I wrote this article for www.worldblackbelt.com, a website founded by Bob Wall.
Arnold Howard
Among Blake Foster’s collection of movie memorabilia is the blue Power Rangers costume he wore in “Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie.” It is carefully framed and preserved. As one views the costume, the “Go Go Power Rangers!” theme song filters through the mind.
The costume represents a boy living his dream. Years before Blake wore the real Power Ranger costume, he donned the toy store versions. Each Halloween, he was a different Power Ranger, leaping through the air imitating his action heroes.
Blake became the blue Power Ranger at age 11 ½ when director Shuky Levi chose him to star in “Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie.”
“The first time he saw Jason Frank, Blake’s eyes popped out of his head,” reminisces Blake’s mother, Pat.
“When I used to watch the Power Rangers, I always wondered how they did the special effects with the monsters,” says Blake. “When I got to work on camera, I was surprised when I found out that the monsters were really just small toys.” Blake remained the blue ranger for two ½ years through 52 TV Power Ranger episodes.
Living his dream as a real Power Ranger, with a real costume, real helmet, and real morpher, came with a price, Blake discovered. At school, some of the boys were jealous of his stardom. They called him “Spandex Boy” and yelled “Shift into turbo, you blue Power Ranger fag!” By the age of 14, Blake left one school because of his fights with bullies.
At a Las Vegas karate tournament, while competitors lined up, a bigger kid told him, “So you’re the blue Power Ranger.” Blake nodded. The kid said with a sneer, “I’m gonna make you eat the mat!” and spat upon Blake. Later, the two faced each other in competition. The bigger kid charged in. Blake dropped him with a sidekick. The belligerent was in tears at the end of the match. Blake felt bad that he had hurt the boy but was glad he had won.
Though no one knew it at the time, Blake began training for his Power Rangers role at age 4 ½, when he took up karate. He comes from a martial arts family. His parents, John and Pat, are both black belts. His sister Callie is a yellow belt.
At age five, Blake entered his first karate tournament. By age 14, he had collected 134 sparring trophies. “I attribute Blake’s success in acting to the martial arts,” says his mother. “It gave him the confidence to audition in front of people. He’s been testing for belts since he was five. By testing, you learn to deal with the fear.”
“Blake is the most disciplined actor I have ever worked with,” says Dale Bradley, director of the new movie “Kids’ World.” Perhaps Blake learned his work ethic through karate. His karate teacher, Tom Bloom, emphasizes old-school discipline. If instructor Bloom sees a student scratching his nose while at attention, the whole class does push-ups.
Blake passed his black belt test at age 13 under Tom Bloom. It was a grueling nine-hour, two-day test that included a five-mile run. The first time he took the test, Blake failed. He was so disappointed that he cried when he and his family went home. But he grew from the experience. He took the test again five months later and passed.
Tom Bloom is Blake’s role model and hero. “I’ve looked up to him all these years,” says Blake.
“Master Bloom is a good role model. He never speaks ill of anyone,” says Blake’s mother. Giving Tom a mother’s highest compliment, she adds, “I want my son to grow up to be like him.”
Blake’s karate teacher and parents have worked hard to teach him the higher ideals of the martial arts. They taught him to fight only as a last resort; to show respect; and to be a giver, not a taker. Consequently, Blake is co-chair in the Children’s Dance Outreach. He speaks for DARE and Kids with a Cause. And he helped found National Safe Kids Campaign. When he was a Power Ranger, he performed a rap song to audiences: “To be a Power Ranger is not an easy task. You must work hard and stay in class. Say no to drugs and yes to school, and you can grow up to be a Ranger too.”
Though Blake’s most famous role is the blue Power Ranger, he has also acted in a long string of movies and TV shows. He stars in “Kids’ World,” his newest movie, to be released in October. It is the story of kids who wish away all parents. In the end, they realize that they need their parents’ orderly world. A kids’ world of pure fun, it turns out, is not what kids would imagine.
In one “Kids’ World” scene, Blake rides a bicycle with an army tank lumbering after him. The scene calls for Blake to fall down and let the tank drive over him. In his dressing room, he told his mother, “I’m not lying down for that tank!” The director agreed to have the tank roll over the stuntman instead.
In another scene, a bully chases Blake, who rides his bicycle down a pier. The brakes fail, and he plunges into the cold Pacific. Though Blake wore two wet suits under two extra sets of clothes, the water felt freezing. “You’d better get Blake out or I’m jumping in and ruining the scene!’” Blake’s mother said just as crewmen pulled Blake from the water.
