As I was watching snippets of that Okinawa UNESCO World Heritage footage a minute ago, I couldn’t help but think god damn, Higaonna Sensei looks quite frail nowadays. Yes, it’s the natural stages of life where each one of us will experience sooner or later, become older, less mobile, and whatnot, and in the end eventually pass away.
Death is inevitable, but it makes me wonder what would happen to certain organisations if their head honcho / kancho passes away. If the Shinjo brothers in Uechi Ryu leave the earth, who is left to break them baseball bats? Would there be that same cult following? How about if Taira Masaji Sensei crashes, can you imagine all the foreigners follow his senior Okinawan sempai or senior gaijin students?? And Higaonna Sensei? Any other cult figure that one can follow and worship within the organisation?
I don’t really know what I’m trying to get at in this post, but in a way, I simply feel blessed and grateful that within the OGKK organisation there are no renown world famous sensei and all the commotion that surrounds “celebrity” instructors nowadays. The majority of the sensei are on the same wavelength and simply want to train and preserve the Okinawan culture minus all the fanfare. For me personally, all that matters is the connection and relationship with my direct sensei. Nothing else matters! Metallica already knew this back in the early 1990's!
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