Shihan John Roseberry is someone I, personally, will never forget, indeed, whom has been in my thoughts even before the news of his passing yesterday.
I am truly grateful to have known this man and even further grateful to have had the opportunity to share the floor with him one last time this passed June at the Sho Rei Shobu Kan National Convention in Lincoln Nebraska, at the Dojo he founded, the original Hombu Dojo of the Organization prior to his moving it to Virginia.
New faces, old faces, a long time coming home, and we were all there for one reason, to see Shihan, even though he practically put us through torture while sitting down, his voice barely above a whisper as he gave directions.
Many would say that Shihan was less concerned with the business side of running an Organization and more concerned with simply Teaching and helping people.
One student at the LMAC had been showing up to class every single day, all classes offered, for many many years, the direct result of Shihan Roseberry's influence.
Shihan had brought this guy in off the street, an older gentleman with a developmental disability, and invited him to train, the man loved it so much that he continued to just show up, even though he would not be able to learn a lot of the aspects, he is now a Brown Belt in the Organization, having been promoted this last summer during Convention, much to his own surprise.
Shihan began his training in Karate under Seikichi Toguchi in 1955 while stationed in Okinawa during his time in the United States Marine Corpse.
A friend of Masanobu Shinjo, Dojo Brother of Yoshio Kuba Sensei, and Teacher of many many other people, one of the first to bring Karate to America at a time when Karate itself was not so well known.
A Champion Boxer, Alternate of the 1964 US Olympic Judo Team, Student of the Blues Guitar, Motorcycle Enthusiast, among many other things, one could not possibly box this guy into a single category, but it all goes back to simply being who he was and helping others to become, more fully, who they were meant to be.
A man of such influence, one would expect to find him plastered all over the internet, but that is the beauty of it.
While many out there have their faces all over the internet in promotion of their various Organizations, Seminars, Videos, ect., one would be hard pressed to find anything on Shihan, other than a few blurbs here and there, but if you ask people like Yoshio Kuba Sensei, or Kris Wilder Sensei, you will clearly see just how far reaching the influence of this man was.
You will not find his Kata on Youtube, you will not find videos extolling his ideas or theories, he had nothing to prove to anyone and did not really care who accepted his ideas, because he knew their value and he knew they would get to the right people at the right time to help those people.
I was one of those people. I first met Shihan Roseberry when I was eleven years old at the Dojo of my Teacher, Michael Dascenzo, the original Senior Student of Shihan Roseberry, and participated in a seminar put on by Shihan Roseberry during that visit.
Another occasion I was traveling with the Olympic Martial Arts Center's Tournament Team to AAU Nationals in Chicago, I was twelve, and we stopped off in Lincoln where Shihan put us through the ringers at his Research Center before we all broke from training to go swim at a Pool where he worked as a lifeguard.
That night we all stayed at Shihan's house before breaking back on the road the next day toward Chicago.
Shihan had come up to Washington again and, this time, we were training out of Olympia where I also acted as his Otomo and Uke on the floor.
He threw me from strange positions, twisted me into a pretzel many times over, picked apart each of my Kata, really pushed me on so many different levels, I came out of it with a better understanding of myself, especially considering I was extremely physically ill through the whole ordeal.
That seminar was more wide ranging, considering we also had Aikidoka in attendance. One would think he would focus on Karate and Aikido, nope, he went into some old school Japanese Jujitsu training.
The man was full of surprises, yet very humble in his approach to everything. I do not feel that one could do him justice by simply classifying him as a Karateka, a Judoka, an Aikidoka, or anything of the like.
He practiced EVERYTHING with the same fervor he had for Budo as a whole, absolutely everything, it was all to be done with full attention, it was all important, every single moment of life was worth living, from the trivial to the important, as nothing was trivial and nothing was more important than anything else.
This is what I have taken away from my encounter with this man, directly, and through his Student Michael Dascenzo.
In coming months it will be interesting to see where things go, I hope that people can hold it together and others can leave their egos aside or keep their mouths shut, but ultimately that has nothing to do with me or my own training, I will simply follow Shihan's constant advice and find the answers on the floor.
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