Part 3 of an interview we did with Noonan Sensei some time ago. Noonan Sensei is currently the most senior ranked teacher of Chito-Ryu Karate-Do in Australia. In this episode he share a bit about the technical side of his training and his experiences training with 2nd Generation Soke.
—- Transcript —-
Sandra: Welcome back everybody. Today we are excited to be sharing with you part three of the five-part interview with Noonan-sensei.
Martin: And if you haven’t already heard the first parts, be sure to go back and listen to the previous episodes.
Sandra: Yeah, do that before you go on to this one. But today, in today’s episode, Noonan-sensei will continue sharing more about his experiences training in Japan, and he’ll also share a few ideas on the technical side of his training, and that’s going to be pretty interesting.
Martin: We’ve noticed everybody faces challenges in life, some big and some small, but not everyone has a way to navigate these problems.
Sandra: It’s not always easy, but we found that we always keep coming back to what we’ve learned from our years in the dojo.
Martin: And that’s what this podcast is all about.
Sandra: Helping us all find the solutions to last problems, or even better yet, to remove the problems before they arise.
Martin: This is Martin and Sandra Phillips, and welcome to the Karate4Life Podcast.
Sandra: So, could you share more about your training? You were being in a black belt. I was.
Short down. Your first time going to Japan.
Noonan Sensei: Yeah.
Sandra: Could you share more about the things that you did? Was it more kumite based?
Noonan Sensei: No, it was the same. Look, there was probably more basics than Soke does in the morning now. But I believe that’s because he thinks our basics are not too bad now.
So we’re doing okay. So we’ll get these out of the way quick and move on to the other stuff. That’s what I, that’s my, that’s how I perceive it.
But previous to that, it was always, we’d, I don’t know how many punches we do, but it was like five, at least five minutes of seiken zuki or more. And then, you know, oi zuki, gyaku zuki, oshi zuki, rinten zuki, just over and over again. And then every single kick, gedan, chudan, kata, again, over and over and over and over again.
Not a lot of stretching, a bit of conditioning, you know, quite a few push-ups and cat stretches were big at that time. So I was really into those. Some, a little bit of kaishu at that stage, that first stage, a little bit of open hand.
But the biggest thing was he was always telling me, you know, tanden, you got to use your tanden. He liked the fact that I, and much to the chagrin of others, because it was probably, I wasn’t sure, I know in Japanese culture, it’s not that polite to keep questioning people about things. But I didn’t know that, so I didn’t care because I didn’t know.
So I just had a million questions and I used to just continually ask them and I know that it probably upset other people in the dojo, but I don’t care now. Maybe I should, but it doesn’t bother me now because it’s helped me along my way. So I asked a lot of questions continually and all sorts of questions about everything, whether it was basic, kata, it didn’t matter.
But he was really responsive to that and I know many years later and in the 90s when he was talking to a couple of the gents from the United States, he said to them, you know, something along the lines of, words to the effect that, you know, he asked so many questions continually and that’s good, you should ask. So I realised many, many years later, after people had told me that’s bad, of course, you know, I got the rap on the knuckles and you shouldn’t ask that many questions and blah, blah, blah. I got a rap on the knuckles for that from different people.
I still kept asking questions though, because my, for me, my learning was more important than how polite asking question was or not. Make what, you know, make out of that whatever you want, but that’s how I felt. I’m there to learn.
It’s a great opportunity and I’m not there forever, so I’ve got to make the best of it.
Sandra: That’s great. So I’m going to, buddy, and I apologise.
Noonan Sensei: Please.
Sandra: I’m sure my husband, Martin, was talking about, you’re quite famous at the sohonbu of breaking makiwara.
Noonan Sensei: Oh yeah, yeah, I forgot that. I just want to.
Sandra: I’d forgotten that. I remember going there one year myself, I had to go and rebuild one with Mark Waterfield sensei.
Noonan Sensei: And then I broke that one.
Sandra: Yeah, do you want to, I mean, maybe share what a makiwara is, because they might not know.
