training under the grandmaster

[Brandon Fisher]

I train with my Grandmaster once a week, i attend his dojo, and he owns 54 of which the one i attend is the headquarters. He is 72 years old and been doing Martial Arts for 68 years. The style we do is his own created style called Gosoku-Ryu(hard fast). He is really fast for his age but also very humble.

Soke Tak Kubota right.

Yes, Soke Takayuki(Tak) Kubota

I have seen some very impressive videos of Soke Kubota. He moves so gracefully but with so much speed and power. Just can't hardly swallow the sledgehammer demos. WOW!!

[legkicker]

as a hayashi ha shito ryu yudansha I had the honor at a young age to train under Hayashi Soke(rip)after he was present when I was in a closed door training for instructors for 96 USANKF nationals. Basically, I was a guineau pig doing kumite with other competitors in nationals for the refs to practice on to prepare for nationals. I was 16 or so at the time and Hayashi invited me to train under him which I will never forget.

I have also had the honor of training privately under Master Toddy who is a grandmaster in my camp of muay thai but everyone knows him as Master Toddy. A lot of people have trained at Toddy's gym but not many people have privately. I'm probably one of the few non world champions or people that are on a TV special that have trained privately under Toddy. I was more lucky if anything because of timing and what not to train privately under him. Toddy is very, very busy, to say the least.

[Azula]

Wow you serious? i've never seen demos of his younger days. Can you send me the links?

[Brandon Fisher]

Wow you serious? i've never seen demos of his younger days. Can you send me the links?

There is video of him on the Budo Exotica DVD from Yamazato Productions. Sorry I don't have any links but you can get the video here:

http://yamazato-videos.com/

or https://www.amazon.com

[Jiffy]

Unfortunately, we do not have access to such high grades in our style (Shotokan). While they certainly are there, we do not have the funds to bring them over.

[Zorbasan]

yeh, thats the problem with being way down under. it costs a lot for all the good seminars when they do bring them over too.

[Jiffy]

And then on top of that, if they do come to Australia, they only go to the Eastern states.... Grrrr!

[parkerlineage]

That's why I'm glad to take an American System.

We have several masters in which we put stock - unfortunately, with Ed Parker's death, suddenly everybody was a grandmaster - as far as I know, neither of the 10th dans with which our school is associated calls themself a "grandmaster", though they may have earned that title. One of them, Richard "Huk" Planas, comes around every three months or so to do a seminar or a test. He's really scary at first, but turns out to be a nice guy, after all. The other one, Frank Trejo, comes maybe once a year, sometimes less - we're not so much affiliated with him as with Planas, as far as I know.

Since their seminars are usually on Saturday, and for religious reasons, I don't train on Saturdays, I usually get to hook up with private lessons on the Friday before - makes me feel special.

[Jiffy]

Man, that would be fantastic!

[kenpo.stylist]

I had the opportunity to train with my two grandmasters at the home of one in California. We were doing ballistic microfights in the Blauer suits and when it was GM Sullivan's turn he turned heads. He leapt into action like a cheetah. One of our BB's was in the suit acting as the aggressor and GM Sullivan tore him a new one. Not bad for a septugenarian...man, he's at least 40 years my senior and is quicker than I am.