Against All Odds: My Story (9 page)

A point was given for an
ippon
(a “killing” blow), a single-focused attack, not deflected or blocked, that landed directly on a vital area of the body. It had to be delivered with good form and balance, proper distance and explosive but controlled force. When a point was scored, the judges held up a red or white flag to indicate which fighter had earned it. Three of the five judges had to have seen a scoring blow for it to be awarded.

All of this was new and confusing to me. I had never before fought under such formal conditions, and I had little time to get acclimated to the rules and procedures.

My first match was with a man I knew, a fighter from Colorado, who had also been in the military in Korea. We took up our starting positions in the center of the ring. On the command
hajime, “
Begin!” given by the center judge, we engaged and threw ourselves into the battle. Each of us tried to penetrate the other's defenses. I recall little about that first fight or the one that followed, other than the fact that I won. There was no time for elation, however. After a brief rest, it was time to fight again!

My third fight was with a well-known Hawaiian fighter. My best and only weapons were my kicks. The Hawaiian had watched carefully how I had beaten my first two opponents, and once in the ring he took steps to counter my best moves. He beat me with a punch.

The matches were hotly contested, but when the smoke from the heavy competition cleared, my three students had won and I had lost. I was still smarting within as I drove all the way back to Los Angeles, my students clinging to their trophies and exuberantly reliving the highlights of their victorious matches. Meanwhile I mulled over how I had lost. I decided then and there,
I may lose another tournament, but I'll never lose the same way twice
.

I went back to the studio to train, determined to find out what I was doing wrong. I was so upset with myself that on the first night of training, I worked out so hard I lost six pounds! OK, it was mostly water weight, but my students dropped an average of four to five pounds that night, too, thanks to the vigorous workout I led us through.

The next scheduled tournament was the Internationals, held in Long Beach, California. It was the largest amateur karate tournament in the world, with more than three thousand fighters entered. I fought in the middleweight division and lost again.

Rather than being dejected, I continued training with increased vigor, concentrating on my weak points: I had to improve my timing; I had to learn to close the space between my opponent and me more quickly; and I had to develop more confidence as a fighter. I also worked on perfecting some of the techniques I had learned in Korea, including the spinning back kick. I felt I could use it effectively in future contests because I could perform the move fairly well while it was still unfamiliar to many Americans.

In May 1964, our second son, Eric, was born. I was thrilled with our new baby, but I was obsessed with winning a karate tournament. As soon as we brought Eric home from the hospital, I threw myself back into my training. A few days later I entered Tak Kubota's All-Stars Tournament in Los Angeles.

In those days the point system for scoring varied according to the tournament and the region in which the match was held. In some matches the winner was the first contestant to score two points; in others the contestant who scored the most points in the allotted time won the match. In the All-Stars Tournament, a match lasted two minutes; the fighter with the most points at the end of that time was the winner. The Japanese judges, all senior black belts themselves, were stingy with points. Unless a technique was flawless, they usually awarded only a half point.

I made it to the finals and was feeling quite confident until I learned that the man contending for the championship was Ron Marchini. An American who fought in the Japanese style, Ron stood about five foot nine inches tall, had a closely cropped batch of blonde hair, and was known as a strong, tough competitor.

Our match began, and we approached each other cautiously, knowing that one careless move could cost the championship. Neither of us was able to score on the other until about halfway into the match, when Ron feinted a kick but unexpectedly followed through with a stepping punch that I attempted to block.

Too late! His timing and control were superb. I could feel his knuckle prints on my solar plexus. Three of the side judges held out their white flags horizontally to signal a half point for Ron.

The match restarted, and Ron began to fight defensively, holding onto his lead, as the time ticked away. I glanced at the clock and saw that just fifteen seconds remained. I attacked, grabbed Ron's
gi
, swept his feet out from under him, and punched him in the ribs. I followed up with a
shuto
(edge of the hand) chop to the neck just as the buzzer went off, signaling the end of the fight. Four judges held their red flags up vertically to indicate that I had scored an
ippon
(full point). I had won the championship by half a point!

It was my first win and a high point in my life. The satisfaction of knowing that I had finally won a tournament increased my confidence and motivated me to continue competing. More importantly, as I had hoped, my increased visibility also increased the number of students wanting to learn karate in my schools.

Next I set my sites on the California state title. I went to the tournament with twelve of my students, ranging from white belts to black belts. I won the Middleweight Championship with my spinning back kick, a move that was rapidly becoming my trademark and most effective weapon. But I lost the Grand Championship. Eleven of my twelve students won their matches, and the Norris School dominated the tournament!

The matchups for the first fight are often determined by who is standing next to you, so before long, when other competitors saw the school patch on our
gi
, they would attempt to reposition themselves in the line to avoid having to fight a Norris student first. Our students took that as a compliment, and so did I!

In 1965, I entered and won several tournaments, including the Winter Nationals in San Jose, California. I became a major championship competitor by again defeating Ron Marchini for the Grand Champion title. That win encouraged me to set my sights on the Internationals, the most prestigious of all the tournaments.

