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| The pretenders square off, ready to fight. |
The commercial starts off in the late Victorian era with the inventors of "Twix" having a disagreement over the manufacture of the chocolate bar. Neither of the brothers would give up control of the production in favour of the other, so they took the only logical step: they divided the company out of spite and set up opposing factories (that were mirror images of each other). The production of chocolate bars in each factory were quite different: in the left factory they flowed caramel over the bars and bathed the finished product in chocolate, while in the right factory they cascaded the caramel over the bars and cloaked the bars in chocolate.
The irony and humour of the commercial is that the production methods and finished product are obviously identical. The problem is that the two brothers really believe their methods and products are completely different and they have invested their entire life and all their money into that belief. The morons doubled the cost of production and divided the profits by two. If this does not sound exactly like karate to my reader, sorry, but that just means you have not studied karate long enough. Train some more.
The death of Hidetaka Nishiyama in November of 2008 was the beginning of the end of the ITKF as we know it. Rob Redmond, a well known karate critic commented on the ITKF split with this clear statement. I cannot say it better, so I will just quote him directly:"Well, ITKF was always doomed and we knew it and talked about it on 24FC a long time ago. ITKF/AAKF was a cult of personality built around Nishiyama exclusively just as ISKF is built around Okazaki. When Nishiyama died, that was it. Anyone following in his footsteps would have to be his equal in reputation. No such person exists. It is a golden rule of management that if you follow a star, you either have to destroy their reputation to succeed or somehow outperform them. It is the worst possible position to be in. Anyone following a star is a doomed leader." Mr. Jorgensen was the dark-horse successor to Mr. Nishiyama and thus was doomed as the chairman from the moment he stepped into the position. Besides the fact he was not an elderly Japanese gentleman, Rick had three overwhelming problems as he stepped into the position.
The first, obvious problem, is that Rick Jorgensen is not now, nor has he ever been, a high profile instructor. He is not a physically imposing man, nor is his karate terribly flashy. He does not come with a long list of tournament wins or any highly acclaimed books and instructional videos. Rick does not even maintain a web log filled with deep martial thoughts, half-baked theories on human physiology and superficial philosophical drivel. Rick travels, works, travels some more and works a lot more. He is basically that grey little man that gets the stuff done the rest of the instructors are too self-important to do. While they are being flashy he is allowing them to be flashy by being a bureaucrat.( BTW: do not mistake lack of "flash" for lack of effectiveness. Quite the opposite. Rick tends to emphasize the basics while others emphasize largely useless flash)
The second major problem here is that Rick is not very open and communicative. Rick is actually one of the most secretive men I have ever met. Whatever you think that Rick might be up to, he is likely working on three other projects simultaneously. Rick's naturally cautious nature is typical of a lifelong bureaucrat. Unfortunately, his tight-lipped nature tends to make people believe he is up to no good when he is usually just too busy keeping the wheels on the bus to give us all full disclosure. Furthermore, Rick, right or wrong, really does believe he knows best about how things should be run. His attitude makes for tense, one-sided conversations from time to time. Over the years training with his club and taking his instruction, I have come to understand his methods and now I can see where he is going. Most people cannot get by his stonewalling and clipped instructions, wanting instead flashy demonstrations and complete bullshit explanations you might find from better known instructors.
The third problem Rick was facing was the fact that the ITKF bureaucracy was in disarray when he inherited it. Mr. Nishiyama had been running four different organisations out of his office toward the end of his life, and he was far from a healthy man. I saw Mr. Nishiyama as late as 2006 and I could see death in his eyes and his body. When he spoke you could barely hear him, even if you were in the front row. When Nishiyama Sensei walked onto the floor, every step was taken carefully and obviously was painful. His right ankle was swollen till it practically matched his calf in size and his steps were short and plodding. Mr. Nishiyama was old and should have been peacefully dictating his memoirs to a secretary rather than demonstrating karate in cold gymnasiums internationally. Unfortunately, Mr Nishiyama's primary business secretary was also elderly herself and quietly succumbing to Alzheimer's disease, so the paperwork at the ITKF headquarters was quickly becoming an insurmountable problem.
The long a short of it, many of the problems of the ITKF are not really caused by Rick Jorgensen as much as they are caused by our perception of Rick Jorgensen. If people actually understood the position and duties of the chairman of the ITKF instead of looking for a reincarnation of a legendary figurehead such as Hidetaka Nishiyama, then Rick likely would have been better accepted as the chairman and international instructors would have cooperated with the program. Unfortunately when you are looking for a hero and you get a business manager, very quickly everything he does is an issue.
