K4L Interview with Hanshi Arneil of the IFK

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At gone 10pm in the middle of the Sayonara party following the 2008 British Open, staged for the first time at the K2 stadium Hanshi Steve Arneil very kindly spared us over an hour to answer a few questions put to him on behalf of the K4L forum. This was a great honour for both Alan and myself who, having spent 20+ years in awe of the man, found him to be not only open in his answers, but also highly entertaining in answering questions we didn’t think to ask.

We have to make some apology for the quality of the interview as we are simple karateka and fans of the man first and foremost and neither of us are professional writers or interviewers!

K4L: Osu Hanshi Arneil!! May I say on behalf of all of K4L how thrilled we are you have taken the time to talk to the forum!

Hanshi: No thank you it is always a pleasure to have such an opportunity.

K4L: Have you ever heard of K4L or viewed the forum?

Hanshi: No, I have not heard of K4L.

K4L: K4L is an online forum for lovers of knockdown karate worldwide. It is a non- political/ religious forum, which encourages friendship and the sharing of information related to life and the martial arts, we have members in America and Russia, Japan and Australia, Israel and the Arab countries, in fact anywhere knockdown is practiced, and we even have a member in Antarctica!

Hanshi: I am the same, I do not like politics and I don’t believe in a dojo Kun.
When I left the IKO Sosai understood my leaving. I did not leave Sosai, he is my father, my adopted father, did you know that? I wanted to marry, and to marry a Japanese girl so Sosai adopted me. My father in South Africa had passed away so it was no problem, he took care of everything for me, organised both my adoption and my wedding.

Anyway when I left I said I would not have a dojo Kun. I grew up under a dojo Kun, it causes problems with certain religious and cultural beliefs. I don’t expect people to make promises they cannot keep!

I simply believe in courtesy and respect for all groups whatever religion, culture or colour, we will just do karate to the highest standard, this is what the IFK stands for and it works very well. If I am in an Arab country one day and then perhaps the opposite the next but everybody knows I will not discuss politics then they all respect me for it.

Like today we had karateka from many organisations and countries but all respected the decisions, my referee’s will never cheat, the winner is the winner...end of subject!

K4L: Karate was not the first martial art you tried was it?

Hanshi: No, when I left South Africa I did not head for Japan, I first went to China. I really enjoyed my training, but then one day my Sifu came to me and said, you have 2 days to get out of here before they cut your head off! It was the time of the uprising and all foreigners were to be expelled or executed, So I was escorted to the boarder by two friends who helped me get across. I travelled for a bit but found nothing to hold my interest and ended up in Japan. Someone suggested I look up this man called Oyama, they said he would suit me. I asked a friend of mine who was a black belt in Judo and fluent in Japanese if he could help me, he said are you sure? They’re crazy you know!

K4L note: A mischievous smile came across Hanshi’s face.

I eventually found Sosai’s dojo but he was in America. I was told if I wanted to join I would have to wait until his return. I asked when would he return, and the answer was I don’t know, just turn up everyday. I did this for seven weeks until Sosai returned. My friend translated for me and Sosai accepted me but said, remember, you came to me I didn’t come to you, one mistake and you’re out!

K4L: Whom would you consider to be the greatest karateka you have produced?

Hanshi: A difficult question! I have produced so very many; I cannot put one above another. If somebody had won the world tournament, that would be different. I have always been very cautious about this question it is not for me to say.

K4L: The world of karate looks up to you, is there anybody in the world of karate you look up to?

Hanshi: The person I looked up to was my father Sosai. He taught me a lot, sometimes I would say, ‘I don’t understand what you are saying’, and he’d say, when you grow up you will! He left me a lot to think about and he left me a lot of things to look into. He said, one day you will see how things are; now I understand what he was talking about. There are a lot of deep meanings behind what we do. Stevu, he would say - he couldn’t say Steven, Stevu half of your life you learn kata, the other half you learn to understand what you are doing!

I have seen things now I could not see then, he would not tell me, it was too easy, I had to work it out!

K4L: Was your 100-man kumite before or after Sosais’?

Hanshi: I have no idea how many men Sosai has fought, there are too many. But I was the first to do the Kyokushin 100 man kumite. Sosai came to me one day and said I would like you to do it. I was shocked, horrified, I said you must be crazy, I am too small. He said no, you have the character, the feel for it, and I want you to do it! I was shocked all I could think to say was, but Sosai I have a wife, I’ll have to ask her what she thinks about it. Sosai said, ask her.

