Getting Started
Hello everyone, my
name is Marc Waterfield. I am originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada.
I first came to Japan in 1999 and have been in Kumamoto, Japan since
2001.
Let me start by telling you a little about myself and my journey to Japan
I began practicing Chito-Ryu Karate Do
in 1988 in Halifax, NS under the guidance of Michael S. Delaney Sensei.I feel very fortunate and grateful to have met and learn from many amazing Sensei
during my 26 years of practicing Chito-Ryu Karate Do. Recently I have become more involved with the Senior High School Division of the Japan Karate Do Federation (JKF) and have learned many things about how Karate Do is taught in schools across Japan.
At the age of 15 I
had a dream to go to Japan and learn from the Japanese Sensei there. As a young
boy I wanted to be the best 空手家 Karateka, that I could be and paid close
attention whenever anyone was willing to share their knowledge or experience on
the subject of Martial Arts and most especially Karate Do. I paid very
close attention and listened with excitement, joy、 and wonder the way only a
child can when my Senpai returned from Japan and told stories of their
experiences training there. I know that this sounds a little over the top, but I can't think of any other way to describe the feelings that I felt bubbling up inside me when they spoke of Japan. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. Ask anyone who knew me then and they will tell you just how interested I was in anything and everything Japanese. There was never any doubt that there was a strong desire in me to one
day travel to Japan and experience it for myself. But, Japan is the farthest
place a boy from Halifax, Nova Scotia can go in this world. It
is ccompletely on the other side of the planet and Western and Eastern Cultural views are also wolds apart. Geographically,
to go any farther than Japan would actually bring me closer to Halifax again.
In short, this was a huge undertaking for me physically, financially, and emotionally.
Even at that young age,
something inside me told me that I needed to learn the language and understand more
about the culture if I really wanted to learn from the Sensei whom my Senpai
and
Sensei spoke of in their stories of their experiences.
As I mentioned earlier, financially this was a huge undertaking for me as well. It was
a reality that my family was not wealthy enough to foot the bill, which in
the late 1990s was a lot higher than it is today. I could
have taken this as a reason why I couldn't go to Japan, and given into the setbacks and
excuses to keep me from realizing my dream. But, for one reason or another,
my drive or passion for Karate Do and the sense of fulfillment
that came with learning this art kept me focused on going to Japan. I didn't want to visit Japan honestly, a part of me always knew that I would go to Japan to live and work
there, this reconfirmed within me the need for language skills and some level of
cultural understanding before I made the first trip. The study wasn't easy, but it never felt like work to me.
