Ray Dalke Interview
By
Don Warrener
"We got real serious after Frank Smith got his jaw broken by Enoeda." You
were there? What really happened! "Yeah, you bet I was there. I was sitting
right there at ringside when Enoeda swept Frank's front leg and then using
the same foot he roundhouse kicked him right in the face as he went down.
After Frank went down all I saw was blood. It was a great technique but it sure gave us a wake up call and after that everything changed. Frank got serious, very serious after that in fact we all got serious and realized that this isn't a game anymore and that is how we played it after that. You know when we went to class we never new if we were going to live or die it was very serious from there on in."
These are the exact words of Ray Dalke one of the few American Karate
Legends. In a recent interview Dalke told it all, the truth about the karate school of hard knocks. After forty plus years few people have stuck it out but he has and in this interview you will learn why the Japanese Karate Masters lost control of Karate in America and now in Europe as well. You may be shocked!
DW - How long have you been training and where did you start?
RD -Over forty years, three years of judo and dabbled in other styles as well as a little kenpo with Ed Parker before training in Shotokan Karate. I formally
started with Dan Ivan. Dan Ivan would take us down to Ed Parker's. Dan was
my first instructor, things back then were pretty open.
DW- Who did you train with after Dan?
RD- Nishiyama all these years.
DW -What year did you start training with him?
RD- Early 1961.
DW- What was your 1st impression when you saw Nishiyama?
RD- Back then it was a different time and you looked at people differently. He
was just something very special and I had heard about karate and how you
could kill someone with a karate chop or something. He was more of a
novelty than anything. He was someone you could look at and realize he
could really do you in bare handed. I was looking for self-defense with Dan
Ivan and not realizing it was Shotokan or anything cause back then we didn't
know about styles. Then I saw Nishiyama perform and I was not quite sure about him, as he could not speak English. It was broken English and I couldn't understand what he was saying. I thought that zenkutsu dachi and kiba dachi were all the same so instead of trying to understand him I just copied him. Then as his English got better he was better able to explain the dynamics. Then prior to this Nishiyama and Dan Ivan had split up and Nishiyama Sensei had opened up a dojo through Oshima. I knew as soon as I started karate that it was something I would never stop.
DW - How was the training with Nishiyama back then?
RD - It was savage. It was really brutal. Really brutal! Because
Nishiyama was the main man back then and several top guys would come and
train with us. Okazaki would come and train, Yaguichi, Mikami, Enoeda,
Shirai, Kanazawa these were our training/sparring, partners. Kase was more
of an instructor but not at first. We got a chance to get after these guys
and they were not very gentle men. I trained with them all including Sensei Oshima. I picked Nishiyama as my sensei. I was looking for some direction and he seemed to be the right man to guide me. He was intelligent, a deliberate man with no hesitation. He carried himself as an athlete and as someone special. We never sparred with the man he just had our respect and that will never change. Even big Frank Smith, I don't care what he says, that will just never change. We just trusted his word. It was a different time back then and there was also a big difference in terms of the whole of American philosophy. We were going through the Berlin crisis. We had the Cuban crisis. We were just out of World War II by about 10 years or so. I just missed everything barely and we were getting into Vietnam and you know put the Americans in a corner and boy oh boy watch out. Things were just different back then--a different society. I don't think the karate has changed it's still the same. The people have changed so the message has to be a little different now.
DW - What is your opinion of kick boxing, UFC or Muay Thai?
RD - Well I think that they are all good sports if that is what you want to
do and get hammered around. But I like boxing and collegiate wrestling not
so much the pro wrestling but some of those guys are serious and huge. I
just can't imagine fighting Shaqille O'Neil at 315 pounds 7'2 or something
like that. It is wonderful to get old because you realize that you better
pick a fight with someone you can whup like that old lady over there. There
wouldn't be any amount of money that would get me to fight those guys. I
don't want to take anything away from those guys but to defend myself
against them is a different thing and I wouldn't hesitate a second, because
if I new it was going to happen I would be way ahead of them. I think that
is what karate has taught me, the final thing is to be really deliberate and
believe me I won't hesitate even a second.
DW - Today people refer to karate as a sport. Do you agree with that?
RD - No not real karate. If it was just kick/punch then you would have to
stop training at 35 or 40 years of age. No real karate is self-defense.
They have these new rules out well let me tell you I would hate to be
ipponed by Frank Smith once and then have to go another 3 or 4 minutes with
him. I tell yeh that someone is going to get seriously hurt. Well that is sport but you know competition has become so subjective and you got these referees saying whether it was good enough or not. When we fought in the sixties it was contact but I don't want to exaggerate but it really was a rough go. We had legs broken, teeth knocked out, fingers broken, ribs broken but this was not real contact. I look at these guys who do this tough man contest and UFC. These guys are really tough and they are the guys I keep my eyes on in a bar
and if they get really rowdy I am going to go home and have a beer if not it
just might be "bang" and we will get something really going on. But that is
not what I think decent people should be doing and saying. I don't want to fight
and roll around on the ground, but that is what these type of guys are
doing if they aren't fighting in the ring they are fighting in bars and they are looking for someone to give them a go but this is what I have trained my whole life to avoid and I can't do this by just being a fighter. I am a karate-ka who practices the whole art including the philosophy.
DW - You have been training now for 40 years do you think that the western
world karate has caught up to the Japanese karate?
