Noobie

paxo

I recently came across this forum and have enjoyed following the various threads. I trained in Wado Ryu in Ireland back in the late 70's early 80's before I emigrated to warmer climes. In those days the range of martial arts available was limited to Wado, Kempo, Shotokan and Kung Fu. Some board members may recall the following instructors, apologies in advance if I misspell any names. George and Jo Canning ( Wado Ryu / Mugendo ) Ambrose Maloney ( Kempo ) Murray Beats ( Fire Dragon ) Sean Dent ( Wado ? ) Fran Nangle ( Wado ) Tommy McGrane ( Shotokan ) Tom Kehoe ( Wado Ryu )
I also recall Tom Foley and Rocky Lalor who taught in Kilkenny and Waterford and Austin Spencer and Jim Woods from Dundalk. From reading the forum it appears that you have access to a wider range of arts than we had back in the day, makes and old bloke a bit jealous. Anyway just wanted to say hello and give a brief intro
Regards
Paxo:

topdog8

paxo wrote:

I recently came across this forum and have enjoyed following the various threads. I trained in Wado Ryu in Ireland back in the late 70's early 80's before I emigrated to warmer climes. In those days the range of martial arts available was limited to Wado, Kempo, Shotokan and Kung Fu. Some board members may recall the following instructors, apologies in advance if I misspell any names. George and Jo Canning ( Wado Ryu / Mugendo ) Ambrose Maloney ( Kempo ) Murray Beats ( Fire Dragon ) Sean Dent ( Wado ? ) Fran Nangle ( Wado ) Tommy McGrane ( Shotokan ) Tom Kehoe ( Wado Ryu )
I also recall Tom Foley and Rocky Lalor who taught in Kilkenny and Waterford and Austin Spencer and Jim Woods from Dundalk. From reading the forum it appears that you have access to a wider range of arts than we had back in the day, makes and old bloke a bit jealous. Anyway just wanted to say hello and give a brief intro
Regards
Paxo:

WELOCME ON BOARD MAN

Millionaire

Hello Paxo!

I started training in 84 when I was 12, and am still at it today, though I too am in warmer climates as in Thailand.

I recognise alot of names there.

I trained in monaghan in Mu Gen Do , when its was somewhere btwn karate + kickboxing (under a dundalk guy Tommy Carren), which was under Cannings.

Anyway Tommy moved on (locked up in UK for INLA or something... ya know how it was in NE back then).

So we became full contact kickboxing , with George Canning the head man.

late 80s this club closed, so no choice but ot head up to Dundalk for Fire Dragon Kung Fu for a year or so sitting in a horse stance. this closed due to some row with Murray Beats.

Anyway off I went to canada for 5 or 6 years(trained over there too), and came back to train under Jo Canning. kickboxing mugendo. though Joe had more of a karate thing in him as opposed to George. 2 or 3 years tough training there, and a few lost brain cells later, I moved over to train under George which I did for years, and am still in touch with him, and george jnr who has world champ.

Check out the mu gen do link on my signature... look at the photo galleries.

Sean Dent met a few times along the way. and I think that Foley guy in waterford is still going...black Dragon kickboxing i think

Jim Woods and Austin Spence had Wolf Karate club in Dundalk. Jim got locked up for a few years for something or other... (whats this about all these dundalk karate instructors getting locked up anyway!LOL), I think he is running doors still in Dundalk.

Now Paxo, tell all these young lads, what the sparring was like back in those days??? ;-)

Baggio...

paxo wrote:

Anyway just wanted to say hello and give a brief intro

Hey mate,

Good to have ya' here.

Cheers,

Baggio.

pma-ire

It's good to have a vet from the ol' days!!

Welcome to the board!!

paxo wrote:

I recently came across this forum and have enjoyed following the various threads. I trained in Wado Ryu in Ireland back in the late 70's early 80's before I emigrated to warmer climes. In those days the range of martial arts available was limited to Wado, Kempo, Shotokan and Kung Fu. Some board members may recall the following instructors, apologies in advance if I misspell any names. George and Jo Canning ( Wado Ryu / Mugendo ) Ambrose Maloney ( Kempo ) Murray Beats ( Fire Dragon ) Sean Dent ( Wado ? ) Fran Nangle ( Wado ) Tommy McGrane ( Shotokan ) Tom Kehoe ( Wado Ryu )
I also recall Tom Foley and Rocky Lalor who taught in Kilkenny and Waterford and Austin Spencer and Jim Woods from Dundalk. From reading the forum it appears that you have access to a wider range of arts than we had back in the day, makes and old bloke a bit jealous. Anyway just wanted to say hello and give a brief intro
Regards
Paxo:

