Friday, May 30, 2014

Gilbert Arizona Karate Instructor celebrates 50 years.

Grandmaster Hausel poses in Gilbert, Arizona
Fifty years ago, a young, long-haired rock n' roll musician walked into the Black Eagle Federation dojo in Salt Lake City, to sign up for karate lessons at the local martial arts school. This was in 1964 and this teenager had enough harassment by both adults and other teenagers. Many threatened to cut his hair, reform him, and beat him up. So, it was pay back time.

Soke Hausel, an Arizona Martial Arts instructor and grandmaster of Shorin-Ryu Karate and Kobudo started training in Kyokushin Kai Karate in Sugar house and found it may have been easier getting beat up on the street rather than in the dojo (martial arts school). The training was tough and each class included full-contact kumite (sparring) without pads, head-gear, foot-pads or gloves. We had a cup, feet, hands and hard heads, but that was it for protection.

Every week someone was a knocked out, received a broken nose, finger, stubbed toe. Soke Hausel indicates that the training was valuable except for one problem. It was obvious it was not a devastating-type of karate he was looking for. After all, no one ended up in the hospital, so something was not quite right in this training, and we never held back on any block, punch or kick. Later, I was introduced to Wado-Ryu Karate, Kempo Karate, Goju-Ryu Karate, Shotokan Karate and Shorin-Ryu Karate. Grandmaster Hausel took a liking to Shorin-Ryu karate as it was not like the others. It was 'traditional karate' and taught people how to actually defend against most kinds of attacks with maximum power and focus. All of the other types of karate were known as sport karate and were more about winning trophies than defending oneself.

In 1977, Soke Hausel accepted a job as a research geologist at the Wyoming Geological Survey at the University of Wyoming. In addition to conducting research on rocks, he began to teach people to break rocks in classes in the School of Extended Studies, the Department of Physical Education, Department of Kinesiology, Club Sports, and also taught many dozens of clinics in self-defense, women's self-defense, martial arts history and more. 

"I was very lucky in my martial arts education. I had some good instructors early on, and then in 1992, I hooked up with the greatest martial artist on the planet, and likely the greatest martial artist of 21st century, Dai-Soke Sacharnoski. This made all of the difference - after Dai Soke became my instructor, I really improved dramatically in my abilities. Anyone looking to learn martial arts needs to keep this in mind. Find a first class instructor!