Pickering Street: Where it all began

I’ll never forget where it all started!  Pickering Street, Durban, mid 1960s, in a humble building, that belied the energy, talent, creativity, blood, sweat, and tears that its walls used to embrace.  I can’t remember the exact amount of stairs, but it seemed to be at least 50 that led up to Eddie Ward Shihan’s dojo.  Perhaps the number of stairs has increased in my memory because of my vivid recollection of the thousands of bunny hops we were made to do up and down those stairs to strengthen our legs, our bodies and our minds.  He gave new meaning to the concept of a warming-up.  It was more like internal combustion! Our legs were perpetually on fire but so were our hearts.  We were young, fit, healthy, and never tired of facing those nasty stairs, considering them with a mixture of dark humour and dogged determination, or were they an adversary to be conquered anew each day? I think so!

George Harris, Ken Groom, Phillip Moss, myself, and sometimes Michael Horn were the willing guinea pigs.  We were the select few directly involved in the development of the style, as Eddie Ward Shihan breathed life into his brainchild. 

This is the very dojo where the style of Funakoshi Karate was sculpted and where Eddie Ward Shihan taught us each new kata and grading form as they took shape in his brilliant mind.

This is the very dojo where the rough-house sessions took place on Sunday evenings, where no-holds-barred fighting was the order of business.  If you didn’t learn to block and defend yourself properly, you got hurt.  This kind of kumite was the real deal where we brought all our skills to bear and unleashed our techniques and strength upon one another, with real intent to take each other down.  Each one of us became adept fighters as a result of these seemingly merciless sessions.

This was the very first Funakoshi Karate Main Dojo, and that floor demanded we pay in blood and sweat for the privilege of training there.  Eddie Ward Shihan expected our best, silently compelling us to give our all.  I remember feeling deflated if, for some unusual reason, he was not instructing our session, and one of us had to lead the training.  It was never the same without him presiding over the class.  We all loved and respected him.  We could feel the powerful “chi” that he possessed, and it fanned a fire in our fighting hearts to give all we had to each training session.

This was the very dojo where my blueprint was fashioned, and although the building may now host other tenants, I’m sure its wall will well remember its favourite occupants, where a great impact was creating a powerful ripple effect. How those lessons paid forward in each of our lives, is something quite profound to consider!  With the echoes of the sounds of training in Pickering Street still clear as a bell in my mind, I look back with a sense of satisfaction and pride at the humble beginnings of something truly meaningful, not just to the world of martial arts, but in the lives of every man, woman and child that subsequently stepped into a Funakoshi Karate Dojo to learn the art and to discover so much about themselves. 

Perhaps we are blissfully unaware when we are part of something extraordinary.  But if we show up, do our best, and give our all in every moment of opportunity, one day we may realise that it was a pivotal moment in time that set good things in motion. 

If the walls of our Pickering Street dojo could talk, they would tell an unusual, invigorating, and historic tale.