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Peter Urban
The Karate Master on Chess
by
Robert T. Tuohey
Over the last several years a number of articles have been published on the
relationship between chess and the martial arts. In short, whereas
chess is an intellectual war game, the martial arts are concerned with
actual hand-to-hand combat. The essential principle, the underlying
weltanschauung, of the two disciplines is identical: life is struggle
(i.e., with other creatures, the environment, and even with the divided
self).
Chess is at
once metaphoric of this most basic situation, and a tool for sharpening the
mind. The martial arts are the direct answer to the problem.
* * *
Properly
speaking, the mass popularization of the Oriental fighting arts in the
western hemisphere begins only at the close of WWII (circa 1945). In
the following sixty years, however, the improvements and innovations brought
about by westerners upon these age-old traditions are indeed unprecedented
in their history (note 1).
It is now
generally acknowledged among martial arts aficionados that the first
westerner to lay rightful claim to the title of Grandmaster of the Martial
Arts was the American Peter Urban (1934 – 2004). Among Master Urban’s
numerous innovations to “Karate Technology” (this capitalized phrase is of
his own coinage) was the inclusion of chess in the training program (note
2).
For those
unfamiliar with the martial arts, let me provide a very brief intro to Peter
Urban (note 3).
Born in
Union City, NJ, 1934, in 1952 he joined the United States Navy, eventually
being stationed in Japan. It was here, under the tutelage of masters
Richard Kim, Yamaguchi Gogen, and Oyama Mas, that Urban would begin his
lifelong journey into the martial arts.
By the late
1960’s he had obtained the rank of sixth degree black belt (I will not
belabor the point that not only was this a very high grade, but that
the Oriental masters of the time were generally loathe to promote westerners
beyond third degree black belt, and, finally, this was when black belt
rankings actually meant something (note 4).
In 1968,
Urban realized that America now needed her own martial arts and masters.
Naturally enough, the tradition-bound Asian martial arts organizations
absolutely disagreed. And, naturally enough, the maverick Urban broke
away from them all, declaring himself 10th degree black belt and
founder of U.S.A. Goju Karate.
In the
decades that followed, GM Urban would teach thousands of students, producing
some of the finest black belts worldwide.
GM Urban wrote a number of
books, the two most important being The Karate Dojo (1967), and
The Karate Sensei (1984). The former contains the most concise and
elegant expression in the English language of the classical philosophy of
Karate; the latter, highly elliptical in style, I can only sum up as
“advanced philosophy of Urban” (note 5).
The Karate Sensei on Chess
I would now
like to simply present a number of excerpts concerning chess from The
Karate Sensei (because, to paraphrase the paradoxical
Wittgenstein, if you can’t get it, you ain’t got it).
I
confess that I see chess playing as an utterly marvelous therapy. It
has a lot in common with fighting practice. Freud was once overheard
to have said, “The first thirteen years of orthodox therapy with rich
patients is usually bullshit”. I would be inclined to believe that.
It is good business with most therapy and/or disciplines to take a long
time in the business of getting down to business. Chess therapy does
not allow for that!
I
teach my students that one is as good as one’s last game. The only
game in the world that counts is “the one that one is playing at the
moment”. The greatest game one ever played is always “the next
game”. There is nothing else!
The
most often used word, common to a machine gunner, a chess player, a whore,
a brain surgeon, an immigration officer, and a good fighter, is: “Next!”
My students learn that in chess, kata, weapons, and free-fighting
practice, “If practice makes perfect, what the hell do you think perfect
practice makes?” I use signs like that over the punching bags in my
dojo (page 41).
Anyone
who plays chess should play to win only, or the game lends itself to the
cultivation of fantasy (page
149).
Karate
Senseis take delight in teaching their students Karate to make them safe:
not to make them dangerous! Cowardice is a form of laziness.
Laziness is definitely the fear of work. It is the fear of losing
that makes chess champions become super-normal players. Fear works
excellently in making people work harder. It ranks only secondly to
ambition (page 21).
The
ability to read human and animal as well as machine capacitation signals
in other people (particularly the phenomenon of eye-dropping) is a
technology of literally predicting their next move and every move
thereafter in fighting, chess playing, and debating. This
people-language-reading ability will keep you from getting hurt in a fight
or disillusioned in a lifetime
(page 70).
Conclusion
W．
Roland, one of GM Urban’s top students, and now a master himself, recalled
in his eulogy to his teacher:
Supreme Grand Master Urban was an avid player of chess. You could
see him playing any number of his students. One day, at about 11:30
PM, O’Sensei Urban called me to come to his home/dojo to play some chess.
I, of course, said, “Yes, sensei, I’m on my way.” Not forgetting to
pack my karate training uniform, I left my house to go and play chess.
On my
arrival, there was a group of black belts waiting to get some sparring in.
I respectfully greeted sensei and then asked, “Are we going to play
chess?”
He
replied, “Yes, but we must fight first.”(note 6).
Notes
-
Joe Lewis spearheading the full-contact movement in the 1970’s and Gracie
Jujitsu of late are two familiar examples.
-
Actually, something more of a “re-innovation” as medieval knights, East
and West, are known to have been chess aficionados.
-
For a more detailed Urban bio see: http://yoshidogoju.com/images_who/mstr_urban.html
and
http://martialforce.com/grand_master_peter_urban_article.htm
-
As the FIDE master title is worth less today than, say, 30 years ago, so
too are black belt grades: both have been commercialized and cheapened.
-
Both The Karate Dojo and The Karate Sensei are easily
available through a number of distributors on Amazon.com.
-
http://americangoju.com/eulogy_to_sensei_p3.html
-
Much thanks to GM Urban’s daughter, Julia Urban-Kimmerley,
for the photo at the top. Her web-site is:
http://www.urbangoju.net/1.html
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