Noonan Sensei: Well yeah, well you can get a camera and then have a look at them, put them up later, but it’s, so in Japan the makiwara that we use is, it’s about eight foot long, and I’m not sure the, do you know the timber that they use? It’s a particular Japanese timber that we don’t have here. We usually use Oregon here, which is pretty good for them, but it starts like a square base and it goes up to a couple inches across and quite thin at the top, so it’s nice and flexible.
And it’s about four foot in the ground and about four foot out of the ground, and they’re not supposed to break, that’s the reality. They’re not supposed to break, they’re supposed to flex. flex, flex, flex.
Anyway, I can’t remember what year it was, but Soke had been across to Australia and he took me for a walk. He said, come on, let’s walk, okay? And you know, I’m kind of jumping along beside him like a little puppy and he slows me down.
He said, no, no, step, feel your weight in your body, feel your, and he went on and on and I started to think about it and I started trying to apply it to my karate. I think I was about, I was going to challenge for my yondan at that time, but honestly I couldn’t put a year on it. It was in the nineties and so I went and I had a makiwara at home and it was like just, you know, sometimes those light bulb moments you can, and that’s something that everyone should realise when you train.
If you just keep training, no matter how hard you suck at it for a while, something will happen, but you’ve got to stick to it for that to happen. You’ve got to keep the training up for that to happen. If you’re not training, well, it won’t happen.
It’s not like you can watch someone on YouTube doing karate and then suddenly you’ll be able to do it. That’s never going to happen. There’s too many of those people around.
We’ll talk about that later anyway. But so, you know, I put all this together in my mind and my body and I went home and I hit my makiwara just once and it just broke. And then I thought, now, wow, now, am I like, you know, wow, have I really done this?
Or this has been out in the elements. Might have been a bit weak now. It’s been around.
Who knows? So I went over to Japan and they had two makiwara. And I went and started to hit the makiwara and I broke the makiwara.
And then I can’t remember if it was the same year. I don’t think it was the same year. No, I don’t think it was.
But I went back another year and I broke the other one. And I know they had to rebuild it. And I apologise because it’s a horrible thing putting in a makiwara.
I did, you know, pay my dues, my penance for that, because when we went back in 2012, there was no makiwara. Because I think I broke three or four. And then a friend of mine at the time up in Newcastle had a couple and I broke his too.
So I got, I think I had seven makiwara notched up under my, on my belt that I’d broken. And it wasn’t just my little flimsy ones or anything that, it wasn’t like that. They were all proper makiwara.
And so I got my, I bought, I ordered the wood before I went there and I got them to get it in. And we, my students and they dug a, we all did a, dug a big hole. We put them, it was like a ceremony almost.
And we put the new makiwara in. So today there is a makiwara in the Sohonbu and I, I won’t be hitting it just in case. Just in case.
So yeah, that’s, that’s a true story. That’s a true story.
Sandra: I’m going to ask one more question for now. And I want you to go to the next part about, with Martin Sensei’s questions for you, obviously, but just one more question about your journey. I guess a lot of people, when they’re training, they’ll go through, I guess, seasons, like, for example, one of my times, all the feedback that I got from Soke Sensei was you’re just too tight, you’re too tight, you’re too tight.
And then a breakthrough moment comes. Something just makes sense. And you can kind of move beyond that.
Do you have that same kind of thing in your training at any point in time? Was there a consistent feedback at one stage for you?
Noonan Sensei: Oh, I think that’s, I think Soke must say that to every single student. I know. I’m not sure if you’ve been told that, but I was told that.
I can’t even mention the number of things that he’s told me. I mean, he used to, he used to stand there and laugh. My karate was that bad.
I think, you know, he just used to laugh at me and shake his head. I just, you know, and I felt like, I really felt like, I don’t think I’m ever going to get this. I got two left feet.
Nothing seems to want to work. He’s telling me to do this. So I, you know, just too tight.
If he’s only telling you too tight, well, I mean, you’re doing far better than I did. I got everything, my head was down, my this was this, my that was that, my shoulders were up, my blah, blah, blah. I mean, I had everything wrong with me.