Blake is a regular teenager. His life consists of more than just acting and karate. He and his family love animals. They have two white German Shepherds named Sheba and Big Boy; an English bull dog named Mac; a white parakeet is named Elvis; and a horse is named Lad.
Besides karate, Blake enjoys basketball, football, skiing, bike riding, horseback riding, and skateboarding. He somehow finds time for his Sony Play Station. His favorite TV show is “The Simpsons.” His favorite martial artist, besides his parents and karate teacher, is Jackie Chan. His favorite martial arts movies? “Without hesitation, all of Jackie Chan’s.”
Blake has worked with great actors over the years. He respects them and learns from them. But his true mentor is Tom Bloom, his karate teacher. Blake wants to make acting his lifetime career. But just as important, he wants to follow Tom’s example, living karate as a way of life and teaching it to others.
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Cung Le, Instructor of the Year
I wrote this article for www.worldblackbelt.com, a site founded by Bob Wall.
Arnold Howard
Kick boxing champion Cung Le inherited his will to win from his mother, Anne Le. Her iron will made her run through gunfire to immigrate to America.
One night in April, 1975, three days before the communists over-ran Saigon, Anne received permission to board an aircraft to America. She waited ten hours for permission, and the suspense left her drained. But getting to the aircraft was worse. Clutching two-year-old Cung, she ran 900 yards through the darkness to the waiting craft. Rifles in the distance sounded like firecrackers. How close were the gunmen? Anne couldn’t tell, but she could see their muzzles flashing. As she ran that humid, windy night, it seemed that all rifles pointed at her and little Cung. Bullets whined.
After they arrived in America, times were difficult. When diminutive, skinny Cung was picked on by bullies and called “Gook” or “Nip” in elementary school, it helped to remember that the real ordeal was past. He had gone through gunfire with his mother. By comparison, schoolyard bullies were nothing.
As the years passed, Cung grew from a skinny kid to a sleek athlete. In San Jose High Academy, he was an All-American wrestler. He continued wrestling through college. At age 19 he began taking lessons in taekwondo and Vietnamese kung fu at the Hung Vuong School.
Over the years the skinny kid who was once beaten up by bullies won three bronze medals at the Wushu World Championship tournaments (Baltimore, Maryland 1995; Rome, Italy 1997; and Hong Kong 1999). He was the team captain in both Rome and Hong Kong. His titles:
1999 China vs. United States Light Heavyweight Sanshou Champion
1999 ISKA Light Heavyweight Champion
1998 ISKA Light Cruiserweight Champion
1998 USA Draka Champion
1998 Team USA Shidokan Champion
Cung Le’s record is 36-2, with 26 knockouts.
In January 2001, Black Belt magazine called Cung Le “San Shou Kung Fu’s Top Fighter.” In their June, 2000 issue, Martial Arts Illustrated called him one of the best fighters of all time.
As any champion will attest, the price of success in the martial arts is hard work. Jivoni Jordan, Cung Le’s personal trainer of three years, intensifies the training six weeks before a fight. “My training sessions are harder than a lot of my matches,” says Cung Le. “But there are matches where both fighters have a strong desire to win, and it becomes all-out war. In those matches, the mind takes the body to another level.” After a long pause, Le adds, “I’ve had a few of those. It’s good to know that your training comes close to that level of intensity and pain.”
Does he dread the intense workouts? “Always. The workouts I dread the most are those that I begin when I’m still sore from my previous workout. But my body adapts to the intensity. Taking my body to the extreme helps me to know myself better.”
“If I lose, I know the way I train, I went out there and gave it my best,” says Le. “If I lose, it’ll just push me a notch higher in training. It is not embarrassing to lose a match if you represent yourself well. Then if you lose, you lose like a champion. If you win, you win like a champion. Being a complete person includes always carrying the attitude of a champion.”
Cung Le’s toughest fight was against Arne Soldwedel at the 1998 World Karate Association shidokan tournament. Soldwedel was Le’s third opponent of the day. After slipping a punch, he knocked out Soldwedel with an overhand right to the chin.
Le’s second most difficult match was against the Mongolian King of China. The match was held in Hawaii. “My desire to win was so powerful that I defeated him in the third round. I used every technique I had.”
