The other day I called a martial arts and karate supplier and they said, hey you’ve been with us for a while, you have a really old customer number. I thought about in and I guess that means you’ve got some time in training. I look at my belt and it’s get like my hair, a little grey around the edges, I guess that means I’ve been at this for a while. When my instructor says wow you’ve been training with me for a long time, I guess the time has come that I never thought would, the time that I’ve been doing it for a while. I don’t feel like a master of karate but I feel like I have some pretty good ideas. I still feel like a student, a much older student but still I still want to learn. That’s the one thing that I’ve learned from others like me that have been around for awhile. Most old timers in karate still feel like a student.
I’ve lived in Connellsville all of my life and when I was young there was no karate clubs in the Connellsville area. I heard mention of a karate school in Uniontown but I didn’t know of any others in the Fayette county area. Being one of 7 kids I would’ve been hard pressed to get the money and transportation to train in another town.
My experience with karate started when neighbor said that there was a karate school that just opened in Connellsville and I was interested to see what it was about. I was a great fan of the show Kung Fu and watched many karate, kung fu and martial arts movies. The new school was in our local community center and I walked in an talked to the sensei - Roger Vernon. I watched as all of these beginners moved around doing stuff that I thought was so cool. To me they looked like they knew what they were doing but most had only been training for a week or two. I immediately signed up for classes and never looked back. That was February of 1981. I took over my home dojo in 1988. I never really started training in shotokan karate with the intention of becoming the sensei but I never put that thought out of the realm of possibility.
Now people say boy, you’ve been with us a long time!
Written by Perry Culver 6th dan Shotokan Karate
Culver Karate Club
Connellsville, Pa 15425
Ph: 724-626-5425