And, and, and on top of that, I was too tight, too tight. Always, that’d be like every lesson. And he would, he, you know, he exaggerates things to show you what he’s talking about, right?
So he’d be standing there, he’d be going, and he kind of mimics you to copy you. Like, you know, he’s being, it’s like a sarcastic motion or something. So he goes, you know, something like that.
And, and he’s trying to say, that’s what you look like. That’s what he’s telling you. That’s what you look like.
Okay. You know, and then you think you’ve got it right. And then it’s too tight.
Sandra: Those things can be quite frustrating, right? If you don’t like frustration, quit now.
Noonan Sensei: Just give up karate and go do something else. Well, at least give up Chito-Ryu. I don’t know about other forms of karate, but if you don’t like, if your, your frustration is in your thing, Chito-Ryu is not the style for you.
I tell you now, it is one frustrating journey. It still frustrates me in many areas. But if you apply your mind to the problem, you’ll solve it.
You have to apply yourself. You have to apply your thinking and your physicality. And if you apply yourself hard enough to anything, you’ll overcome.
And I suppose that’s what karate really teaches you in a real way, because everyone can say that. Like everyone can say, oh yes, look, if you persevere, you’ll get through it. Okay.
Well, that’s a true statement. Anyone can say that. Anyone can say, anyone can say, no, I’ll be, I’ll get through it.
Everyone can say that, but how do you know if you haven’t done it? If you haven’t persevered, if you haven’t sat in Seiza for the 30 minutes or when, I shouldn’t say that, but in the event that somebody went longer than 30 minutes for whatever reason, like they could be have fallen asleep or something, maybe, and you’re sitting there and you’re thinking 30 minutes is all I can take, but you end up doing another 10 minutes on that, on those days, that hard wooden floor.
And I’ve always had bad ankles. And that’s been silly kicking. That’s from the old days of just kicking things as hard things and hard bags and people and elbows and doing the wrong thing.
You shouldn’t hurt yourself. You shouldn’t hurt yourself very much at all if you practice karate properly. That’s, that’s the truth.
But we didn’t always practice it properly. So, or I didn’t always practice properly. No, no fault to any of my teachers.
That’s not their problem. It’s mine. But if, if you, if you apply yourself, you’ll get through it.
But if saying it and doing it are two separate things, and karate gives you an avenue to prove that saying to yourself, because there’s no point in someone else telling you. There’s no point in someone ra-raring you and motivating you. And so there’s a play, a little place for that.
But if you’re not motivated yourself to do it, well, it’s going to be very difficult. Nobody can really get you through it. You have to have that within you.
That’s my opinion anyway. But getting through hard stuff and persevering is something that you learn firsthand. And I think that’s the only kind of learning for that stuff.
It has to be firsthand. And it doesn’t have to be karate. I know people close to me practice music at a very, very senior high level.
And I can see the same discipline in things like classical music. I’m sure dance has very similar disciplines. And so I don’t say it’s just karate, but karate is a great avenue for it.
Karate is also an avenue where you have to apply your mind. So I noticed when I was in the gym, training in a gym overseas in a hotel, I usually train in a gym. There’s usually an area somewhere I can do some kata and what I want to do.
But I noticed that all the people running on the treadmills now have a TV in front of them. So they’re watching the news, they’ve got their headphones on, watching YouTube. Well, you can’t do that at karate.
You have to be present. You have to be doing it. So that’s kind of the difference in just fitness training, I think, and karate.
But I digress from your question. Have I had those points? Yeah, I’ve had heaps and heaps and heaps of those points where you get a breakthrough.
And you think it’s a big breakthrough. And it probably is a big breakthrough. But in the scheme of things, in the scheme of your karate, in the lifelong pursuit of your karate, it may have just been a small little advancement, a little break.
But that was enough to set you on another path to see something that you couldn’t see before. And so you might have thought you’ve come a long way on the journey because you see a wall or a hedge. So you look and you you’re a long way away and you see this hedge and you think, well, I’ll get to the edge that I’ll get to the end.