Le’s favorite techniques are the scissors kick (one leg behind the opponent, the other in front, for a take-down), spinning back kick, side kick, double leg combination kicks, and leg catches (catching the kick and sweeping out the supporting leg). Being a taekwondo black belt, Le is drawn to kicks. “Taekwondo has awesome kicks, though there are a lot of missing elements in taekwondo,” says Le. “But I don’t compare the arts, because they come from the same roots. I just take the best from each art.”
Although Le devotes himself to kickboxing, it is not everything to him. “My mother taught me that family comes first,” he says. “It is engraved on my heart. Part of being a complete person, to me, means that family comes first.” His proudest moment was standing in the delivery room when his son was born. He remembers the hush that fell over the room at that moment eight months ago. Having a son changed his life forever. “I never had a father who was there for me, so I want to be there for him.” (Cung Le’s parents divorced; his father lives in Vietnam.) Le looks forward to running the hills with his son, and holding the striking pad for him.
As one of the leading kick-boxers of today, Le respects the martial artists of the past. “I look up to them. I would never consider myself better. I’m thankful for what they have done for the martial arts. We should all be thankful to Bruce Lee, who brought martial arts into the main stream.” Le’s favorite martial arts movie of all time is “Enter the Dragon,” and his favorite scene from the movie is the fight between Bruce Lee and Bob Wall.
Chuck Norris is another of Le’s favorite early fighters. In January, 2001, Le was part of the “Legends” episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger.” One evening after shooting, Norris invited a large group out to dinner. Le sat across from Norris two chairs down at a long table. As people talked and ate, Le noticed Norris quietly close his eyes for a few seconds. He looked as if he were oblivious of the bustling crowd, the waiters rushing past, and the clinking of silverware and glasses. Then he opened his eyes. Only after he was sure that everyone had been served did he begin eating.
This is one of Le’s favorite memories of Chuck Norris. “Chuck’s presence is very powerful,” says Le. “I feel such good energy from him. His spirit shines.”
Martial artists such as Chuck Norris inspire Le to strive to be a complete
person. Le hopes that one day he will inspire others as the martial arts legends have inspired him.
Arnold Howard
Kick boxing champion Cung Le inherited his will to win from his mother, Anne Le. Her iron will made her run through gunfire to immigrate to America.
One night in April, 1975, three days before the communists over-ran Saigon, Anne received permission to board an aircraft to America. She waited ten hours for permission, and the suspense left her drained. But getting to the aircraft was worse. Clutching two-year-old Cung, she ran 900 yards through the darkness to the waiting craft. Rifles in the distance sounded like firecrackers. How close were the gunmen? Anne couldn’t tell, but she could see their muzzles flashing. As she ran that humid, windy night, it seemed that all rifles pointed at her and little Cung. Bullets whined.
After they arrived in America, times were difficult. When diminutive, skinny Cung was picked on by bullies and called “Gook” or “Nip” in elementary school, it helped to remember that the real ordeal was past. He had gone through gunfire with his mother. By comparison, schoolyard bullies were nothing.
As the years passed, Cung grew from a skinny kid to a sleek athlete. In San Jose High Academy, he was an All-American wrestler. He continued wrestling through college. At age 19 he began taking lessons in taekwondo and Vietnamese kung fu at the Hung Vuong School.
Over the years the skinny kid who was once beaten up by bullies won three bronze medals at the Wushu World Championship tournaments (Baltimore, Maryland 1995; Rome, Italy 1997; and Hong Kong 1999). He was the team captain in both Rome and Hong Kong. His titles:
1999 China vs. United States Light Heavyweight Sanshou Champion
1999 ISKA Light Heavyweight Champion
1998 ISKA Light Cruiserweight Champion
1998 USA Draka Champion
1998 Team USA Shidokan Champion
Cung Le’s record is 36-2, with 26 knockouts.
In January 2001, Black Belt magazine called Cung Le “San Shou Kung Fu’s Top Fighter.” In their June, 2000 issue, Martial Arts Illustrated called him one of the best fighters of all time.
As any champion will attest, the price of success in the martial arts is hard work. Jivoni Jordan, Cung Le’s personal trainer of three years, intensifies the training six weeks before a fight. “My training sessions are harder than a lot of my matches,” says Cung Le. “But there are matches where both fighters have a strong desire to win, and it becomes all-out war. In those matches, the mind takes the body to another level.” After a long pause, Le adds, “I’ve had a few of those. It’s good to know that your training comes close to that level of intensity and pain.”
Does he dread the intense workouts? “Always. The workouts I dread the most are those that I begin when I’m still sore from my previous workout. But my body adapts to the intensity. Taking my body to the extreme helps me to know myself better.”
