Interview with Tony Childs, Renshi-Shihan
Director & Chief Instructor; England

GKF: Can you give us a little bit of your background here (as you feel comfortable):
GKF: Current License?
TC: Shihan Renshi - 22 August 2006

GKF: Current Rank?
TC: Godan (5th Dan) - 10 July 2003

GKF: Current Position?
TC: Shibucho (Director) England - 10 June 2005

GKF: Year Started:
TC: I started karate in 1972 in the style of Shotokan under an instructor by the name of Alex Wylie.  I trained there with my friend Bernard Helm for a couple of years and achieved a few low grades when my Sensei Alex moved away and left someone else to run the club, but it wasn’t the same, so we stopped training for a short time.

Then we heard about a club in Dagenham, Essex, which was run by a man named Ian McGarrity, so Bernie and I went along to thisclub.  We were made very welcome and the training and instruction was very good.  That’s where we met a man named Jim McAllister who was a very nice guy and we got on very well.  Then Sensei Ian McGarrity said he was going to Japan to train in the Goju-Kai style for an indefinite period, so Jim McAllister said he had a club in Chadwell St Mary, Essex, and Bernie and I were welcome to train there.

We went there and trained and became part of the club, the training was very hard and intense with a great camaraderie among the members.  Sensei Jim McAllister was a great motivator and very enthusiastic karate man.

Then in approximately 1979 Sensei Ian McGarrity had begun teaching Goju-Kai in the UK, he came to Sensei Jim McAllister’s club to teach a few courses and said that anybody that would like to continue to learn Goju-Kai could train with him on a Sunday morning in a park in Southend on Sea, Essex.  Me, Bernard Helm and Ozel Osmon decided to take him up on his offer and then Goju-Kai in the south east of England was born in 1980.

We all changed our clubs to the Goju-Kai way and trained with Sensei Ian McGarrity on a regular basis.

GKF: What were your impressions at Hombu Dojo when you first arrived there, and was what the training like?
TC: In 1984 I was fortunate enough to be invited to train in Japan by Sensei Ian McGarrity along with one of his other students.  We went to Japan at the end of January and went to the Hombu dojo where I first met Saiko Shihan Gogen Yamaguchi and his 3rd son Shihan Goshi Yamaguchi.

I remember the impression of Gogen in the dojo was enormous, you felt his eyes were upon you all the time but of course everyone else must have felt the same.  He had an aura about him although at that time Gogen was not active in the karate training but was more into yoga and Shinto, as he was a priest.  He was still held in great regard and highly respected.  The instructors at the Hombu dojo at that time were of course Shihan Goshi Yamaguchi, Masatoshi Yamaguchi and Ohera Sensei.  Other people I trained with at the time were Tatehiro Toyashima and Professor Togo who were introduced to me by Sensei Ian McGarrity and they made me very welcome.

I trained with them at Wasseta University and also went on a 4 day workshop/gasshaku on a coastal resort where I ate, slept and dreamed karate.  I remember on the last day when we got ready for our 6am, 5 mile run I was informed it was a race, bearing in mind that all his university students were around the age of 18 and I was 30 years old and the only westerner (gajin).  I was determined to make an impression, so from the start I ran as fast as I could to get as much lead as possible, thinking that if I could get a great lead they wouldn’t be able to catch me, but then I didn’t bank on Professor Togo cycling along telling the young students that they couldn’t let the older gajin beat them, so there was one Japanese student that was getting closer and closer and the harder I tried to keep the lead he caught me up and in the last 100 yards overtook me and of course I came second.

Although the trip was only supposed to be for 2 weeks Sensei McGarrity left after 2 weeks and the other student Janice Kiss left after 3 weeks and I ended up staying for 6 weeks, and was still reluctant to return to England as I was living the karate life, training up to 6 hours a day!

The impact was enormous having never trained with Japanese before, it soon became very apparent that they always gave their all, 100% commitment and you became so aware of the
sempai/kohai relationship in the dojos'.  This was not only apparent in the way they lined up but their whole attitude in the dojo especially to one another and there was a strong sense of giri (loyalty/obligation).  There was always a strong feeling of camaraderie in the dojo, one for all and all for one.