RD - Oh yeah. We caught up to them in 1967 and 1969 big time. Nishiyama's
students caught them and when they brought in this guy to fight ten of us
and he couldn't get through us and that was the JKA grand champion. The idea
was that they would bring in one guy to beat ten Americans (the Los Angeles
team) and that wasn't going to happen and I really felt sorry for the
Japanese champion cause he really got beat, beat badly. It was the late
60s or early 70s right around in there. Physically, technically we are as
good as they are but culturally and socially we are not there. We are not
even close to them and their history and their Musashi's and their great
heritage and all these types of things we are just not even close to them.
DW - How important do you think the bunkai of the kata is?
RD - Well there is so many different interpretations of bunkai, oh my God
that is one of the things I learned when I went to the JKA Instructors
school. It is like every instructor has a different interpretation to the
technique...let me put it this way Sensei Nishiyama rarely ever taught
bunkai in fact I can't remember when he did teach it.
DW - The guys who have been training for as long as you have mention that the Japanese don't like to give up the control thing. How do you guys feel about that?
RD - Well that caused a lot of pain in the USA in the past and Europe is now
experiencing that. You know there is a top and we don't want to be the top
but with all the years we have done this we don't want to be at the back of
the bus we are somewhere in the middle. The problem is that the Japanese, I
think, never expected us to stick around as long as some of us have. You
know forty years or so. I think they figured we would stick around for five, eight or ten years and then quit. This has forced some of us to form our own small groups where we are prepared to share the top with each other. On the other hand, I look at Sensei Nishiyama and he sees me in class and I am 62 years old and he says I am looking pretty good and he never said that before and that is what I have always striven for, to get that nod of approval. I don't give
that nod very often to my students but I do give it when they deserve it and I
am prepared to share the top with them if they deserve it.
If some guy has done karate for 25 years he is no amateur and he
deserves recognition. Lesley Safar was Okazaki's top student and he left and said you know Sensei you just don't want to share. And you know it always comes
back to another thing called money and that is a pretty important
thing especially when you are a professional and you have a wife and family.
If it is an international organization and I am an 8th dan or 9th dan and that says I have a lot of experience and then I deserve a piece of the gate as well as them. I underwent their training and I broke my body and I wouldn't have been the person I am now without it. But I don't just credit them for it; I also credit myself for hanging in there. They will not share with us, we get crumbs while they get the big portions...but what was really not fair was when they brought in junior instructors and put them in front of us and that is when some of us just said wow! I have been training twice as long as this guy and your putting him up as my Sensei? Don't do that and look at us as equal to a junior Japanese, and that is pretty hard for a guy like me to chew and it was really hard for a guy like Frank Smith who is really ego motivated and it is just too bloody bad that a guy like that quit karate fifteen years ago because when he had something to say he kept his mouth shut. But I didn't, I said what you guys are doing is wrong. I told Okazaki Sensei that I don't want to drive the bus but I don't want to sit at the back of it either. I paid my dues and spent my time yet you want me to bring in Mr. Yaguichi to test my green belts. What the hell are you doing? Who pays my rent? It boils down to business.
DW - What did he say to that?
RD - Ah... "You don't understand the politics." I said Ok; you do it but I
want a promise from you in writing that when I can't pay my rent next month
you will pay. He said, "No, No you are supposed to run your own business." Well
Then, I can't do it and that is when we had our parting of the ways with both
Mr. Nishiyama and Okazaki and that is exactly what has happened with Leon
Sells and Mikami the same way. They won't let him test and he has been
training damn near as long as me and Mikami kicked him out because he gave a
couple of black belt tests. Greer Golden, the guy I went through Instructor
training school with thinks he is Japanese but he is not. He will learn one of these days. He is 67 years old and he is my sempai by five years and he can test up to 3rd kyu brown belt because he wasn't a nice boy. Try that on. It is business but the Japanese make all the money.
DW - Yeah Italy is starting to have a problem.
RD - Yeah Spain is having a problem too.
DW - Well Falsoni in Italy figured it out years ago with Shirai. Both Falsoni and Spartaco Bertoletti.
RD - You know that is Ok and in fact I hope that Sensei Nishiyama is a multi-
millionaire but don't stop me from becoming a millionaire. Don't stop me
from growing.
DW - After all these years of practice what is the meaning of practicing
karate do?
RD - Well I think it all changes. I think what you start with and what you
end up with is two different things. I think that age has everything to do
with it. You know in the beginning it takes on a shallow look, you know its
about kicking, punching and beating someone up. When I trained at Dan Ivan's
we would train and then go to the bar and then try out some of these
techniques and sometimes they did work and sometimes they didn't and you
would get your ass kicked. Then as the years go along you try to change
yourself and the technical takes over and then you have the strong years.
When I was in my 20s you just couldn't tire me out and I would train eight
hours a day and then in my 30s, I felt extremely strong and they were my
strongest years. Then in my 40s, I pushed away from being the instructor
and started to relax a bit more and my body became really flexible and
almost to the point that my body felt like I was doing Tai Chi.
DW - My last question is "What have you learned through karate?"
RD - That is a good question. I will tell you what it has taught me. It
has taught me patience, a virtue of Japanese culture. I remember I asked
Nishiyama when I could take a test and he would say "A little more, a little more--You Wait. You know 25 years later a little wait but it really has taught me patience and it's like a snake just waiting and then when you go...go all the way. Nothing ends in the first round and it has been a wonderful thing for me it
has allowed me to talk to people that I wouldn't have talked to. It really
has given me a way to my life and it has given me a direction to my life. It has taught me that you got to just hang in there because there was a lot of tough times and a lot of kicks in the groin and there are times that you just got to stand up for yourself and you don't have a lot of friends and sometimes those friends are so far behind you, you can't see them but you just got to hang in there and keep going!
DW Thank you so much!
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