Back then, Jujitsu and Karate do were taught at the same dojo and you could train in either concurrently.

That trend continued until April 1968 when I went in the U.S. Army.  It wasn't long until I went to Vietnam and Ballargeon went to Pakistan. I corresponded with him;  he was leaving Hakko Ryu Martial Arts Federation and I was still studying Hakko Ryu in Omyia, Japan.  I liked both men as martial arts leaders, but I saw what I wanted in the Osaka Hombu Dojo that summer of 1969.  An interpreter spoke for me that day.  I had ridden the bullet train from Shinjiku Station to Osaka. I had no clue what was said, but I watched at the door while the people inside talked.  I wasn't allowed in.  I was told to come back the next day if I wanted to talk about training.  My time being limited,  I went to Omyia, Japan.

I will never forget what I saw in that dojo in Osaka. That was the way I wanted to learn kata and bunkai.  My previous training wasn't even close.  But that was typical of the training in those early days.  I spent a year with the Koreans in Vietnam, got their black belt, but I still wanted more training.  The karate I saw in that dojo was inspirational.  The interpreter left my name and USA address with the people there.

My ride back on the bullet train to Zama  was a quiet time.  My feelings were between excitement and anger.  I finally saw what I had always suspected.  The Shi To Ryu kata structure I had been exposed to thus far was lacking and there was no bunkai. When you are a teenager and older people are in charge, what you think is not important.  That mode continued in the U.S. for many years. I wanted that changed, but it never happened.

 I  made one more trip to Japan with a friend, Lemmel "Doc" Stroud, who was a Jujitsu practitioner that started training with me back in the 1960's.  (Read the story of  The Funeral Home Dojo) We did not go to Osaka, but to Tokyo instead.  We continued studying Hakko Ryu under Shihan Shinji Tori.

Over the next few years, Shiro Kawakami, Shihan, came to the U.S. to train.  He lived with Doc Stroud until he went to Canada to work.  He had trained at the same dojo that Doc and I did in Tokyo.

It was the summer of 1974 when Shogo Kuniba came to the U.S. to a martial arts camp in Staunton, Virginia.  He came in late and we all got up and welcomed him.  The next day reminded me of four years earlier in Osaka.  All the higher ranking karateka flaunted him and I, along with Doc Stroud, stayed in the background.  We were lower ranked, my shodan at the time being in Moo Duk Kwan, but we were yondans in Jujitsu.  Jujitsu people, back then, didn't have much clout unless you could get a karate man to work with you for a few minutes.

The next day, Kuniba did his thing.  It was almost a religious experience just to watch him do pinans.  That night all the ranking karateka were in his hooch.  It was about 9:00 p.m. and I had already turned in for the night when someone came for me.  I was instructed to go visit Kuniba's room along with the upper ranking karateka.  I remember being so excited about going over to visit him, but even more excited when Kuniba, Soke, produced the name and address that the interpreter had left at the Hombu Dojo in Osaka four years earlier.

Kuniba announced that any sensei who wanted him to visit their dojo could put their name in for the schedule and pay so much money for the week.  I made sure I got my week.  Then the political turmoil began!  What happened back then with Mr. Ballargeon is history.  I will say I talked and tried to get the two back together to work things out.  As I look back, it was all about power.  I am glad now that Mr. Ballargeon and Kuniba worked out their differences.

My time had come that early fall and I picked Soke up from the airport and we went to my place.  The students were waiting for him with excitement.  This was one class and it would be the next night before we would meet another group, as I had two dojo at the time.

That first night I showed him all of my previous training.  He looked over all the Hakko Ryu basics through yondan and all my Army training, including what I did in Vietnam and with the ROK Army in Korea.  I gave him some coins that our dive group had found on a WWII gun ship sunk in 1943 in the South China Sea.  He was impressed that I was an expert rifleman and had a perfect score in basic training.  He asked if he could fire a gun the next day.

Kuniba wanted to know what my students were interested in.  He was surprised that there wasn't the interest in karate do, but instead in weapons and Jujitsu. He said he would make the Hakku Ryu more applicable in Shi Toh Ryu.  In the past, I could almost never sell Jujitsu to the karate world.  I also wanted to know about kobudo kata, bunkai and kihans.

The first week, Kuniba put together 38 kata for Goshin Budo.  They were cross  patterns. We still use them today.  They all came from the Hakko Ryu basics.  There were variations that I never dreamed were possible.  I often wondered what would have happened if I had not studied Hakko Ryu for 9 years prior to this. We were on a roll and the first new Goshin Budo kata structure was born.

The next kobudo I had learned was Chatan Yara no sai, but I knew that wasn't enough. We also needed kihans.  He did 6 sai kihans and taught Isu and Nisu  no Sai back then. We had to learn together, train together, and take lots of notes.  He also did the bo kata which numbered 15.  I still have his original kata list on the wall in my dojo.  This was the beginning of the kobudo program that we know today.

Because I was teaching Jujitsu at the college, I used Doc Stroud's dojo during the day and at any odd time I could. My dojo was 20 and 50 miles away. Soke left me after that week and I thought I had seen the last of him, but that was not the case.

