Sensei Mike Earl is a
Tenshinkan Instructor at the Barbican YMCA Dojo in London, and teaches a very
special class of karate for the visually impaired. It was in 1998 after he
achieved his Shodan examination and his former Instructor, Sensei Paul Flood
had stopped teaching, that Sensei Mike decided to meet the challenge of teaching
other visually impaired members. And so like his Sensei had done nearly 10
years earlier, he placed an advert in the New Bacon brail magazine for people
to join the Tenshinkan Dojo.
It was this magazine that brought Mike together with his friend David Colgan, to train with Sensei Paul Flood who had recently returned from a year long training period in Japan with Kancho Mamoru Miwa. Mike explains, "After about three months of training Sensei Paul decided that three of us were good enough to take our first exam. For this Shihan Robert Kane and a couple of the Sensei's from Scotland came to London and examined us for our 10th Kyu. This gave me incentive to carry on learning karate. For the next few years we would regularly visit Scotland to train with Shihan Robert and continue taking exams."
By 1993 Mike had reached
5th Kyu purple and when the opportunity came to visit Denmark with others
from Scotland he took it and made the trip by boat and minibus
to Lemvig. This Gashuku was conducted by the World Chief Instructor, Kancho
Mamoru Miwa with Shihan Hans Haupt, Shihan Robert Kane and Shihan Henning
Christiansen also in attendance. This was a ten day Gashuku with lots of hard
training but also lots of fun, which at times was a bit dubious. Mike tells
the story, "One night Senseis Paul Flood and Niall Auchinachie got all
the U.K. members out of their beds at 2a.m. To take them running on the beach.
Although the members all participated, they didn't find it too funny. Not at
any rate until the two Senseis were thrown into the water for their efforts."
In 1997 Sensei Paul Flood decided to give up teaching. Michael and Dave had by now reached Brown Belt and were still keen to continue training which they did with the help of Barry Chiverton from the Isle of Wight In 1998 both members attended a Gashuku in Dundee. When they arrived Sensei Jim gave them less than 24 hours notification from Shihan Robert that they would be sitting their Shodan examinations. A daunting challenge but one that both of them successfully achieved. Just shortly after this Dave Colgan sadly had minor heart attack which forced him to give up training at Karate.
This gave Michael the
incentive to begin teaching karate. This must surely be a very unique situation
with a karate club for the visually impaired taught by a visually impaired
instructor. To his credit Sensei Mike has now managed to bring two of his
members to a very good standard of karate and for himself achieve another
Grade. When Mike decided to attempt his Nidan Grading he had still not been
taught the relevant Kata. He telephoned Sensei Jim in Dundee who put the Kata
"Enpi" onto an audio tape describing each move in detail. Shihan
Robert was very impressed that Sensei Michael had managed to learn this from
a tape recording. At the Winter 2002 Gashuku in Dundee he successfully passed
his Nidan Grading Exam.
Mike says his next task is to organise a Gashuku in London with the help of his members which hopefully will be attended by members from Scotland and Isle of Wight. The Barbican YMCA Dojo in London is a great asset to Tenshinkan Karate U.K. and an inspiration to the visually impaired everywhere.