paxo

Hi
Thank you for the warm welcome, although I am not sure about my vet status. I know of a few blokes older than me who are still getting out on the mat or dojo evey week.
Millionaire. I recognise many of those names you mention. In regard training in the old days, my recollection ( AKA PTS flashbacks ) is that it was very hard and very repetative with a strong focus on spirit over technique. It often took a bit of bottle just to turn up to train. In the late 70.'s we trained in an old bandhall, where the local hoons had smashed all the windows in. Typical class as follows. Warm up consisted of 100's of push ups and sit ups. hundreds of basic punches and kicks. then sparring Sparring consisted of heavy to very heavy contact without any protective gear. Groin guards were for softies.To finish off maybe 5 mins of kata. So on a January night as you moved up and down the hall in typical Irish winter temps of 2C performing hundreds of maegeris, followed by sparring you tended to be very focused. I am not convinced that it gave us a great understanding of our art but we were certainly spirited
Regards
Paxo

Budo.Judo.Kev

sounds famila:p

Millionaire

paxo wrote:

Hi
Thank you for the warm welcome, although I am not sure about my vet status. I know of a few blokes older than me who are still getting out on the mat or dojo evey week.
Millionaire. I recognise many of those names you mention. In regard training in the old days, my recollection ( AKA PTS flashbacks ) is that it was very hard and very repetative with a strong focus on spirit over technique. It often took a bit of bottle just to turn up to train. In the late 70.'s we trained in an old bandhall, where the local hoons had smashed all the windows in. Typical class as follows. Warm up consisted of 100's of push ups and sit ups. hundreds of basic punches and kicks. then sparring Sparring consisted of heavy to very heavy contact without any protective gear. Groin guards were for softies.To finish off maybe 5 mins of kata. So on a January night as you moved up and down the hall in typical Irish winter temps of 2C performing hundreds of maegeris, followed by sparring you tended to be very focused. I am not convinced that it gave us a great understanding of our art but we were certainly spirited
Regards
Paxo

LOL! fond memories! I am luckly so, when I started it had graduated to big cheap boxing gloves! though some guys sparred FC with little bag gloves too, due to lack of decent gear!

Yeah the sparring spirit might have ruled over technique, but few knew any better, especially down the country, where you might have a green belt running the club who had little experience , and the maybe George Canning coming down every few months for a seminar or us going up to dublin.

As a kid, I trained in with the adults the exact same, and sparring with the same contact, and no special treatment... as you imagine I took alot of beatings back then, but still kept at it.

The local tournaments every few months, where as a younger teen due to lack of competitiors, you end up fighting a 17 year old, who was fighting 14 year olds(say me) in the under 16 division...work that out!!!!!!! with full on milling!

Good photo here...

http://www.worldmugendouniversity.com/demo/pages/demo5_jpg.htm

paxo

There is always the risk of sounding like a boreing old fart when you talk about the old days. I do think the training was very hard back in the day as the attitude of many instructors was if you can't do this then feck off. However I also think that training today in general is also very hard. In my opinion the difference is knowledge. Most instructors nowadays are better informed as to conditioning methods, adult learning concepts, stretching etc.
{No more kicking the students legs further apart as they trembled in the splits position}
When I started training in Wado in 1978 Shotokan and Kempo
were exotic arts to us and Combat magazine & Terry O'Neill Fighting Arts was our only source of external information. Mas Oyamas book "This is karate" was passed around an studied in more detail that the occasional educational magazine smugled in from the UK. Today I can access info from DVD, internet
podcasts, online learning etc. The other difference worth mentioning is that in the 70's karate was considered a fighting art and tournaments or competitions were something you turned up to for fun.
Bye now
Paxo

Millionaire

These days instructors, have much better coaching methods, supervise better, probably ensure less unnecessary injury occur. Also there is much more professional instructors these days.

Like look at example I cited from my experience, guys who had not the correct gear, using those cheap light bag gloves for full on milling...eh... I mean sparring! These days I doubt you would see crack like that happening..

No one knew any better in those days, at least not in ireland, and i my experience it was all about "taking the other guys head off" mentality. and without getting into an ethical debate, there was plenty I trained with (adults to me) who tried out their "karate" skills, after the saturday night disco.
Then before mondays training, they would all be comparing notes on how saturdays nights scrap went, and and technoqiues worked! (that was in between breaks form twirling nanuchakus before class! LOL!!!!!)

Hey Paxo check this link out....

Here is 75 pages of scanned newspaper articles form Irish Karate scene from 70s onwards.

Its like an archive of the history of irish karate secene....

http://www.worldmugendouniversity.com/pdfiles/backgroundnewspaper.pdf

paxo

Millionaire wrote:

These days instructors, have much better coaching methods, supervise better, probably ensure less unnecessary injury occur. Also there is much more professional instructors these days.

