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| NEWS |
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| Tuesday 9th February 2010 |
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Shihan welcomes the Sandham Karate CLub to TASK
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| Monday 2nd March 2009 |
John Van Weenan is one of our most enduring Shotokan figures with an enviable array of talents. He is a successful author, hynotheropist and, through his extraordinary charity work in Albania, where he risked his life with a series of epic aid delivering convoys, a courageous humanitarian of the highest order. To look at John now, you would see the perfect picture of success but his is no silver spoon story as his remarkable autobiography “ In Funakoshi’s Footsteps” reveals in the most candid and riveting way.
John proved he had a natural gift as a raconteur with the heart rending adaptation of his charity convoys “Task Force Albania”, a book that was as gripping as any novel and even more poignant, given that the story was factual. Here, he proves that this was no fluke; he has a gift for fluid prose, an eye for detail and a knack for getting to the heart of the matter in a no nonsense yet page turning manner. In short, John is a superb writer and his life a rich subject matter around which he weaves a brutally honest and compelling narrative.
“In Funakoshi’s Footsteps” is not, as the title might imply, a karate book. In fact, over the first one hundred pages or so karate references are marginal. It is there as a subliminal influence but the early part of the book is really infused with the defining influences that eventually shaped his character. His early days are a story of outright poverty but hardship and struggle, with John trying to win the affection of a father who struggled with his own demons.
“My father was a mild mannered person, very kind ninety percent of the time, but occasionally he would erupt and he couldn’t control himself; it was as if all the pent up emotion would come flooding out. He had a dark side to his character. It wasn’t alcohol-based violence, for he didn’t drink that excessively, and my father gave all his money to us. The family just seemed to have sunk very low. I think many readers from working class backgrounds can relate to domestic violence, but don’t like talking about it. Even at an early age I was determined to get out of it, to live life and not just exist.”
I feel that this paragraph tells us much about the forces that were to shape van Weenan’s life. From those early “hard” days, John developed a strong desire to prove himself, which eventually manifested itself in a lifelong pursuit of and passion for the art of Karate. It also sowed the seeds of an adventurous wanderlust; John also has a lifelong love of fast motorbikes and in his teenage and early manhood years traveled to both Australia (emigrated) and Japan (in pursuit of Karate). The Australian passages are a mix of the very poignant and the very funny but they also illustrate another side to John’s character, a side that was to come to fruition with the Albania task force.
John never lost sight of the humble background and, as a result, never truly felt comfortable with the trappings of the good life he was later to carve for himself. Throughout it all, the book reminds us that he is still, and will always be, that working class boy. As a result, he always felt the need to help the underdog, the no-hoper, and any fights he got into in Australia were invariably through helping someone he felt was being bullied. This also led indirectly to his dedication to Karate, the need to look after himself and his brothers but, as I have already stressed, the early passages are less about Karate and more a fascinating documentary of a certain period in time and a way of life we will never see again. The fact that many of his adolescent adventures are also great yarns, very funny in their delivery, is simply icing on the cake.
The Karate elements, the ones that have probably defined John’s life in many people’s eyes, only really start after the first one hundred pages. Karate has been mentioned previously, he trained in Australia, but the real catalyst is the introduction of Kanazawa Sensei, and in many ways the book is as much about him as it is about van Weenan himself. The middle part of the book will be of real interest to Karate historians, as it deals with his training at the headquarters of the JKA on his extended visit to Japan but, as always, personal moments away from the dojo, some very funny, others quite sad or perceptive with regard to the human condition, ensure that this is far more than simply a book about Karate.
In fact, van Weenan may shock many with his approach to the Japanese and their teachings at the time. Admitting that it was a common mistake by westerners to almost deify the Japanese instructors, van Weenan pulls no punches with his candid remarks about individual and sometimes legendary figures and the Japanese way of instruction in general. There is an obvious contradiction here, as whilst he loves Karate and genuinely is enchanted by Kanazawa, he cannot always marry this with the attitude and methods he witnessed from many of the Japanese and is not backwards in coming forwards, as this telling paragraph reveals.
“I think that if certain Japanese had really understood the significance of Karate and had less mercenary intent, they would not have taken advantage of the infatuated students trying to do their best. Whilst often physically capable, in my opinion, many of the Japanese instructors had serious character defaults.
Much of the final third of the book is taken up with John’s well-documented charity work, his desire to support good causes fuelled by his deep sense of injustice at the treatment of and finally the sad loss of his close friend, Eddie Whitcher to cancer. Now John makes it quite clear that he knows that he polarises people, they either love him or hate him and the book shows that he has come to terms with that but whatever camp you fall into, the charity work and its enormous effort for good cannot be denied. The sheer scope of the work, as described in the later chapters is quite extraordinary and a fascinating journey in its own right.
Again, much enjoyment can be derived from John’s descriptions of the many famous people he has met socially or in a work context and his comments are as always, brutally honest as he sees it and maybe it is this that polarises opinion, his candour and outspoken nature. Whatever else, John has packed an enormous amount into his life and whilst this is so much more than a Karate book, karate is always at its heart, combining philosophy, humanity, discipline, humanity and Funakoshi’s precepts with a straightforward compelling read.
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| Wednesday 19th November 2008 |
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On Wednesday 19 November, we toured Kyoto in daylight, including the Gion geisha district and the famous steps leading to the shrine complex where part of the Last Samurai was filmed. This was our last of three days in Kyoto before moving on to Osaka, our next base for the exploration of Japan.
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| Tuesday 18th November 2008 |
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On Tuesday 18 November, we visited Nijo-jo Castle, the seat of the Shogun and revelled in the unspoilt splendour of its buildings and gardens. Here we saw Japanese maples in all colours from green to deepest crimson, a display of emroidered kimonos, one of which for a famous star reputedly cost a million yen, and parties of polite, well-behaved school children,keen to participate in photographs and test their (and our) language skills. We also sampled a tea ceremony in a traditional chalet set in beautifully laid out gardens to the accompaniment of a trickling stream in an adjacent rock pool. We then made for one of Kyotos largest temples (the name eludes me as I write this) pausing on the way for one of the best traditional meals we experienced in an unobtrusive small resturant.
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©
The Traditional Association of Shotokan Karate (TASK), The Bunyan
Centre, Bedford, England.
All TASK instructors are fully insured & are CRB accredited.
TASK is affiliated to Karate England Ltd, the Govering Body
in the UK
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