Overview

When I was first told about Sensei Oz (Roy Lee Osborne III) I was very skeptical to say the least. I had earned a TKD blue belt in Vietnam (1970) from Lee Sak Bong, a ROK sergeant whose job it was to teach the Korean soldiers how to survive in hand to hand combat. He taught Americans on the side for extra money. Of the 45 people (all paratroopers) who signed up with him after his initial demonstration, only 5 were left by the time blue belts were awarded. These were gruelingly hard outdoor classes. Next I studied with Mike Uselton (TKD also) in Austin Texas (1974?) until I was almost ready for the brown belt test. These were good hard classes. Mr. Uselton was one of the regions top competitors and as such the school focused on tournaments. When I returned to New Orleans I couldn’t find an acceptable TKD teacher and so I signed up with Takayuki Mikami’s dojo (Shotokan) for 5 months or so. Mr. Mikami ran an excellent program (T. Mikami – Japanese [JKA] national champion Kumutie and Kata, 1958, 59) but Shotokan was not my style. These were my first three good teachers. I mention them so you will see that I was not a rookie when I met Sensei Oz and there were others with whom I could compare him.
In seeking out all but the first of these teachers I came across the usual mixture of charlatans, wanabees, 12th degree wonders, and board breakers. I signed up with a few of them who were able to buffalo me well enough; didn’t stay with any of them for long. When a friend of mine (one of Sensei’s students) began to recruit me, telling me that his teacher was an expert with a whole bunch of weapons as well as several styles of karate and was just 26 or so (my age), I just wasn’t interested. He persisted and upon learning that Sensei offered the first three classes for free - convinced me to attend. This was sometime in 1975 or 6. Since that day I have never had any desire for another teacher unless it is one of his teachers or his students.

Kill, Cripple, Maim

These are hard words, and are not spoken in polite karate society. In looking at the karate ads in my phone book I see that the locals offer self defense, exercise, heightened self esteem, better grades, aerobics, and improved concentration. Sensei Oz taught us to kill, cripple, and maim (his exact and often repeated mantra) in order to survive a combat situation. I don’t ever remember him worrying about our self esteem or ability to concentrate. Of this I am absolutely sure – anyone who fights one of Sensei’s students, green belt or better, puts his life and limbs at severe risk. All of his students know how to kill, cripple, and maim.
There are hard and soft styles of karate. Sensei’s karate is absolutely the hardest style I have ever encountered. I have seen films about some pre-WWII dojos on Okinawa that seem to be about as hard as Sensei’s style. It is very difficult to injure one of his long term students, even with a well focused blow. It is almost impossible to hurt them by striking their arms or legs. This hard style attitude permeates all of his classes. You are absolutely sure before class that not only will you be pushed to your limit with physical exercise, but that you will suffer many painful blows and locks inflicted by both Sensei and his students. There was always a feeling of dread when it was your turn to be Sensei Oz’s yuki. You knew that you were going to suffer. None of my other teachers emphasized pain the way Sensei did; pain as a tool. When he demonstrated various techniques on us, he always inflicted a lot of pain. Inflicting pain on your enemy can make him very weak very fast; cold-sweat, buckle-kneed, passing-out weak. With all of this I never once saw Sensei injure a student

Tradition

Sensei had many teachers. His classes and his style (Shorinji) were based mainly on the teachings of Hohan Soken and Fusie Kise. Sensei emphasized that he taught classes in the exact same way that he received them and that this was an old traditional method of instruction that had nothing to do with tournaments. I can remember asking why so much emphasis was placed on knuckle conditioning and his reply was that the samurai wore thick bamboo armor and that my punches must be able injure through this armor. He answered as though I was going to fight a samurai tomorrow. The attrition rate was very high. Probably 95% of the first time students never returned. Sensei never taught kids. In the seven years that I worked with him his classes consisted of young men between 17 and 30 years of age. I only remember three female students; they were welcome but the style was not conductive to feminine sensibilities. None that I remembered lasted too long. He had no black belt students that I knew of in New Orleans; this was to change before he left – at least four or five of us made it to black belt. He told me that he had promoted others to black belt before he came to New Orleans. Promotions were never easy or given away. It took about 4 years of continuous study to earn a black belt from him. It took me about seven years with some breaks in training.

Class

Every class started in near excruciating pain doing knuckle stands for conditioning. I can remember seeing puddles of sweat the size of large pizzas before we were allowed off of our knuckles. This was followed by general warming up exercises, breathing exercises, basics, kicking, punching, etc. much like my other teachers. Then came koreite; conditioning. I had never done exercises like these. PAIN!!! After months of conditioning our arms, legs, and bodies became amazingly hard and impervious to pain. When we went to tournaments we did about as well as the other schools in so far as how many trophies we won, but we were feared. More than once I have seen my training mates lose a round, but at the same time seen their competitor unable to continue to the next round because of the severe bruises (hematomas) on their arms and legs.
Roy once had three visiting black belts (I was a green belt at the time) teach a few classes in his dojo. They were from some related Shorin discipline but they had not practiced conditioning. None of the three impressed me very much and one in particular was exceptionally bossy, arrogant and stuck on himself. All three had to quit class during koreite. The one I particularly disliked passed out. Classes were in general two hours long and at the end of class I was always wringing wet with sweat and totally exhausted. There was a small (5 minute) break halfway through class. It was permitted to swish water around in your mouth but drinking was prohibited. Roy would say that your enemy won’t let you drink. We only did bogu kumite during class, and it wasn’t with every class. I have routinely seen Sensei’s green belts easily handle brown an black belts from other schools.

It’s the bunkai

The second half of class was more practice of basics, drills, drills, and drills and then kata and bunkai until we dropped. There is a world of difference between Sensei’s kata and kata as taught by all my other teachers. The understanding of kata and bunkai are essential to Sensi’s karate. With the other styles interpreting kata is a relatively simple proposition. If the kata has a mid section front kick, the bunkai is a mid section front kick. This is not the case with our shorinji katas. With our katas the various movements are memory devices designed to remind the practitioner of what to do. As such, what looks like a front kick may really be a kick out past an opponent so I can get my leg behind him. So being able to perform one of our katas doesn’t mean that you know how to apply it to a combat situation. Most of the bunkai are quite brutal and designed to kill, cripple, and mame.

Wrap up

Sensei Oz is among the most dedicated and well instructed karateka I have known. When he was teaching in New Orleans he had a personal workout each morning in his dojo, which was an extension of his house. He taught regular classes at Delgado College in the afternoon and at least one two hour class in his dojo in the evening. Personal instruction was offered late into the evening after regular classes ended. He lived this stuff. His knowledge in the use of traditional Okinawan weapons was unparalleled in the New Orleans area. This was obvious to anyone with eyes but became more so when we went to tournaments. The depth and breadth of his knowledge of shorinji could only be attained by a person of the highest degree of dedication and with access to the most excellent instruction available.