Like look at example I cited from my experience, guys who had not the correct gear, using those cheap light bag gloves for full on milling...eh... I mean sparring! These days I doubt you would see crack like that happening..

No one knew any better in those days, at least not in ireland, and i my experience it was all about "taking the other guys head off" mentality. and without getting into an ethical debate, there was plenty I trained with (adults to me) who tried out their "karate" skills, after the saturday night disco.
Then before mondays training, they would all be comparing notes on how saturdays nights scrap went, and and technoqiues worked! (that was in between breaks form twirling nanuchakus before class! LOL!!!!!)

I think you must have trained at my old school. Train on Thursday night,
punch each other silly, go for a couple of pints, go and work on the doors and punch on some more. Go to a tournament on Sunday and punch on some more, stop for more pints on the way home and compare injuries both handed out and received. Into work on monday and tell the boss the bruises / fat lips were from a hurling/football/rugby game

The first demo I ever took part in I was handed a bowie knife and told to stab one of the brown belts with an over head stab. I did as I was told and he blocked the stab and kicked me full force in the nadgers. I did the manly thing and collapsed pukeing on the floor to the evident amusement of the crowd. Today I know better than to hand a student a bowie knife and tell him to attack some one I also know not to do any demos with my brother

Millionaire

LOL! good bowie knife story...the spirit of the times. !

It like the mu gen do club I was in, had one of those dreaded chick n chips "Dinner Dance" fund raiser (probably for the sensi to pocket the money), ya know where they gulit you into taking 10 tickets tp sell to all your friends. Turns out there was murder at the dance, all the local hard men came to fight the "karate" lads...was like a Jackie Chan movie!

Where did you train? with who?

funnily some of the lads are trained with, still have my gen do kickboxing club down in monaghan all these years later... though I think the training is very different these days.

What happened was some people who were good organisers, took over the kickboxing association, and made the stop start points fighting big... to me this is what brought the end to the older ways.

Looking back on it, I remember sometimes walking in to training, dreading it, and hoping "so and so" would not be there, cause it would mean a beating when the sparring came, but you always went back to training no matter what happened. I would not swap my experience of those days for anything.

Yeah, your right too, the focus was on, how the "karate" could be used in the real world... hence all the after disco practise!

paxo

Millionaire wrote:

LOL! good bowie knife story...the spirit of the times. !

It like the mu gen do club I was in, had one of those dreaded chick n chips "Dinner Dance" fund raiser (probably for the sensi to pocket the money), ya know where they gulit you into taking 10 tickets tp sell to all your friends. Turns out there was murder at the dance, all the local hard men came to fight the "karate" lads...was like a Jackie Chan movie!

Where did you train? with who?

funnily some of the lads are trained with, still have my gen do kickboxing club down in monaghan all these years later... though I think the training is very different these days.

What happened was some people who were good organisers, took over the kickboxing association, and made the stop start points fighting big... to me this is what brought the end to the older ways.

Looking back on it, I remember sometimes walking in to training, dreading it, and hoping "so and so" would not be there, cause it would mean a beating when the sparring came, but you always went back to training no matter what happened. I would not swap my experience of those days for anything.

Yeah, your right too, the focus was on, how the "karate" could be used in the real world... hence all the after disco practise!

Mate I trained under Tom Kehoe in Carlow and later when I lived in Dublin I trained at his house. A few of the blokes I trained with are still active Colin Keating and the Whelan Brothers Patsy and Brian still teach around Carlow and Naas. They were good to train with, scarey but good

Millionaire

I went to a few kickboxing squad training in Carlow a few times. Back 10 year now, when I was kickboxing under Joe Canning...same guys I d guess.

Good hard training!

derekjones

Anyone remember a Sensei Andy Dalton? In Dublin - trained under him for years in Tallaght in Wado Ryu/Mugendo. He trained under George Canning - did the odd training session with George and Joe back then...

RoboRat

Not as old as some on here but I started training in Kenpo in about '88 under Vivian Spain, got suspended and never went back for going full throttle with a white belt as I couldn't afford a kimono and he felt it was a good idea to rub it in. Used to love nibbling the gloves so my knuckles were coming through... gave a nice little bit extra with a punch.

Moved to Bushido with Roy Baker a few years later but football took over so I stopped training in MA for about 15 years, went back to Muay Thai but my knees were shot so went to Judo initially but the school closed and then to MMA before settling with BJJ and been training for about 7 years now and love it.

Was hard training... are you sure that's the best you can stretch, cue someone jumping on your back to stretch you out further, I hated the Kata though as I always preferred the hard sparring.