“If I lose, I know the way I train, I went out there and gave it my best,” says Le. “If I lose, it’ll just push me a notch higher in training. It is not embarrassing to lose a match if you represent yourself well. Then if you lose, you lose like a champion. If you win, you win like a champion. Being a complete person includes always carrying the attitude of a champion.”
Cung Le’s toughest fight was against Arne Soldwedel at the 1998 World Karate Association shidokan tournament. Soldwedel was Le’s third opponent of the day. After slipping a punch, he knocked out Soldwedel with an overhand right to the chin.
Le’s second most difficult match was against the Mongolian King of China. The match was held in Hawaii. “My desire to win was so powerful that I defeated him in the third round. I used every technique I had.”
Le’s favorite techniques are the scissors kick (one leg behind the opponent, the other in front, for a take-down), spinning back kick, side kick, double leg combination kicks, and leg catches (catching the kick and sweeping out the supporting leg). Being a taekwondo black belt, Le is drawn to kicks. “Taekwondo has awesome kicks, though there are a lot of missing elements in taekwondo,” says Le. “But I don’t compare the arts, because they come from the same roots. I just take the best from each art.”
Although Le devotes himself to kickboxing, it is not everything to him. “My mother taught me that family comes first,” he says. “It is engraved on my heart. Part of being a complete person, to me, means that family comes first.” His proudest moment was standing in the delivery room when his son was born. He remembers the hush that fell over the room at that moment eight months ago. Having a son changed his life forever. “I never had a father who was there for me, so I want to be there for him.” (Cung Le’s parents divorced; his father lives in Vietnam.) Le looks forward to running the hills with his son, and holding the striking pad for him.
As one of the leading kick-boxers of today, Le respects the martial artists of the past. “I look up to them. I would never consider myself better. I’m thankful for what they have done for the martial arts. We should all be thankful to Bruce Lee, who brought martial arts into the main stream.” Le’s favorite martial arts movie of all time is “Enter the Dragon,” and his favorite scene from the movie is the fight between Bruce Lee and Bob Wall.
Chuck Norris is another of Le’s favorite early fighters. In January, 2001, Le was part of the “Legends” episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger.” One evening after shooting, Norris invited a large group out to dinner. Le sat across from Norris two chairs down at a long table. As people talked and ate, Le noticed Norris quietly close his eyes for a few seconds. He looked as if he were oblivious of the bustling crowd, the waiters rushing past, and the clinking of silverware and glasses. Then he opened his eyes. Only after he was sure that everyone had been served did he begin eating.
This is one of Le’s favorite memories of Chuck Norris. “Chuck’s presence is very powerful,” says Le. “I feel such good energy from him. His spirit shines.”
Martial artists such as Chuck Norris inspire Le to strive to be a complete
person. Le hopes that one day he will inspire others as the martial arts legends have inspired him.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Out Of Nowhere Came Joe Lewis
By Arnold Howard
On a warm May night in Washington, D.C., a young Marine named Joe Lewis walked up three flights of stairs to Jhoon Rhee's taekwondo school. It was the night before Jhoon Rhee's 1966 U. S. National Championships tournament.
Registration started at 8 p.m., but Lewis came early. The Marines had taught him punctuality. He found himself alone in the school, except for Jhoon Rhee and an assistant working in the office. Lewis stood awkwardly, holding his gi bag. He had returned from Okinawa and had never been to an American karate tournament. He didn't know what to expect.
An assistant greeted the boyish, muscular Marine and asked why he had come. "I heard there's a tournament," Lewis replied. He had found a tournament flyer.
Jhoon Rhee looked up from his desk. "Are you a black belt?" Rhee asked. He had noticed Lewis' gi bag and the enlarged two fore?knuckles of each hand.
"Yes."
"Are you competing?"
Lewis had come to buy a ticket to watch the tournament, not to compete in it. His Okinawan style, shorinryu, discouraged tournament competition.
Lewis paused. "You mean am I going to enter the tournament?" he asked.
Rhee nodded.
"No, I hadn't even thought about it," Lewis answered.
"You should enter," Rhee said, handing Lewis an application. "Go ahead," Rhee urged. Lewis took the paper, stared at it a minute, and began filling it out.
The next day Joe Lewis, the unknown, began attracting attention after winning his first matches.
"Where did this guy come from?"
"Did you see that side kick?"
"His name is Lewis, you say?"
