Wax On, Wax Off.....

Paint the fence, Daniel-son! Up, down, breathe in, breathe out.........

Classic Mr Miyagi right there, and a totally awesome movie. Can't say I enjoyed the sequels, and I haven't watched the new Karate Kid either. I'm happy sticking with tried-and-true, and that is the real Karate Kid movie.

There is more to this blog than just saying how awesome Karate Kid is, (BONZAI!) this blog is actually about my first experience learning karate, at around 14 or 15, can't remember exactly. It's been over 7 years alright, give me a break guys....

Not sure how everything started, but one would assume a flyer was around town, and being a wimpy small kid, (now I'm a wimpy small adult) I figured learning some karate would be very useful. Naturally Mum was worried about me hurting myself, but I don't know why, I mean I'd get kicked, punched and thrown in class, but could defend myself in public. Anywho, boring part of the story, let's skip forward.

I started in kids class, which was quite full. After a week or two, the Sensei asked me if I wanted to advance to the adult class, which I jumped at. I arrived the next week a little later to start my first adult class, and to my surprise, the class consisted of a couple other kids my age. However, it was cooler because we were learning cooler moves and Ki's (I'm not sure if that's right, basically they were patterns of movement)

According to my sensei, I was a naturally, and after a couple weeks it wasn't long until I trying to get my yellow tips. Then after that, the coolest thing happened, weapon class was introduced and the coolest thing about weapons class is that you practiced weapons! Our first weapon was the Bo, basically a long broom handle, then some other wooden thing, but no nun-chucks which was upsetting. Another cool thing about weapons class was the Gi, while the traditional karate had a white gi, weapons had a black gi. My dear sweet mum bought me both, so I'd train in weapons in my black gi, then change quickly for regular karate.

Not long after, I was invited to go to Howlong to attend an seminar and hopefully achieve my yellow belt. This was on AFL Grand Final day, and by the end of the day I was going home with a cool new belt. Then, a couple weeks later, the unthinkable happened, the Sensei was closing down the Oaklands Dojo due to lack of support. The only other option was to attend Urana or Howlong, and Mum was paying enough in membership and class, petrol was the last thing she wanted.

Good news was, a couple of us from Oakie managed a car pool, and we went over to Urana, and we pretty much carved it up. Then, same thing happened in Urana, it was closed down, and my dream of being a kick-arse black belt died.

Then a couple years ago I got a message from a old fellow karate person, in which she asked if the man in the news paper article was our old Sensei. I checked the picture out before reading, and to my amazement, it was him. First thing that popped in my mind was that he must of won a championship or something like that, then I read the title that said something like "Con Man Captured"

It turns out, our old "Sensei" was a notorious con-man. Without digging up the articles, it seemed he conned his way into a exclusive party, and claimed to be the agent of Johnny Depp, was owner of several high profile nightclubs and some other things.

I actually recieved a message on facebook from a Joshua Hitchcock, which turned out to be our Sensei, Sensei Brenton Jarrett. It seems Mr Jarrett changed his name, hmm I wonder why? So I am left wondering, did we really learn karate, or was it a big scam? If you want, just plug Brenton Jarrett into a Google search and you will get plenty on him....



From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life & Times