Pied Piper Of Martial Arts- Part One
Pied Piper Of Martial Arts- Part One
Richard “Biggie” Kim
Rarely does there come along someone who excels in all three areas of development that the martial arts proclaims to do. Those areas being Mentally, Physically, and Spiritually. However, Richard Kim was one of them!
He had 3 equivalent PhD’s prior to the end of WW2, Political Science, Oriental Philosophy and the Martial Arts. He also had degrees in Law and later in life became a Buddhist Priest. During his days as a merchant marine he had 44 fights in the ring winning 42 of them. In the end he was promoted by Hidetaka Nishiyama of JKA Fame to 10th dan by the ITKF organization.
He was born in Honolulu Hawaii in 1917 and passed away in 2001 in Sacramento California.
Many of the post WW2 martial artists like Chuck Merriman who called him “a true Renaissance Man”, Hidetaka Nishiyama who was the head of the famed San Diego Summer Camps and Fumio Demura who when asked to give a quote said “Sensei Kim taught old school Japanese martial arts the right way and he was most definitely “The 20th Century Samurai”, magazines around the world vied for his articles on the essence of true martial arts, all demonstrated a huge respect for the man many deemed a modern day samurai.
His teachers have all but been forgotten but for those who know their history of karate these names will strike a bell for sure. His teachers included Yoshida Kotaro who he called his Sensei and who would take him to strange places to train. Like grave yards at midnight to practice kata. Internal arts teacher Wang Xiang Zhay, Japanese Goju Ryu under Gogen Yamaguchi who actually graded him and his Korean friend Mas Oyama to Nidan in 1948 at the same time. He also trained in aikido with Moreihei Ueshiba and a big influence of his Yabu Kentsu. After watching Kentsu demonstrate Kim joined his first karate class in Honolulu Hawaii.
His students who carry on his legacy and his teachings themselves have reached some notoriety. Names like NYC Peter Urban, Frances Richard Lee, America’s Brian Ricci and Louis Jemison, Canada’s Greg Mellor, Patrick McCarthy and myself the author of this article Don Warrener.
His biggest talent was that he was able to share his knowledge in English to his students, speaking better then even they could speak English. His knowledge of old school pre WW2 martial arts was unique and this included both Chinese and Japanese arts as he was a POW held in Shanghai for the entire length of WW2 where he studied martial arts constantly including Judo, Aiki Jitsu, Yi Chuan and many other forms. He as well became a Japanese Spy for the Japanese graduating from the Tueng Wen Spy School in Shang Hai. This is a long story but it can be read in a book entitled 20th Century Samurai available on Amazon.com.
In a new book just released by Warrener Entertainment and now available on Amazon.com some of his most important lectures are now captured for those tired of doing the same old physical martial arts and wanting to study to become a complete martial artist who understands all aspects of becoming an artist of life including body, mind and spirit.
These lectures deal with topics like Samurai Health, Samurai Psychology, Samurai Philosophy, Laws of the Universe, and how Zen, Buddhism and Martial Arts are inter-related. Plus of course his knowledge of the esoteric and exoteric martial arts including the explanation of terms like Zanchin, Kyo, Jitsu, Maai, Kimi and lots more.
Here are but six of his lectures abbreviated for the readers that are included in the book.There are over 150 in total Lectures and Lessons shared in this work.