When he fought, he stood in a straddle stance, sideways to his opponent, lead fist held low with arm straight, and rear arm held chest high across his body. This was to become his trademark stance.
Joe Lewis made it all the way to the grand championship match that day. He had won every fight using the powerful side kick he had honed in the oppressive heat of Okinawa.
During his last match, Lewis' opponent came in with two round house kicks off the rear leg. Lewis stepped back. New to tournament fighting, he momentarily turned his head to see if he had stepped out of bounds. Just then he was kicked in the stomach, the only point scored against him in that tournament. But he went on to win the match for grand championship. He had trained in karate only 22 months but won both forms and fighting in the first American tournament he ever entered.
When spectators crowded around Lewis for autographs that night, he was stunned. Autographs? A Marine corporal, he was accustomed to being ordered around and cursed at by sergeants. Someone wanted his autograph? For the first time, the painfully shy Joe Lewis was pushed into the spotlight.
Joe Lewis went on to win more major American tournaments than any other competitor before or since. Among his accomplishments, he won Jhoon Rhee's Washington, D. C. U. S. Nationals four times, and the most prestigious tournament of all, Ed Parker's Long Beach Internationals, three times.
Joe Lewis became a legend through grueling work. He trained so hard that tournament fighting, by comparison, was a break for him.
After winning the Long Beach Internationals grand championship one year, Lewis went back to his apartment with several black belt friends.
As Lewis tied his running shoes, one of his friends asked, "Joe, where are you going? Let's go out and party."
"I'm going running," Lewis answered.
"Running. Are you crazy? It's almost midnight."
"Yeah, but I didn't get a work out today."
"What do you mean you didn't get a work out?" his friend asked incredulously. "You fought all day long. You won the whole tournament."
Lewis looked up and said, "You call that a work out?" He laughed as he rose to leave.
Bob Wall, Lewis' first black belt student and former karate school partner, remembers seeing Lewis throw away a second place trophy. Anything less than first place meant nothing to him.
In 1970, Lewis began boxing training with heavyweight boxing champion Joey Orbillo. Lewis defeated Greg Baines at the Long Beach Arena on January 17, 1970, becoming the first U. S. heavyweight kickboxing champion.
That same year, at the 1970 All?Star Team Championships in Long Beach, California, Joey Orbillo and Bruce Lee sat in the stands watching Lewis. He drew their attention, because they had both trained with him. "Bruce Lee said he thought Joe Lewis was the best non?contact fighter he had ever seen at that point," Orbillo remembers.
John Natividad, a Chuck Norris black belt, beat Lewis that night. "You know what's happening," Bruce Lee said thoughtfully to Orbillo.
"Yeah, I know what's happening," Orbillo said. "You can't do both full?contact and point fighting." Lewis, who had been training in full?contact, was holding back in point matches. Orbillo believes this is one reason Joe Lewis lost the 1972 Long Beach Internationals after winning three straight years. In the full?contact arena, however, Lewis beat 14 opponents during that same period. In 1974, he became the first world heavyweight kickboxing champion.
In spite of Joe Lewis' tournament wins, some of his critics believe he was over?rated as a karate fighter. To this, his long?time friend and competitor, Ed Daniel, says with wry humor, "He may have been over?rated, but the problem was no one could beat him."
After Joe Lewis retired from fighting, he turned to acting, starring in Jaguar Lives, Force Five, Death Cage, and Mr. X. In late 1997, he renewed his acting career, playing a police detective in The Cut Off.
In a scene from The Cut Off, Lewis, the detective, found his best friend dead in a pool of blood in a shower. Lewis, the tough detective, wept softly.
After the scene was finished, Art Camacho, the director, sat silently, still watching Lewis, still immersed in the real emotion of the scene. For a long moment, the bustle and noise that follow the shooting of a scene were strangely absent. No one moved. Then the crew slowly came to life and quietly resumed its work.
"Joe Lewis did an incredible job as an actor," says Art Camacho, who also directed Red Sun Rising and The Power Within. "He has a vulnerability that I don't think he was allowed to bring out in his earlier films.
"I think he's very under?rated as an actor. Joe Lewis is more of a character actor than anyone else I've worked with. I think he has a great future ahead of him."
Apart from fighting and acting, what kind of person is Joe Lewis?