One Sunday night a week or so later, I got a call from Soke who was at the airport.  "Come pick me up, please?" he said.  After a day or so, he informed me that there were problems in SeiShin Kai.  I knew something was wrong.  He wrote many letters to Japan which I mailed for him and some to Canada.  Since I was a lower ranking individual with no clout, no one suspected he would come back to my home.  I did notify Mr. Ballargeon, but there was no dialog.  Then I started putting things together.  This time there wasn't much training except some karate do kata.  This was the beginning of a dojo patch for my students.  It all started with the Japanese/Okinawan kobudo on the floor and us taking pictures of the arrangements from a chair.  Soke's free hand drawing proved to be the best patch design. We still use it today.

Kuniba left the next week or so and where he went is not important now.  He was back in two days.  He said he needed to relax. He went fishing, hunting, and boating.  When I couldn't go, a trusted student went with him.  A few times we went floundering at night with gigs.  I believe my students took him around more than I did.

Soke left again and I told him he needed to find someone to maintain an office for his SeiShin Kai karate do. He did find one, but the same typical political greed destroyed that.  I liked that individual, but who was I? He asked me to maintain an office for his Goshin Budo and Kobudo.  I later found out that another individual was handling that, too, but he later realized he did not have permission to.

After a while, the martial arts world seemed to settle down.  Soke's visa was about to expire.  I called Fumio Demura for help with his visa. They were students together back in Japan, studying weapons.  Kuniba said, "they same brothers." I sent him to Canada and I thought that would settle the visa business.  That was wrong.

All the people who had him visit their dojo thought he was back in Japan. Japan thought he was in the U.S. Japan was on the money, but didn't know where.   Outside of  my students, probably only Doc Stroud knew of Kuniba's whereabouts.  After all, it was his dojo that nearly half of all the Goshin Budo kata was taught.   In one sense, Dod Stroud's dojo was the birthplace of the Goshin Budo kata.

Kuniba's training, in the beginning, was more comparison than new waza.  Before he made the Goshin Do Shoden Kihans --there were fifteen originally--he went through all my Hakko Ryu waza by belt through yondan . He would say, "This your Jujitsu, this Aikido, and this my Goshin Budo." He  would say many times that his Goshin Budo would make Motobu Ha Karate do "more easy." He was right!

Kuniba's kobudo started much the same way.  He would say, "Kobudo kata is only many, many bunkai." We would have 7 or 8 people all doing different kobudo kata. We were all dependent on each other's memory banks since we didn't have video cameras to document everything back then.

Soke was very independent.  He knew only what he wanted to do.  After all, he was only 38 years old and was ready to attack the world.  No one here really knew what he wanted..  They only knew how they saw things should be run.

It was easy to see Kuniba, Soke, wanted something new in the martial arts.  What was done in the early years only scratched the surface.  He would conduct training  sessions for other schools for money.  They wanted to hear karate.  Once he tried to teach Shoden Sho to a group that thought it was a new Shi To Ryu kata.  When he started wrist techniques and take downs, they quickly wanted punch/block/kicking techniques.  I think he found out what I knew--that Jujitsu in the 1970s did not fly in the karate world.  He also knew the Goshin Budo format would not go over in Japan.  First thing, it was too long. He said many times JFK would not approve a new Ryu ha in that format.  In this later years, Kuniba did start to change and called it Goshindo.  JFK did approve.

In the late 1970's I helped sponsor him back to the U.S. I bought his one-way ticket.  I did that again the next year.

That year he brought with him a noted Seishin Kai kata champion of the early 1960's.  All my people loved Yamada, Shihan.

This was the year that Kuniba, Soke, designed the American Goshin Budo and Kobudo menjo.  No one knew why he did that because he already set up for a Hombu dojo to have Seishin Kai Goshinbudo and Kobudo menjos.  He also made a scroll and read on video who was to issue Seishin Kai Goshin Budo and Kobudo menjos. The tape was to be for any new dojo that wanted to learn the Goshin Budo and Kobudo/Iaido program.  This was not a part of Seishin Kai Motobu ha shitoh-ryu karate do.

It would be another year before I would use the AGK menjo and another year, possibly, that I would cease issuing Seishin Kai Goshin Budo menjo.  It would be 1981 before I would use a karate do menjo.  Because of political reasons, I and my students were not welcomed in Seishin Kai karate do.  Actually, most of my senior students bowed out first.  I just followed them.  I sent him (in Japan) a blank AGK menjo and he did the kanji for karate do on the menjo.  I will always be grateful to him for that.  Shogo Kuniba did not like conflict.

In 1986, he came to North Carolina and did a training seminar for me and my students. I asked him if he would like to have the Seishin Kai menjo back.  He said, "no." He gave us a tape of his Goshindo and wanted to know what I thought.  Of course I liked everything Kuniba did in the martial arts.

Since before 1974, Shogo Kuniba had a mission for the martial arts. He had the knowledge, background, and physical ability to do any aspect of the Japanese martial arts.  I often wondered how far he could have gone if he didn't have to depend on other people.  If only we all could have just followed and trained and quit trying to use his name to lead our own objectives. Shogo Kuniba, Soke, belonged to everyone in the martial arts world.  He was not an object to be owned.  He could make everyone feel important and that they could accomplish something.  He was a true martial arts genius and will go down in the history books as the best martial artist of our time.

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