Interview with Michael Noonan Sensei - Part 2

Part 2 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 his experiences visiting Japan for the first time as a young man.

—- Transcript —-

Sandra: Hi there again. Today it's time to continue on with part two of the five-part interview with Noonan Sensei.

Martin: And if you haven't already heard the first part, be sure to go back and listen to the previous episode.

Sandra: Yeah, do that. It's great. And in this episode, Noonan Sensei will be sharing what it was like going to Japan to train for the very first time as a young man.

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 life's 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 I guess for you, I'm sure there were some really tough days in the dojo growing up, going from white belt to black belt. So has there been any times when you wanted to quit karate? So you've been training for a number of years?

Noonan Sensei: Yeah, yeah. Not that I quit. One, I mean, I still remember it to this day.

Steve Davison had hands like mallets, like little steel mallets. They were, it was like they were heavy. So he'd make a fist and his fist looked like a mallet.

And I remember one day we were training and he did something and he hit me in the kidneys twice. Very fast, very sharp. There was no malice in it or anything like that, but it was just so, I don't know whether it was the pain of it or if it just had an emotional effect on my body.

Because I know now, which I didn't know then, that sometimes if your organs experience some type of like penetrative hit, you know, and they get shaken up, sometimes they can cause an emotional reaction. I've seen that happen to people. But, so I don't know what it was, but tears just came to my eyes.

And I've never, I don't think I've ever tried in the dojo. I don't think so anyway. But that day, I don't know how old I would have been, maybe 16, 17 or something like that.

I couldn't, I just couldn't stop. And it was, you know, it was very embarrassing because you can do that. And get on with it.

So, but I never felt like quitting at all. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you stay, I feel like quitting, but you don't really feel like quitting.

I think we all experienced that. We all know what that feels like. When I first went to Japan, you know, I had a big head and I felt I was a big shot.

And I trained really hard here. And I did lots and lots, lots and lots, but I did all the tournaments that we used to do, that we could do, because there wasn't a lot of them. And I'd be the only guy in the dojo to enter.

I'd just go by myself, because nobody else would be there. And ultimately, Steve Davis and Steve Sensei would turn up and just be there as a support for me. Or a couple of my buddies in the dojo would turn up, but they wouldn't fight.

You see, they wouldn't enter. They'd just turn up to, I don't know, be my fan club or something. But anyway, so I felt pretty good about myself.

And I went to Japan, and then it might have been the first morning training or whatever it was, it was very early on that I just realised that I'm way, way, way, way, way off the mark here. And no disrespect to my teachers whatsoever, as I've just explained to you, but technically, it was a different world. And I felt I just didn't understand any of this.

And that was very, that was heartbreaking. I wouldn't say I was back in my room crying or anything, but I was pretty depressed about it. In that little, I was sleeping in the tatami room, which both of you know downstairs at the time.

And that was pretty hard. That was kind of heartbreaking, I suppose. And I went to Soka, and I said to Soka, I want to start at white belt again.

That's what I told him. I said, I don't want black belt. I want to start again from the top.

And in his wisdom, he was very young then, he was only 35. But he's still still wise. And he said, No, no, you're good.

I don't know what he meant by that. But it was encouraging enough to say no, don't do that. Just just start training the way I tell you from now on.

And so I would say that that's probably the closest I've come from a karate sense. Sometimes you have personal things in your life, which make karate hard to do. Because there are things that you need to take care of or possibly philosophical challenges you have with the things that you do.

And having done karate from 13 years old, that sounds old now, doesn't it? That sounds starting like I was old when I started because we get kids that start at four. I don't know if you have younger younger ones than that or is it for your force?

Okay, so for I don't think you can do anything with kids under four, to be honest with you. Certainly, I don't want them in this dojo running around. But from four years old, you can kind of kind of control them.

But so but 13 if you if you think of a young man, you know, 13 years old, and you kind of become shaped by the things around you. And if you're in karate all the time, living and breathing it, then that kind of shapes you. So I suppose at some stage in your life, you look back and you think, you know, you know, am I going to keep doing this?

Or is it good for me? Whatever. So everybody has those challenges.

And I have certainly experienced those. But from a karate perspective? Yeah, maybe I don't think I've ever thought I wanted to quit.

But Japan was probably the first visit was the closest thing. For maybe a split second, I doubted why while I was doing this, but it didn't last, it wouldn't have lasted even more than a split second. And I had decided I had my solution.

And that was to go and start again. I'll just start again. That's what I thought.

And that's so yes, in terms of giving up. It's a long winded answer.

Sandra: But that's it's fantastic. I think it's, it's great that people learn. I mean, people who just meet you now, they'll see you as 7th dan Kyoshi.

And they won't appreciate that journey that you've gone through to get to that point. So I think that's a great answer. So thank you.

Okay, so you started to share a little bit about Chito-Ryu Karate in terms of how it's changed. I guess, I dare say, and if I'm wrong, please correct me. You're one of those pioneers who have helped change the direction of Chito-Ryu in Australia.

Noonan Sensei: Yes, I have.

Sandra: Could you share if you felt if there's a way to share, you know, how back when you first started, how much it has changed and in your thoughts?

Noonan Sensei: Well, it's developed. It's developed. And the important thing that this point is to say, to reassure the people that went before us that they did a great job, or else we wouldn't be here.

That's, that's very important. So change, maybe change is a bad word. I don't think it's changed at all.

It's developed. It's evolved. I think, I honestly think we're probably still, we still go in the same direction.

I know that Bill Kerr couldn't have started his dojo for any other reason but to propagate karate. I think he used to charge us 50 cents a lesson, if you paid. Some people didn't pay, I don't think.

And it was increased to a dollar at one stage. Something like that. So I'm quite sure that Kerr sensei, that Bill sensei wasn't doing it for any other reason that he loved what he did and he wanted to share it with others.

And so that's really important to say that. Now having said that, of course, the more contact you have with the source, things will change and the more time you have to spend on it. So I've, I left, I finished my HSC on, in 1985.

I think it was November, yeah it was November 1985. It was my last exam and the next day I had a flight booked. So I finished my HSC and the next day I was on a plane.

And it wasn't, as I said before, it wasn't easy. You had to get planes and buses and another plane and a train and this and that. And nobody spoke any English and there were hardly any signs, well there were virtually no signs in English.

And my Japanese was non-existent apart from a book that Steve had given me. And so I got there and because I was then 85 and 86 and 87 and 88 and 89 and 91 and every year, at least once a year. And I had really encouraged and pushed and begged and groveled and said to Soke, you have to come to Australia.

And we used to call him those days, we didn't call him Soke, we used to call him Chitose Sensei. And I really asked and pushed and please. And I think it was in 86 or 87, was it 87?

87, that was his first visit. And so of course with all, with more information, with people studying the information, with more people going, more access, the karate improves or it gets closer to what it should be, it gets closer to the source. And that's what happened with the karate here, that's how it changed.

I mean, it's changed technically, it's dramatically changed technically, dramatically. But I think the spirit, I think the spirit, the spirit that they had back then has not changed. In fact,