So the question still sits: what the hell precipitated the current break-up?
You can follow the shit-storm yourself by looking through the web log of this crazy Greek guy. He tends to editorialise and the story is pretty one-sided (Obviously he does NOT like Sensei Jorgensen. He likely does not know Rick from Adam, but he really hates Rick.) Here is the link: http://www.eurokarate.eu/03ietkf/030cont.htm
The battle lines were drawn over the "ITKF World Cup" held in Poland this summer. It seems the Cup is a pretty select event, Eight men and eight women are selected from the ITKF pool and are invited to the competition with all expenses paid. The idea is that the best athletes can be show-cased in a big venue without there being any concern about affordability to the athlete. The list is made up by committee and then submitted to the ITKF head office for approval. From the correspondence, it looks like there was a colossal lack of communication between head office and the Polish venue resulting in the Polish branch of the ITKF just proceeding with the "World Cup" using their own list of competitors and judges. Rick, at head office and cut out of the loop, proceeded to boycott the competition, claiming that it could not be called an ITKF "World Cup" if it did not adhere strictly to ITKF protocol. Everybody all the way around had their own version of the truth, but the impression I get is that the Polish contingent already had their own agenda and were intent on bulling-it through the head office regardless of ITKF protocol. Once Rick at head office voiced his objections the Polish ITKF was too invested in the project to reconsider their position. In every decision tree there is a point of no return where to back-track would cost too much prestige and cold-hard cash.
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| A jab is thrown, but the opponent bobs and weaves. |
It appears that from this point the situation spiralled around the toilette bowl vigorously. Mr. Kwiecinski, the head of the Polish ITKF and the Vice-President of the ITKF cried foul and extended the complaint to query how Rick Jorgensen could be both the Chairman of the ITKF and be appointed the Chair of the Technical Committee (There is that contentious technical committee issue that killed the TKC once again. Five years after his death and ten years after it was first proposed publicly and Mr. Nishiyama's planned technical committee still remains an embryonic concept. So much for everybody following the true way of Sensei Nishiyama). Mr. Kwiecinski also queried the financial situation of the ITKF head office, requesting detailed financial statements. The financial situation appears to be a grinding point with some.
The financial status of the ITKF is indeed a bit of a mystery. As a corporate entity the ITKF actually lost legal status in the late nineties when Mr. Nishiyama allowed the California corporate license to lapse. The trail gets a bit messy on this point, but there seems to be some question as to taxes paid and an effort by Mr. Nishiyama to get the ITKF declared a non-profit organisation during the interim years. Despite nearly two decades having passed since then, the actual legal status of the ITKF still hangs in limbo. This situation is complicated by the fact that the Nishiyama family has moved to legally protect the family name and the intellectual property of Nishiyama Sensei against unauthorised use. It appears that even immediately after Sensei's death a number of groups claimed rights to promote the Nishiyama school. Many of these pretenders had only attended a couple of day seminars with Mr. Nishiyama. Anyone looking at the situation would have to admit that it's pretty messy considering the number of independent groups claiming to uphold the Nishiyama legacy.
Just as a side note: every one of us should look at this mess and understand that this is what all of us leave behind when we die: immense amounts of unfinished business that some poor fool has to decipher. Keep your personal matters in order because you never know when your card is going to be punched.
Of course, the question of the validity of Mr. Jorgensen's position as Chairman was brought up by many. Mr. Kwiecinski is the head of a huge organisation and controls access to "Stara Weis", probably the best martial arts facility in the entire world. Certainly, if you are considering only accolades, championships, and national organisation size, Mr. Kwiecinski would be an excellent choice for Chairman of the ITKF. Avi Rokah, the acclaimed karate instructor out of Los Angeles, certainly was a dedicated student of Sensei Nishiyama, training with Sensei practically every day for over two decades. If we consider only personal exposure to Mr. Nishiyama, then perhaps Avi Rokah would be the natural heir to Mr. Nishiyama. There are any number of instructors who consider themselves "senior" to Sensei Jorgensen, either in rank or simply in years on the floor. Names such as Tabassi and Fusaro are certainly more illustrious than the simple Canadian Rick Jorgensen, at least in the USA. Many actually questioned the Seventh degree ranking Sensei Jorgensen was awarded by Nishiyama Sensei, somewhat along the lines of those who question whether President Obama is actually American (The same people who question the seventh degree ranking awarded by Nishiyama himself also seem to plead the most dedication to the legacy of Mr. Nishiyama.)