Dr. Nathaniel Branden, a psychologist who wrote the recently published Six Pillars of Self?Esteem, studied karate privately with Lewis in 1969. After practicing karate for an hour, the two would discuss philosophy for several hours. Dr. Branden found Lewis' innocent, choir?boy appearance to be incongruous with his lethal karate ability. Branden also found, beneath Lewis' shy exterior, a man of intelligence and intuition. On several occasions Lewis surprised Branden by warning him that a seemingly good friend was not really as he appeared. Later events always proved the accuracy of Lewis' warnings.
Parade magazine editor Walter Anderson, Joe Lewis' Marine Corps buddy from Okinawa, says, "I have known champions all my life. I've been editor of Parade magazine 17 years. During that time I've known some of the world's most celebrated and noble people??people who have run nations, who have run corporations; great athletes, actors, writers, directors, Nobel Laureates. Of all these people, I've known no one more noble than my friend Joe Lewis. He is truly an honorable man. He is an authentic champion. And he always has been."
The Joe Lewis of today works at living an old maxim from the fight game: "You can conquer others by force, but you need strength to conquer yourself." In his tournament days, he was known for his temper. The Joe Lewis of today, wiser and more experienced, says, "He who angers you conquers you."
Joe Lewis, at 54 years young, considers his accomplishments as only a beginning. "I haven't even started," he says. He explains that one of his heroes, General George S. Patton of World War Two, won his greatest victories at the age of 57. Joe Lewis doesn't have time to look back. He looks forward.
But for those who watched Joe Lewis in the tournaments; for those who marveled at his piston?like side kick and reverse punch; for those who fought him and trained with him; he will always be Joe Lewis the karate legend.
____________
This article appeared in the August, 1998 issue of Black Belt magazine. Arnold Howard is a freelance writer in Mesquite, Texas and can be reached at arnoldhoward@yahoo.com.
On a warm May night in Washington, D.C., a young Marine named Joe Lewis walked up three flights of stairs to Jhoon Rhee's taekwondo school. It was the night before Jhoon Rhee's 1966 U. S. National Championships tournament.
Registration started at 8 p.m., but Lewis came early. The Marines had taught him punctuality. He found himself alone in the school, except for Jhoon Rhee and an assistant working in the office. Lewis stood awkwardly, holding his gi bag. He had returned from Okinawa and had never been to an American karate tournament. He didn't know what to expect.
An assistant greeted the boyish, muscular Marine and asked why he had come. "I heard there's a tournament," Lewis replied. He had found a tournament flyer.
Jhoon Rhee looked up from his desk. "Are you a black belt?" Rhee asked. He had noticed Lewis' gi bag and the enlarged two fore?knuckles of each hand.
"Yes."
"Are you competing?"
Lewis had come to buy a ticket to watch the tournament, not to compete in it. His Okinawan style, shorinryu, discouraged tournament competition.
Lewis paused. "You mean am I going to enter the tournament?" he asked.
Rhee nodded.
"No, I hadn't even thought about it," Lewis answered.
"You should enter," Rhee said, handing Lewis an application. "Go ahead," Rhee urged. Lewis took the paper, stared at it a minute, and began filling it out.
The next day Joe Lewis, the unknown, began attracting attention after winning his first matches.
"Where did this guy come from?"
"Did you see that side kick?"
"His name is Lewis, you say?"
When he fought, he stood in a straddle stance, sideways to his opponent, lead fist held low with arm straight, and rear arm held chest high across his body. This was to become his trademark stance.
Joe Lewis made it all the way to the grand championship match that day. He had won every fight using the powerful side kick he had honed in the oppressive heat of Okinawa.
During his last match, Lewis' opponent came in with two round house kicks off the rear leg. Lewis stepped back. New to tournament fighting, he momentarily turned his head to see if he had stepped out of bounds. Just then he was kicked in the stomach, the only point scored against him in that tournament. But he went on to win the match for grand championship. He had trained in karate only 22 months but won both forms and fighting in the first American tournament he ever entered.
When spectators crowded around Lewis for autographs that night, he was stunned. Autographs? A Marine corporal, he was accustomed to being ordered around and cursed at by sergeants. Someone wanted his autograph? For the first time, the painfully shy Joe Lewis was pushed into the spotlight.
Joe Lewis went on to win more major American tournaments than any other competitor before or since. Among his accomplishments, he won Jhoon Rhee's Washington, D. C. U. S. Nationals four times, and the most prestigious tournament of all, Ed Parker's Long Beach Internationals, three times.
Joe Lewis became a legend through grueling work. He trained so hard that tournament fighting, by comparison, was a break for him.
