Archive for January 25th, 2008

My first experience with a regular karate school was with Tracy’s Karate Studios - San Diego in 1976. I had studied some Okinawan Karate as well as Lima Lama from the base karate club. I knew the basics but did not know how to put kicks and punches together to mount a successful attack. Still, I thought I knew everything but was determined to know more. I saw the Tracy’s Karate commercials that aired during the Kung Fu series playing on TV at the time and decided to give Tracy’s a try.

I called up Tracy’s and spoke to Dick Willett about my interests and he told me to come on down to take the first five lessons – to see if I liked it before I signed up! I went for the initial lessons and quickly was impressed by teaching methods. As I said. I already knew how to kick and punch but I had a problem connecting with my opponents. Dick told me about critical distance and initial movement he had learned from his tournament days and his associations with Joe Louis (the undisputed heavy weight full contact karate champion of the late 60′s through early 70′s) and I was properly impressed! Here is a picture of Dick Willett as I remember him after I started taking lessons.

Picture from http://members.tripod.com/hungahungas/akksandiego.htm. Pictured are Todd McElhinney, Irvin Hoffman, Joe Lewis, Dick Willett, David Hays, & Frank Mafnas (left to right).

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