All of these questions were dealing with people's perception of Mr. Jorgensen't physical ability at karate or the training resources afforded him as a Canadian versus, for example, socialist Poland. (there was at least one derogatory comment to the effect that Canada is just a frozen backwater with no decent karate anywhere by one of the critics). The questions had very little to do with his administrative qualifications and certainly did not address the administrative abilities of his proposed successors.
When it comes to being a "true student" of Mr. Nishiyama, certainly Mr. Kwiecinski has no more claim to that than Mr. Jorgensen. I rather doubt that our Polish colleague spent more time travelling with Nishiyama Sensei than Rick. In fact, I would rather doubt that anybody can claim more one-on-one time with Mr. Nishiyama than Mr. Jorgensen. Having trained a fair bit over the last 25 years, I know that time spent on the dojo floor with an instructor ( the basis for Mr. Rokah's claim against Mr. Jorgensen) is not necessarily the kind of personal exposure that gives one insight into the head instructor's master mission statement. On the other hand, Rick Jorgensen was the guy that transcribed most of the original ITKF constitution and several of the key statement documents, transcribed directly from Mr. Nishiyama as he dictated late into the night while on the road to various seminars. From having to deal with Rick while I was president of Midwest Karate Regina, I know that he was on the road with Sensei practically every weekend over the last ten years of Mr. Nishiyama's life. Those two men discussed many of Mr. Nishiyama's intentions for the future development of the ITKF and, of course, Mr. Nishiyama's personal philosophy with regards to karate.
No doubt there are many people who are more visually proficient at karate than Rick Jorgensen (which is very different from actual effectiveness), but can any of them succinctly encapsulate Mr. Nishiyama's global view for the future of the ITKF? Does being flashy at karate have anything to do with administration of an international organisation? Do any of the pretenders to the throne actually want to run the organisation, or do they just want the prestige of being "the chairman"?
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| A counter punch is thrown, but was it really successfully blocked? |
This brings us to the fateful "Extraordinary General Meeting of the ITKF" held August 17 of this year. I read the letter of announcement and there were many inferences of "illegal acts" and "broken laws", but no specifics. In fact, I am not sure any statement was actually made as to which country the laws were broken in. Perhaps the letter referred to American law, but then I am not sure how a senior Polish karate instructor would know much about American law. Perhaps the letter was referring to ITKF law, but then we would be discussing the constitutional law of a sports federation which is about as binding as the rules of pick-up street-hockey (we karateka really do take ourselves so very seriously). The crazy Greek gentleman was loudly screaming that Jorgensen Sensei had broken Greek law by holding a karate seminar in Greece without the express agreement of the Greek Traditional Karate Association. It seems to me Greece is an excellent venue for the ITKF summer camp since Europe appears to have the largest ITKF contingent. You would think the ITKF players in Europe would have appreciated it. I have a hard time believing anyone in cash-strapped Greece would prevent an international karate federation from renting a privately owned property for fear of offending a tiny national karate organisation. In fact all the arguments and grinding points appear to be fabricated solely for the purpose of impeaching Sensei Jorgensen outside of the normal democratic process. All this sounds very much like the previous debacle in the TKC in 2006.
The meeting proceeded pretty much as expected. Numerous delegates from many countries convened for the express purpose of killing Mr. Jorgensen's Chair position at the ITKF. The assassination was a classic karate method: burn the entire house down rather than just redecorating. Thus we now have the "New" ITKF, just like the old ITKF but now run by a new bunch of leaders operating outside the democratic process with head offices in that hotbed of traditional karate, Geneva Switzerland. I guess elite, secretive banking and karate instruction are synergistic. The voting process was very interesting: the petition forming the New ITKF appeared to be signed by many people that were not really active in karate politics either nationally or internationally. It appears that a cadre of alienated karateka unilaterally decided to designate themselves "leaders" and signed a petition on the behalf of their students and followers without actually getting full consent (of course that would have required full disclosure, which would have likely let the cat out of the bag and the blind-side of Mr. Jorgensen might have failed).