I won the middleweight division of the 1966 Internationals by defeating a fighter who had beaten me the year before. That win felt great. But the feeling didn't last long; my fight for the Grand Championship was with Allen Steen, a big fellow from Dallas, Texas, who had long legs with tremendous power and knew how to use his height to his advantage. He had just defeated Joe Lewis, one of the best of the new fighters, and I thought,
Anyone who can beat Joe must be really good.
I was right. I lost to Allen too. I decided to take some time off, to recoup, and to prepare for a heavy tournament schedule in 1967.

I realized that although I had gotten good results with the spinning back kick in my first few tournaments, my opponents were now anticipating it. To be able to compete effectively in future matches, I would have to increase my repertoire. At that time, most karate fighters were either good kickers or good with their hands, but few of them could blend kicks and punches together.

Many of my friends were top martial arts instructors. Normally it is difficult to go from one karate studio to another to train because each style is different, but several of my instructor friends allowed me to train with them.

Fumio Demura, the 1963 All-Japan Karate Champion and an expert in
shito ryu
, showed me how to blend moves, using my hands and feet together, to create a more varied arsenal of kicks and punches. I learned hand-and-foot combinations from Hidetaka Nishiyama, a master of
shotokan
karate.

Tutamu Ohshima, another
shotokan
master, encouraged me to go beyond my physical limitations. He pushed me to the point where I didn't think I could do any more, and then he encouraged me to go even further!

Jun Chung, a master of
hapkido
, a martial art that emphasizes kicks and throws, helped me perfect more Korean techniques.
Jujitsu
instructor Al Thomas worked with me on grappling techniques. Ed Parker, the father of American
kenpo
karate (a Chinese martial art) and promoter of the Internationals, spent hours in his studio teaching me his system. I also trained with Gene LeBell, an expert in wrestling, boxing, judo, and karate. Gene is one of the toughest men I know.

All of these men were generous with their time and talent. It says a great deal about the martial arts community that, although we were competitors from various styles and I'd possibly be an opponent to some of their students, we were all willing to share our knowledge.

I took something from each style and modified it for myself, incorporating the new skills into what I already knew. Soon I had such a variety of techniques, I was confident that an opponent would find it almost impossible to pinpoint a specific movement and zero in on it.

Joe Lewis, one of the up-and-coming fighters in the country, moved from North Carolina to Los Angeles. He called one day and asked if he could come to my school and spar with me. “Sure, Joe. Come on over,” I told him. “You're more than welcome at our place.” A natural athlete and a weight lifter, Joe had earned his black belt after only seven months of training during his stint with the Marine Corp in Okinawa. Joe entered his first tournament—the National Karate Championship—with less than two years of training under his belt, and he won it.

When Joe and I first began sparring together, I could score on him quite easily. But after a couple of months of sparring regularly, I found it extremely difficult to score a point on him. I quipped to my black belt students, “It may have been a mistake to spar with Joe so often because one day I am going to have to fight him in competition!”

My prediction soon became a reality when I was invited to fight in a Tournament of Champions in New York City. The top ten fighters in the United States were to fight a round-robin, a tournament in which every fighter competes against every other fighter. The competitor with the most victories would be the champion.

Joe Lewis was one of the ten, and the decisive fight came down to Joe and me. We had beaten everyone else, and now we would face each other to decide the championship.

Joe's two principal weapons were a lightning-fast side kick and a quick and powerful back fist. A smart and intimidating fighter, Joe instinctively understood what the Japanese refer to as
kyo
(weakness), and he looked for that in his opponent.

To beat Joe I knew I'd have to be aggressive from the start and force him to think defensively rather than offensively. I was in top physical shape, I had my techniques down pat, and my reflexes were sharp. I was also psychologically determined to win, but I knew this was going to be a tough fight.

Joe and I bowed to start the march. As I stepped into a fighting stance, Joe immediately drilled me with a side kick. Ouch! Joe was awarded one point, jumping out to a quick lead. The match began again, and I counterattacked, scoring with a reverse punch. After that, neither one of us could score on the other. We went into three overtimes and still neither of us could score! The judges decided they would have to make a decision on the winner. They awarded me the victory because I had been more aggressive in the match. It was a match that Joe and I would relive many times in the future.

CHAPTER 9

WHEN WARRIORS COLLIDE

H
undreds of karate fighters from all over the world gathered at Madison Square Garden in New York to compete in the 1967 All-American Karate Championship. I arrived in New York the night before the tournament and went to bed early. I knew from experience that it was important to have a good night's sleep so I would be totally relaxed on the day of the fight. But when I got into bed, my mind was racing. Usually, if I'm having a hard time falling asleep, I'll imagine that I am watching a movie screen that suddenly goes black. For some reason the mental exercise relaxes me, and I can drift off to sleep while waiting for the “movie” to come on again. That's what I did the night before the karate championship in New York. I awoke on the morning of the tournament completely refreshed.