Written by This Saturday I went to Sensei Ray Fong’s understanding sabaki class. He is a 3rd degree black belt in Enshin Karate. Sabaki means a redirection of an opponents energy to use for ones own advantage. It was an excellent class with so much information that he ran out of time to teach everything he wanted to teach. I interviewed Sensei Ray Fong. I wanted to share my interview with him in this post.
What made you start karate?
He started at age 13 in the martial arts. At age 40 he started enshin karate because he liked full contact karate.
How long have you been training?
He has been training 50 years.
Why do you teach sparring katas?
He likes students to understand bunki. He wants them to learn the application and practicality of it.
What is the best part of teaching?
He likes to see the progress of students both physically and the humility growth. The more powerful a person becomes the more compassionate they need to become.
What is the hardest part of teaching?
He says there is no hard part. It is very enjoyable. His teaching skill is to articulate a technique in a learnable way.
When did you get your black belt?
He has a 2nd degree black belt in taekwondo. In 2003 he got the black belt in enshin karate.
What was the process to get it?
He had to do 6 katas and applications of each kata. He had to do a long kumite test.
How did you overcome the challenge of the test ?
He did months and months of training. He had to do pushups, sit ups, jumping squats, and handstands. On Saturdays he would do kumite with many opponents.
What traits do you see that a successful black belt students have that others do not?
He said that black belt is sho dan which means beginner belt and starting over. A black belt should have humility to continue to learn with no ego. His last quote was ,”The goal of martial arts training is to go from ego self to ego less self.”
I learned so much not only from his class, but also the interview.