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Voice of the Fox
The Newsletter of the Martial Arts Training ServiceIn the Beginning . . . Judo
by John R. Gussman
Spring 1996Welcome, everyone, to the Voice of the Fox. I never thought that I would have to write in order to have a dojo. But I know who would have thought so: my eleventh grade English teacher, Mr. Politer. He would have said, "You never know when you'll have to write something." As he would say, "John, you have some great ideas. You just can't express them." So now you guys are stuck trying to figure out where the good ideas are. Good luck!
Since this is the first issue of Voice of the Fox, I will start out by telling you how I got started in the martial arts. It started one September day in LaGrange at the YMCA, where a gentleman named Baltazzi was teaching a judo class. My best friend, Tom Henry, wanted to learn martial arts. We were in our sophomore year at Proviso West high school, and I had not yet even met Mr. Politer and was yet to know I could not write. But, like my best friend, I knew I wanted to be able to protect myself in fights, as they did have a way of happening around the high school.
We kept up the judo class until March of 1963. I must say that Tom was much more consistent than I was, because I played football in the fall, was on the swim team in the winter, and when spring came I played tennis. When school was out, Tom got me to sign up for karate lessons with a man named Mr. Blackwell. I kept it up during the summer, and as long as Tom was interested, so was I. As my junior year started up and I was doing better in tennis and swimming, I had to train harder, and anyway my best friend and I were much more interested in the Rolling Stones and the Kingsmen (and of course his group, the King Bees).
So, I graduated high school despite what Mr. Politer thought. My family moved to Dearborn, Mich., where I enrolled in the Detroit College of Business. This was a small private college that had none of the sports that I had done in high school. In the fall of 1965, I started training with my sensei of the past 31 years, Mr. Frank Hubbard. He is definitely another story, so I'll finish about me. He asked me if I could fall, and of course I had done judo and karate so I had to answer yes.
"Good," he said. "Let's get you started."
The next six months at the dojo were very hard for me, since I tried to go every night, but my falling skills left me with an 18-inch bruise along my side. One night, Hubbard Sensei and I were showering after class and he asked me how I got that nasty-looking bruise on my side. My reply was, "Doesn't everyone have one?"
"No," he said. "See me before class," he grumbled, and stomped off.
I met Frank before classes for about a week, and he taught me how to fall correctly. From that time forward, I was the only uke he would demonstrate with, and I loved it.It didn't hurt to fall anymore, and practice was now even more fun. After I had learned to fall, I then had to learn judo.
About three years later, I asked Frank why he used me as his uke all the time when I was just a white belt. He replied that after he saw the bruise and heard my reply about everyone having one, he was sure that nothing would make me quit! He said he usually didn't learn a person's name until they were a brown belt, but I had relaxed and wasn't afraid, so he felt I could get it. Well, I'm still working on that. So are we all!
That was the beginning for me. I hope some of you can see yourselves in this and remember: Don't give up!
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Martial Arts Training Service is dedicated to the memory of Professor Patrick Browne.
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