But when you finally get to the end and you you manage to look over the hedge, then there’s another huge distance in front of you to go. And I would liken karate to that type of thing. You get to one spot and then you think you you think you’ve got it.
But really, it’s only the beginning of it. And Soke told me once, or he actually told my wife, I was present. And he said, Michael, a door opened and he could see like the next level, so to speak.
This was one particular year I was training. And he said, but he likes to go fast. So he ran and fell down and fell on his face, basically.
And now, you know, so he says, and he just told me, slow down with your take it step by step and learn those things. So look, it’s overcoming stuff. It’s a fun journey that you’re doing with other people.
You’re not doing it for them. They’re not doing it for you, but you are doing it together. And if you’re in a good dojo, whether you’re doing tutorial, I don’t know where we’re going to publish this or not, but or any other serious karate style.
If you’re in a good dojo, you’ll experience that. You’ll experience the pleasure of training with like minded people. And if you’ve got a good teacher and an experienced teacher, they’ll be able to guide you through probably the tougher times.
If I could say that one of the hardest things I think is, well, for my in my life was, I always felt a bit alone because there wasn’t six or seven or 10 black belts down here around me. So I was always kind of persevering on my own, doing my own training over spending time, early mornings, late nights. And of course, then when, you know, family comes along, um, you have, you have choices to make, but they don’t have to be either or, if I can say that.
So family come to your training and things happen in your life, jobs change, this happens, another child’s born or whatever it is that suddenly changes your world. You don’t have to say it’s either karate or this. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
And in the past I’d heard a lot of that. Um, but I would, I would disagree with that now. And I think that it just depends on your commitment.
So to give you an example, I used to get up at 3 45 AM so I could go and try. I didn’t have any way to train specifically because of where I was living. Um, but rain, hail or shine, summer, winter didn’t matter.
I used to go down to the local park where they had a little covered area. And of course at four o’clock in the morning, nobody was around and I would train there until five or five 30. So I get my daily training in because I knew come six o’clock I had to, you know, I had family to take care of.
I had a very serious job. Uh, we can get back to light. And then when I did get back from work, there’d be more work and there’d be stuff at home to do.
Uh, so it costs you, I mean, if you want to do something and if you want to do something well, or even if you want to do something great, there’s a price to pay. You have to pay that price. And sometimes it’s things like sleep.
Sometimes it’s things like the, your comfort, you know, getting out of a warm bed on a winter’s morning. And, but anybody who’s achieved anything has always experienced the same thing. I’m not saying anything that, um, other disciplines don’t know or haven’t said already, but it’s a good reminder.
You don’t have to, you don’t have to say it’s this or it’s karate or that, you know, it doesn’t have to be, you can have both and you can do well at both. Um, you may not be at the dojo as much as you’d like to. That happens.
A lot of my students get a bit worried about, Oh, I’m sorry. That’s okay. Life, life happens, but don’t stop your personal training.
That’s very important.
Sandra: So I think that’s amazing. That’s fantastic.
Martin: Thanks for listening to today’s episode on the Karate4Life Podcast.
Sandra: If you found this episode useful, please comment on our website, Karate4Life.com.
Martin: Share it with your friend via social media and don’t forget to tag us, hashtag Karate4LifePodcast. And if you’ve got a topic that you’d like us to cover in future episodes or a question you’d like to ask about karate or life, please send us a message.
Sandra: We’d be more than happy to share our thoughts.
Martin: Thanks again for joining us and stay tuned for the next episode where Noonan Sensei shares his views on what he considers to be the biggest problem with the martial arts industry. And here’s a few brief highlights of what’s to come.
Noonan Sensei: My dog came back, uh, you know, authorised, ninth dan, whatever. You would, you would assume if someone said Schnauzer jutsu, that there would be alarm bells ringing. I can say I started, you know, I was adopted by ninjas.
When I was two years old and uh, you know, and now I’m the 74th master of some type of ninjutsu, paid me a lot of money. Um, but every serious karate teacher should be in sex parties because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s casting a very dark shadow across everybody because people don’t know.