My wife said you are crazy just like your master, if you want to do it, do it! I just said ok!
I asked Sosai, when will I fight? He replied, when you are ready! I trained everyday for seven months, including a lot of kata training; you have to know how to count, what is 1+1?

K4L: 2?

Hanshi: Yes! No more, no less. it’s got to be perfect, you have to understand what you are doing and why you are doing it! I also did a lot of heavy training, mountains, and beaches and in the park with Sawahe Sensei, a wonderful man. One Sunday morning I said to my wife, I’ll meet you in the park at 2 o’clock; we always met after training on Sundays and spent the day in the park.

When I got to the dojo everything was quiet, I thought I was late! I ran up to the dojo and there they all were sitting there and Sosai said, today you fight, are you ready? YES I said!

K4L note...The look in Hanshi’s eyes is something we’ll never forget, he re-lived that moment with us and it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up!!

I did my hundred fights in two and three quarter hours, I made time up by knocking people out! My only advantage was they were not allowed to thigh kick, I could, but not them, no man would last one hundred fights being thigh kicked.

I am very proud, I did it for my father, my teacher, and this was kept quiet until Sosai put it in the first world magazine.

Sensei Nakamura phoned my wife and said, your husband is fighting today, you must come and pick him up about 3 o’clock. I went downstairs to shower. They didn’t have any mirrors in there, and then they brought me back up. My wife looked at me and said, have you seen what you look like? I said, I’m a bit blue. I then drank with them and Sosai said to my wife, you’d better take your husband home.

When I got outside and in private, I would not let them see, I let my emotions out!! My wife fixed me up and I trained as normal the next Tuesday.

K4L note…with mouths wide open "wow"

K4L: Hanshi your sense of humour is legendary, I myself witnessed the rubber snake trick at a summer camp many years ago. What do you consider to be the funniest moment you have seen in karate?

Hanshi: Yes, I have a great sense of humour and like to have fun at the right time. I would put people in barrels of iced water and at one summer camp as a forfeit .I made somebody train all day with a porcupine, you know, a hedgehog under their gi all day. But it is never just for spite, it always has purpose.

K4L: What makes you angry?

Hanshi: What makes me angry is people disrespecting other people and talking in a derogatory manner about other people and other groups. I teach my way and make my decisions when I am ready, sometimes people feel ready before this and if they choose to go, I feel no ill towards them. But if they speak ill of me, I will defend myself.

There are groups with Kyokushin names over their doors but they are not teaching Kyokushin. This is disrespectful to Sosai and unfair to their students and those who train Kyokushin, so I say; how would Sosai treat them? He would have cut off their heads! It is not right.

K4L Note: For this answer Hanshi’s look is deafeningly serious, the warm charismatic smile has gone and we were left in no doubt about the seriousness of the statement.

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K4L: Would you like to see Kyokushin as an Olympic sport?

Hanshi: I would, but it is doubtful it would ever happen because Kyokushin is now too fragmented.

K4L: I heard that back when it was all one organisation, in the late eighties it was close to happening, is that true?

Hanshi: I will tell you the truth now. Yes back then the Olympic Committee were very keen, at the time Kyokushin had 10 million members worldwide, and I was asked by them to fly over to Switzerland to talk to them. They wanted a Europe versus Japan tournament to be held at their request in Germany and a three hundred man demonstration to be held at the Barcelona Olympics. I agreed and had everything in place and if everything went according to plan we could have been in but Sosai wanted the tournament to be held in Japan, for his own reasons. The committee said this was unacceptable and would not budge with Germany.

As a compromise I offered to organise a South Pacific team to fight against Europe in Germany but this was unacceptable to the committee, as they recognised the importance of having the home of Karate taking part. Sosai felt Germany might have been out of his direct "control" and would not budge and nor would the committee. It was a great shame because we could have been in the same position as Taekwondo is now. The whole thing ended up in a bit of a stalemate.

K4L: To many you are the father of karate, do you ever envisage retirement?

Hanshi: No I have no plans to retire, but I am only human and the day will have to come sometime.

