As I wrote in the newsletter, my martial arts training began at the age of seven. My parents enrolled me in the London school of Self-Defence where Mr. Harold Warden was my first instructor. The school was on Dundas street across from the Western Fair grounds.
Apparently it took me a while to reach my first belt, almost one full year. I also remember asking to attend an extra workout class {for tournament competitors} and being told NO. These early challenges made me stronger and more determined to succeed. I remember at age nine attending my first tournament; I won 4th place in sparring. At this event you fought down to the final four competitors and then there was a break before the finals. During the break I managed to lose my uniform on a trip to McDonalds. (Just another reason not to eat fast food!) Anyway, I borrowed a uniform and went on to lose both fights and take 4th place. However, of all the tournament awards I won (and gave away, and misplaced), I still have that 4th place trophy!
When Mr. Warden closed his school he recommended that I train with James Santiago. Mr. Santiago was from New York city and came to London to open a karate school. His teaching style was quite different. Besides learning a new style of karate, and new type of sparring, his teaching methods were quite harsh. This was the start of several years of training where my Instructor's philosophy was to take a class and weed out the students who did not have the comittment and desire to achieve their Black belt. I remember one class as an example, where we all lined up in front of a canvas heavy bag. We then took turns standing in front of the bag and throwing triple punches. We did this for close to an hour. Near the end of class, what started out as a white canvas heavy bag was now covererd in hundreds of red dots. These red dots were from our knuckles. My instructor believed that a good teacher who has a class of 25 students will weed out 24 and find the one student who has the attributes to be a black belt. This was the prevailing wisdom of the time. It was not until later when I started a school on my own and my first instructor got back in touch with me, that I realized, a good teacher who has a class of 25 students will work with each student, motivate them, highlight their strengths, build up the weak areas and hopefully help all 25 reach the goal of Black Belt.
I managed to progress these early years because I loved karate, and my parents supported me. My challenge was, my early Instructor's teaching techniques led to very few junior students in the school. I ended up training with adults from age 12 onwards. Therefore classes had little to do with fun, and there were times that I wanted to take a break from lessons. However quitting was not an option for my parents. For them it was not about me receiving a black belt or earning a specific rank. They always told me that as long as I gave 100% effort they were happy with me. To them, letting me quit was teaching me the wrong lesson. They believed that quitting could become a habit, and they did want that for me.
I received my brown belt at the age of 13. In my school there was no rank of Jr. black belt, therefore I spent 3 years as a brown belt. This of course was challenging as I had to stay motivated. What also became very difficult was, in my school the highest ranking underbelt had specific duties. By the age of 15 I was the highest ranking brown belt. Some of my responsibilities included keeping the change rooms clean, making sure the dojo floor was clean, making sure lower belts followed proper etiquette in the dojo. If anything was not up to par the penalty was pushups, and even though I tried hard, I ended up doing a lot of pushups. In fact I remember one class where I had to do 1000 pushups. I spent the entire 90 minutes of class off to the side doing pushups. That may sound crazy, but back then it seemed normal. {I never want to hear brown belts complain about 50 pushups after class. LOL!!}
Just before I turned 16 I was told that Richard Kim would be doing a Black belt testing in Hamilton. I received permission to test before I was 16 years old. I was quite excited, however that excitment quickly turned to nervousness as I learned a few days before that I would also have to perform the kata, Nihanchi Sandan. Now, don't get me wrong....I knew I was ready to grade, as I had been preparing for 3 years for this opportunity. However, I was only told a few days before the grading, I had to learn this new kata. For those of you who know the kata, it is quite short, however it can also be quite confusing; I also had to get the kata down perfect in order to pass for my Black Belt. Let me tell you!....no one did that kata more times in those few days than me!!
A short time after receiving my Black belt, my Instructor's school closed down. I started teaching at Saint Andrew's Church in the basement. I had an average of 25 students over the next few years. Sempai Mark Anderson was my first student who started with me and made it to the rank of Black Belt. He along with some of my other students did very well at local tournaments and we soon made a name for ourselves. Because of this success, a local instructor named Ken Tallack invited me to teach at his school on weekends. I taught primarily sparring classes at his school on Elias street. This is where I first met Sempai Jeff Muir. Jeff and his twin brother Dirk were students with Ken Tallack and came out to my class. When we started sparring they were not too eager to participate. In fact Jeff brought to my attention the fact that in a Gichin Funakoshi book he says sparring is not neccessary in the study of karate. I responded by telling him to put his gear on and the rest is history. Sempai Jeff just won a gold medal at this year's WKA World Championships in the Continuous sparring division.
In 1984 Ken was opening a new school and asked me if I wanted to be partners. I would teach my style, grade my students, but we would share advertising and other costs etc. It seemed like the next logical step. I was attending the University of Western Ontario, but I was not sure what I was going to do with my life. I did know I loved Martial arts and loved teaching. Opening a school seemed like the best way to find out if this was a good career choice for me.
Stay tuned....next month, I will talk about my first full time school on King Street and Sempai Dennis McFadden's first class!
Shihan Bernardo
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