After winning the Long Beach Internationals grand championship one year, Lewis went back to his apartment with several black belt friends.
As Lewis tied his running shoes, one of his friends asked, "Joe, where are you going? Let's go out and party."
"I'm going running," Lewis answered.
"Running. Are you crazy? It's almost midnight."
"Yeah, but I didn't get a work out today."
"What do you mean you didn't get a work out?" his friend asked incredulously. "You fought all day long. You won the whole tournament."
Lewis looked up and said, "You call that a work out?" He laughed as he rose to leave.
Bob Wall, Lewis' first black belt student and former karate school partner, remembers seeing Lewis throw away a second place trophy. Anything less than first place meant nothing to him.
In 1970, Lewis began boxing training with heavyweight boxing champion Joey Orbillo. Lewis defeated Greg Baines at the Long Beach Arena on January 17, 1970, becoming the first U. S. heavyweight kickboxing champion.
That same year, at the 1970 All?Star Team Championships in Long Beach, California, Joey Orbillo and Bruce Lee sat in the stands watching Lewis. He drew their attention, because they had both trained with him. "Bruce Lee said he thought Joe Lewis was the best non?contact fighter he had ever seen at that point," Orbillo remembers.
John Natividad, a Chuck Norris black belt, beat Lewis that night. "You know what's happening," Bruce Lee said thoughtfully to Orbillo.
"Yeah, I know what's happening," Orbillo said. "You can't do both full?contact and point fighting." Lewis, who had been training in full?contact, was holding back in point matches. Orbillo believes this is one reason Joe Lewis lost the 1972 Long Beach Internationals after winning three straight years. In the full?contact arena, however, Lewis beat 14 opponents during that same period. In 1974, he became the first world heavyweight kickboxing champion.
In spite of Joe Lewis' tournament wins, some of his critics believe he was over?rated as a karate fighter. To this, his long?time friend and competitor, Ed Daniel, says with wry humor, "He may have been over?rated, but the problem was no one could beat him."
After Joe Lewis retired from fighting, he turned to acting, starring in Jaguar Lives, Force Five, Death Cage, and Mr. X. In late 1997, he renewed his acting career, playing a police detective in The Cut Off.
In a scene from The Cut Off, Lewis, the detective, found his best friend dead in a pool of blood in a shower. Lewis, the tough detective, wept softly.
After the scene was finished, Art Camacho, the director, sat silently, still watching Lewis, still immersed in the real emotion of the scene. For a long moment, the bustle and noise that follow the shooting of a scene were strangely absent. No one moved. Then the crew slowly came to life and quietly resumed its work.
"Joe Lewis did an incredible job as an actor," says Art Camacho, who also directed Red Sun Rising and The Power Within. "He has a vulnerability that I don't think he was allowed to bring out in his earlier films.
"I think he's very under?rated as an actor. Joe Lewis is more of a character actor than anyone else I've worked with. I think he has a great future ahead of him."
Apart from fighting and acting, what kind of person is Joe Lewis?
Dr. Nathaniel Branden, a psychologist who wrote the recently published Six Pillars of Self?Esteem, studied karate privately with Lewis in 1969. After practicing karate for an hour, the two would discuss philosophy for several hours. Dr. Branden found Lewis' innocent, choir?boy appearance to be incongruous with his lethal karate ability. Branden also found, beneath Lewis' shy exterior, a man of intelligence and intuition. On several occasions Lewis surprised Branden by warning him that a seemingly good friend was not really as he appeared. Later events always proved the accuracy of Lewis' warnings.
Parade magazine editor Walter Anderson, Joe Lewis' Marine Corps buddy from Okinawa, says, "I have known champions all my life. I've been editor of Parade magazine 17 years. During that time I've known some of the world's most celebrated and noble people??people who have run nations, who have run corporations; great athletes, actors, writers, directors, Nobel Laureates. Of all these people, I've known no one more noble than my friend Joe Lewis. He is truly an honorable man. He is an authentic champion. And he always has been."
The Joe Lewis of today works at living an old maxim from the fight game: "You can conquer others by force, but you need strength to conquer yourself." In his tournament days, he was known for his temper. The Joe Lewis of today, wiser and more experienced, says, "He who angers you conquers you."
Joe Lewis, at 54 years young, considers his accomplishments as only a beginning. "I haven't even started," he says. He explains that one of his heroes, General George S. Patton of World War Two, won his greatest victories at the age of 57. Joe Lewis doesn't have time to look back. He looks forward.