GKF: Where else have you trained and who with?
TC: Well it was in 1986 when I went on one of the first official IKGA seminars held in Sweden, where I met Shihan Ingo de Jong along with other European instructors suchas Shihan Jan van Dries, Shihan Walter Seeholzer, Shihan Conny Fern, Shihan Ghulam Mughal and of course Shihan Peter Passis, along with other Sensei’s’ such as Gerd Rebicek, Mattias Twinge and many more but too many to mention.  Saiko-Shihan was there presiding over the seminar.  The IKGA European seminars have continued every year and I have been most fortunate to attend and train in virtually every European country that has an IKGA branch.  The 1999 and 2008 European Seminars were hosted in England.  Every other year was the IKGA European Championships, the first being held in London, England in 1997.  I also attended various instructors’ seminars in Europe and also the 1993 World Championships in Tokyo, Japan, the 1997 World Championships in San Pualo, Brazil, the 50th anniversary of Goju-Kai in Japan in 2000 and the 2005 World Championships in Rotterdam, Holland.

GKF: IKGA Competition Achievements?
TC: They are:

GKF: How did you become Shibucho for England?
TC: Well that’s a long story but briefly, at the World Championships in 1993 in Tokyo, Japan, Shihan Ian McGarrity resigned as Shibucho for England because he had emigrated to Florida, USA.  So in England we formed a committee to run the association under the guidance of Shihan Ingo de Jong.  Then after many years of hard work teaching and spreading Goju-Kai in England with the help of Sensei Mark Adams and Sensei Bernard Helm we gained English Karate Federation recognition, I was awarded the title of Shibucho in Sweden 2005.

GKF: What do you think about competition karate?
TC: Although I appreciate there are many benefits from competition karate but there is a downside, so we should be very careful as instructors that we maintain a fine balance between the competition and the traditional karate do and do not sacrifice one for the other.

GKF:  Who has had the most influence on your karate-do Goju-Kai?
TC:  Of Course I have trained with Saiko Shihan many times which has always been rewarding and in the early days Shihan Ian McGarrity had an impact on me but the person that has influenced my karate the most, and I am not just talking about technique itself, but the whole essence of karate-do is Hanshi-Shihan Ingo de Jong.  He has always been there for me in good times and bad.   I owe him a lot.

GKF:  What kind of things do you pay attention to when you are instructing or explaining?
TC:  I always pay attention to detail where the hand should be, the position of the feet, posture, focus and concentration and the technique must be correct.  I also concentrate on the breathing and the mental attitude of the student. 

GKF:  What is your favourite kata and/or technique and the reason?
TC:  I would say that if I have to have a favourite kata it would be GENKAKU purely because that’s the kata I am practising the most at the moment.  Before that I liked Seisan a lot because of the short, sharp movements and I always enjoyed performing that kata.  My favourite technique I have to say is mawashi geri because it always came naturally for me in my younger days but I still occasionally catch somebody out with it!

GKF:  Do you have any advice and what is your vision for the future?
TC:  I would like to share the visions of Kaiso Gogen Yamaguchi, Saiko-Shihan Goshi Yamaguchi and Hanshi Ingo de Jong that we should strive for world peace and harmony through our karate training and instil a strong sense of respect, humility and solidarity amongst the students.  I am personally very concerned for the future of traditional karate-do in the west where a lot of the virtues and values of traditional karate-do are being lost.  My advice to the instructors is to take the responsibility to teach the ethics as well as the technique itself otherwise all could be lost. 

I hear many instructors these days making comments like ‘we are not in Japan, the students are not Japanese, it will not work etc, etc…’ I totally disagree and it doesn’t matter which country in the world you teach traditional karate-do, it should be the same.  The instructors should instil the concepts of traditional karate-do into the students’ right from the beginning and this will avoid problems in the future.  I recently read an article on Facebook by Shihan Paul Starling called GIRI.  I thought it was brilliant and EVERY traditional karateka should read it.

I think it makes a difference if an instructor has actually trained in Japan for any length of time if possible every instructor should make the effort to go; not for a special event but just to train in the every day dojos, then they would have a greater understanding of the way things should be.

Thank you very much.

Tony Childs
Shihan

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Thank you so much for your time and your effort to promote the vision Gogen-Kaiso had and Goshi Saiko-Shihan has, for the organization we all love.

 

Want to find out more about Yamaguchi Goju-Kai England (IKGA England) and/or Tony Childs Shihan? Then check www.ikga.org.uk for more.

 

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