Lets look at the Canadian situation. Back in Saskatoon, the head instructor of Midwest Karate had barely tolerated Mr. Jorgensen's leadership for decades. The friction between the Sempai (used only for clarity here, the man truly deserves the title "Sensei") and his former Sensei was well known but intentionally overlooked by everyone that knew the two men. Sempai (a very capable Godan over fifty years of age with many national and international tournament successes under his belt) had been given very limitted latitude by Sensei Jorgensen for years, even to the point of being unable to carry out kyu level examinations for his own club and for associated clubs in Saskatchewan. At one point I had personally thought to step in and make a direct request to Nishiyama Sensei to allow the Sempai to perform grading exercises up to Shodan, but my wise and capable wife told me to just step back and keep my scrawny mutt nose out of the big dog's business ( I should clarify this: the Sempai actually told me I should do it and then I thought about it. In retrospect, I would have been basically throwing myself upon my own sword on behalf of a man who really could care less about me). As far as I know, until August 17th, all of Sempai's rank awards were considered "proxy" ranks because Jorgensen Sensei had not directly awarded them. ( but things may have changed since I quit karate in 2010). Having said that, one must keep in mind that Nishiyama Sensei had specifically requested all examinations were to be carried out by at least two instructor level kudansha, so perhaps the limitations placed on examinations were consistent with Nishiyama-Ryu protocol.
The head instructor out of Saskatoon travelled to Poland to sign the declaration of emancipation from the "old" ITKF under Sensei Jorgensen. Of course, one should really question whether the gentleman had any moral right to sign that document on the behalf of Canada and his students. Mr. Jorgensen certainly did question how Sempai could sign the document when he was not the official representative of the Canadian Traditional Karate Federation (the legal chairman of record was in fact Mr. Jorgensen). The reply to Mr. Jorgensen's query was that Sempai had actually resigned from the CTKF prior to his trip to Poland, as had about 60% of the CTKF affiliates, and he was now acting as the representative of that break-away group. I guess the solution to every problem in karate politics is to pick up all your marbles and storm off the sand-lot to start your own game with your own rules elsewhere. And I rather doubt that Sempai from Saskatoon actually consulted the general population of his students about his decision.
I suspect this is probably the tactic used by many of the delegates who signed that proclamation in Poland.
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| The attack is telegraphed, the opponent ready and waiting. |
And karate still is not getting into the Olympics. Hallelujah.
So let's just underline the classic karate tactic that has been repeated unsuccessfully world-wide: form an association around one charismatic, legendary leader. Keep that association functional as long as that leader is alive. When that leader dies, ignore his original plan while fighting over who should assume his crown. Abandon the organisation the leader worked his lifetime to assemble and form your own organisation while continuing to claim the leader's path as your own. Claim democracy but ignore the democratic principles of open discussion, debate and election.
Here are a few parting shots for everybody to consider.
Why wasn't the democratic process followed? If there was such conflict over Sensei Jorgensen's management, why didn't the leaders of the coup just wait until a scheduled general meeting of the ITKF was held, bring their complaints before the assembly and then vote to replace Sensei Jorgensen with a chairman of their preference? Why, in a martial art that teaches patience, self-discipline and delayed gratification, did the leaders of the New ITKF feel obliged to ignore those principles and carry out this coup? Could it be that they did not feel they really had the support of the majority of ITKF members? (in fact, do the rank and file members of the ITKF really count for anything in the leader's opinion, or are they just the cannon-fodder that pays the bills?)
The only benefit I can see from all this is that it is going to be much easier to win a "World Championsip" in both of the ITKF organisations since the talent pool is now so shallow that the competitors will probably have to take turns refereeing their own fights and add up their own kata scores for want of tournament volunteers. Hell, maybe I should return to competition. I might just get another nifty participation ribbon and a trip to national championships as the only competitor in my class (the class reserved for old farts with bad knees).
The fall of the ITKF after the death of Nishiyama Sensei was inevitable. Everyone saw this coming and the ITKF would have failed if the sainted Pope himself was voted in as Chairman. I can predict the fall of the New ITKF in the near future as well; the only thing holding it together is a mutual dislike of Sensei Jorgensen and now he is no longer their problem. The leaders of the New ITKF will need another scapegoat to blame for all their problems.
We all should study our history. The Roman Empire was founded on the principles of individual leadership by a single, charismatic Caesar. Caesar Augustus was probably the only Roman Emperor to successfully survive that leadership: once he died the position of Caesar became a life-threatening career that usually ended in very premature violent death. As Mr. Redmond pointed out, if you follow Caesar in succession you must either surpass Caesar, destroy Caesar or be doomed yourself.
Good luck to all those new pretenders to the Nishiyama throne.
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| I ran out of good karate pictures and I thought the view from my village would at least calm down all those who now want me dead. |
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