But for those who watched Joe Lewis in the tournaments; for those who marveled at his piston?like side kick and reverse punch; for those who fought him and trained with him; he will always be Joe Lewis the karate legend.
____________
This article appeared in the August, 1998 issue of Black Belt magazine. Arnold Howard is a freelance writer in Mesquite, Texas and can be reached at arnoldhoward@yahoo.com.
An Ancient Lesson in Ceramics
Arnold Howard
Ceramics is one of the oldest arts. I learned how special it is when I was 12 years old living in Tripoli, Libya on the Mediterranean coast.
Once during our three-year stay in Tripoli, my family visited the ruins of Leptis Magna. This ancient Greek city lies on the Mediterranean coast in the Libyan desert. It was a quiet, sunny afternoon when we strolled through the streets of Leptis Magna. We stepped over the ruts that chariots had worn into the cobblestones. We walked past stone pillars, which had collapsed and were scattered across the sand. Statues of Greek athletes and statesmen, once covered with sand, stared vacantly at us with their hollow eyes, just as they had long ago.
From a hill, I looked past the great field of ruined, silent buildings, to the dark blue Mediterranean in the distance. We walked through the ruins and made our way to the beach.
Scattered on the sandy beach were half-inch square stone tiles and broken pieces of pottery. Bits of pottery jutted from the sand where the waves gently washed over them.
I recognized the stone tile squares from the beach near my house, about half a day's drive from Leptis Magna. I had collected a handful of the white tiles and black tiles that had washed up on the beach in the mornings. Here at Leptis Magna they were scattered about plentifully, a remnant of mosaic flooring from the Greek buildings.
Among the shards of cups and pots, I found a ceramic bowl about 3" in diameter and 2" high, made of reddish?brown clay. It was unglazed and, except for a few small chips on the rim and around the base, in perfect condition.
I picked it up. Impressed into the base was a human hand print. Inside the bowl were impressions of several finger prints. The fine lines showed clearly. That the delicate impression of a human hand remained after two thousand years astonished me. I visualized an ancient potter holding the bowl in his palm while the clay was still wet. Cupping the bowl in my hands brought history to life for me.
Over thirty years have passed since that visit to Leptis Magna. Thinking of it reminds me of how special, even magical, ceramics is. The heat of an ancient kiln had given that little bowl the strength to survive the centuries, buried in the desert. And centuries from now, ceramic pieces will be among the few relics of our civilization. Plastic, metal and wood will have disintegrated.
Ceramics is one of the oldest arts. I learned how special it is when I was 12 years old living in Tripoli, Libya on the Mediterranean coast.
Once during our three-year stay in Tripoli, my family visited the ruins of Leptis Magna. This ancient Greek city lies on the Mediterranean coast in the Libyan desert. It was a quiet, sunny afternoon when we strolled through the streets of Leptis Magna. We stepped over the ruts that chariots had worn into the cobblestones. We walked past stone pillars, which had collapsed and were scattered across the sand. Statues of Greek athletes and statesmen, once covered with sand, stared vacantly at us with their hollow eyes, just as they had long ago.
From a hill, I looked past the great field of ruined, silent buildings, to the dark blue Mediterranean in the distance. We walked through the ruins and made our way to the beach.
Scattered on the sandy beach were half-inch square stone tiles and broken pieces of pottery. Bits of pottery jutted from the sand where the waves gently washed over them.
I recognized the stone tile squares from the beach near my house, about half a day's drive from Leptis Magna. I had collected a handful of the white tiles and black tiles that had washed up on the beach in the mornings. Here at Leptis Magna they were scattered about plentifully, a remnant of mosaic flooring from the Greek buildings.
Among the shards of cups and pots, I found a ceramic bowl about 3" in diameter and 2" high, made of reddish?brown clay. It was unglazed and, except for a few small chips on the rim and around the base, in perfect condition.
I picked it up. Impressed into the base was a human hand print. Inside the bowl were impressions of several finger prints. The fine lines showed clearly. That the delicate impression of a human hand remained after two thousand years astonished me. I visualized an ancient potter holding the bowl in his palm while the clay was still wet. Cupping the bowl in my hands brought history to life for me.
Over thirty years have passed since that visit to Leptis Magna. Thinking of it reminds me of how special, even magical, ceramics is. The heat of an ancient kiln had given that little bowl the strength to survive the centuries, buried in the desert. And centuries from now, ceramic pieces will be among the few relics of our civilization. Plastic, metal and wood will have disintegrated.
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