K4L: Have you anything you would like to say directly to our members?
Hanshi: I am a humble man and I would like to talk about humility and some lessons I had. When I went for my Shodan, I thought I had done very well in my grading and waited for the results to be posted, when they did get posted my name was not there, I thought there must have been some mistake and perhaps as this was in Japanese, they were going to put mine in English because I’m so special! But I had failed, I was so down, deflated - if I had had the money I would have left Japan. I spent two weeks in my room without training, then one evening there was a bang on the door it was Sosai! Why haven’t you been training? Oh I have been very sick, I lied. Are you better now? He asked, Oh yes I said. I’ll be back training tomorrow. Right, he said, see that you are. And closed the door. And that was that I went back.

After about three weeks I plucked up the courage to ask why I had failed, he said it was a good grading but I was not "ready", at the time. I did not understand, I thought I had done all that the others had done but was stuck with this brown belt - I now understand what he meant by that!

The other lesson I recall also came when I was a brown belt. Ashihara and myself were both "fighters" in the dojo, we were the ones people hesitated to spar with, so when a stranger turned up to train we viewed him with a, we’ll show you sort of mentality - he was a Sandan, but we had never seen him before. After the kihon Sosai lined us up, Ashihara aimed straight for him and absolutely took him apart, right I thought, my turn next! I did the same, with a sort of young foolish pride we thought we had "seen him off", we were full of it, a pair of brown belts seeing off this Nidan. He wasn’t seen for three weeks, but then he turned up to train again, same thing as last time, Ashihara plonked himself opposite him but things were different! He bashed Ashihara to bits, smashed him all over the dojo I now made my way to the other side of the dojo out of the way and tried to hide but Sosai shouted, YOU! He then did exactly the same thing to me...we both learned a lesson that day!

My point is I would also say to K4L members be patient, I have had many groups fighting today from all over Europe and I am on very good terms with another faction in Japan with whom there is mutual respect.

If any group from another country wants to enter the British Open I contact my representatives in that country. If there is no problem as far as they are concerned then they are welcome, but if my representatives express a problem then I say not right now, not never, but not right now. However if my representative is not entering a team and the other organisation have not been disrespectful to either the IKF or BKK then I think again myself, about the entry and take it on its merits.

K4L: You have so many great stories; have lived an interesting life through your devotion to Karate, would you ever consider writing an autobiography?

Hanshi: I understand this question, I have been approached many times about this, but I have made a lot of promises in my years to keep certain things to myself. If I were to write such a thing it would have to be the truth, would have to be whole and that would compromise what I have promised so to me it is not possible.

K4L: Hanshi, you have a deserved reputation for being open, friendly and approachable. On behalf of K4L may I say what an honour it is you have taken the time on a busy day to speak to us, thank you and a very big OSU!!!!! From our members worldwide!

Hanshi: You are most welcome OSU!

[MilkManX]

Awesome!

I loved reading about him and his days in Japan.

What a great Karateka!

[Kansetsu]

OSU!

AWESOME interview, and an awesome man...and oddly enough, his stories actually made Sosai that much more powerful of a person to me (if that was even possible)...lol.

OSU! thank you for making this interview possible....

[James]

Thanks very much for that!!!

[walshy]

Great write up!! Wish I had sat in on the interview as well now!
Are there any questions you have thought of since Saturday that you would have liked to have asked Hanshi? If there are you will have to wait till next year now lol!!

[GJEChamberlain]

Osu!

Very good!

Gary

[smoothsake]

Very interesting read. Thanks for putting that together. Osu!

[Lucy]

Well done guys you have done a great job

[kyokushin4life]

Have some reps guys. Awesome read. I'm truly honoured to have the interview up for everyone on this site!
Osu!

[kakatootoshi]

Repped. I will sit down and enjoy this interview with a cup of tea. Thanks to those who have made this interview possible.

OSU!

[Kurisu]

A nice interview... it's always nice to get these interviews about the "old" days since many of the first generation of Sosai's students are getting up there in age.

[jcbel]

Awesome interview - can we have the audio version now please? *joking*

[shokei]

OUS ! Thanks for sharing such a nice interview of Hanshi S.Arneil.Lot of valuable lessons to apply. Thanks again.

[strongman1]

Osu
Very well done
What a great read Osu to you for that post

[tmd]

Some pics of the interview....

It is very nice to have received some rep over this; please keep in mind it was a joint effort with Has-been who not only organized it but also remembered to take a Dictaphone along, we almost looked like we knew what we were doing!

Also a very big thanks to the man who made it possible, Shihan Liam Keaveeny who not only organized the interview with Has-been but also assisted on the day and sorted out the approval to post.


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[kakatootoshi]

Which of the above gentlemen are tmd and hasbeen?

OSU!