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Koshukan Judo Club
by Wayne Muromoto
The Koshukan Judo Club is located at 915 Sheridan Street.
Martial arts: Kodokan Judo
Name of dojo: Koshukan Judo Club.
Location: basement level of the Shingon-shu Hawaii Betsuin, 915 Sheridan
Street (next to the McDonald's on Keeaumoku Street), Honolulu, Hawaii
96816.
Practice times: Saturdays, 9:30 a.m.-approximately 12:30 p.m.
Tuition: Free.
Students: Approximately 24 boys and girls, 5 to 27 years old.
Contact: Mr. Charles K. Harada, phone: (808) 737-2116.
We are Buddhists, some of you are Christian. But we all have something in our hearts that you believe in. It is fuse; to give away. The Buddha said that in order to attain enlightenment, you have to practice this giving away; so you become a person who gives to other people. . ."
The young minister, in an informal Buddhist denim outfit, has to look down at his audience, not only because they're sitting silently at his feet. Some of them are so young they barely reach past his thigh even when they stand up. Reverend Issai Mizuta, of the Shingon-shu Betsu-in temple, isn't talking to a Sunday school audience. He's giving his weekly pep talks to Charles Kenichi Harada's Koshukan Judo Club located in the basement of the temple.
The temple is only a few blocks away from the Ala Moana Shopping Center, the major shopping mall in town. Thousands of cars drive past the back of the temple on Keeaumoku Street unaware of the traditional training that occurs in the temple's basement dojo on every Saturday, come special Ala Moana sales days or not.
As the students respectfully sit on the tatami mats, Mizuta sensei continues. "How do you give away? For youngsters, you don't have much to give away. But you can give away by the actions of your mouth, body, heart and mind. By smiling to others instead of making a tough-looking face. The more you learn martial arts, the softer your heart becomes. Talk nicely, kindly to people and always have a warm heart. This is the way to become rich. Your heart becomes wider, bigger. That is a true martial artist. You have gentleness. Gentlemanship. . ."
Those are words that Harada hopes will somehow leave an impression on his students, because that's how he learned his own judo, first under the tutelage of Naomatsu Kaneshige (see the sidebar on Judo's beginnings in Hawaii). As a child, Harada fell off of playground bars and fractured his wrist. He was taken to Kaneshige, a Japanese-style bone-setter, who reset the bone perfectly. Impressed by Kaneshige's abilities and character, Haradaasked to study judo under him at the age of nine years old.
The seventh bishop of Harada's temple, Bishop Kakoda, was also a fourth dan judo practitioner while at Koyasan, the mountain headquarters of the Shingon sect, and his dying wish was for Harada to organize a judo club for the Sheridan Street temple.
"His dying will was for the future you have to get the younger generation in, to motivate them," Harada recalls. And Bishop Kakoda felt that judo would be one way to attract youngsters.
The plan was brought to the church's board of directors, who approved the idea. Then Harada and his wife Helen spent two years selling Love's Bakery Portuguese Sweet Bread to raise money to purchase the tatami mats. (Harada's wife Helen interjects at this point: "We just got so tired of eating sweet bread!")
By the time they finally collected enough money, Bishop Kakoda had developed cancer and was bedridden in the hospital. Harada visited his religious mentor daily.
Charles Harada demonstrates the judo throw called seoi-nage (from the nage-no-kata series) with son Nathan as his partner.
"Every day, the Bishop asked, 'When is the tatami coming?'" Harada recalls.
Such was the humble beginnings of Koshukan Judo Club. When the mats finally arrived in 1980, Harada started with but two to three students. Gradually, through word-of-mouth, awareness of the club spread. At present, the club is composed of about 24 youngsters, from ages 5 to 27, boys and girls. This number is beyond the wildest imaginings of Harada, who continues to teach the club with his son, Nathan. Helen, Harada's wife, is an active supporter and is also present at every practice session, helping the children.
The club holds but one club tournament at Christmas time. When the tournament is over,they have an annual Christmas party. Harada says that's the time when everybody shows up-not for the competition, but for the party.
The emphasis of the club, Harada says, is on what he believes Kano originally intended for Kodokan judo: the development of a mature, humble and gentlemanly individual through judo practice.
"Today judo is drifting; it's gotten very commercialized," Harada notes sadly. Harada feels that the most important things that children could gain from martial arts are not so much in terms of self-defense or tournament trophies, but in attitude and personal development.
"We emphasize three elements: body, character, intellect. It relates to Kano sensei's jita kyoei (mutual welfare and benefit) and seiryoku zenyo (efficiency and effort). It's similar to Shingon and yin-yang."
Harada makes an effort to always inculcate his students with those concepts. They are taught etiquette and manners; from being mindful of arranging their footwear on the edge of the tatami mats to the proper bowing, sitting and forms of respect and deference. The youngish class, a mixture of different ethnicities and ages, all sit perfectly in a row to perform mokuso (sitting meditation) at the beginning of each class, then with smiles on their faces, jump right into warm ups and tumbling exercises before engaging in judo practice proper.
A milestone was set when the club sojourned to Japan in the summer of 1993. They trained at their sister club, Yokijuku Judo Dojo, in Izumi Otsu city, Osaka. Its instructor, Kurumatani Masanobu, welcomed the Hawaii youngsters warmly. Then the group visited Koyasan, offering prayers at the holiest sites of the Shingon sect, and were given special permission to meditate in the Hiroma room of the Okuno-in temple, the center of Koyasan Shingon Buddhism.
Students at Koshukan Judo Club always meditate before practicing judo.
Side trips to the Todaiji temple in Nara and Kyoto also rounded out their visit. The youngsters loved the visit to Japan. And they must have impressed the Japanese. They sat perfectly in seiza sitting posture when meditating or sitting on the dojo mats. They were able to bow and perform all of the rites and formalities of traditional budo because they were taught well by Charles and Nathan Harada.
"We teach koryu; working together, byodo; treat others as equal to you, and wago; be humble. It's tied in to what Kano sensei taught," Harada concludes. So perhaps you won't see a lot of world champions come out of his class. That probably won't bother Charles Harada as long as he sees his students grow into productive-and gentle-men and women.
Copyright ©Tengu Press Wayne Muromoto. All rights reserved.
