From: Sagasuhito@aol.com Subject: original Joe Lewis letter
???How a Karate Champion Disappoints Puerto Ricans Black Belts??? ??
Dear Friends; ?? What I am about to tell you it happened this past Saturday (8/30/03) at the American Dragon Dojo, here in Tampa, Florida. Their website is <A HREF="http://groups.msn.com/jmdelmont"> http://groups.msn.com/jmdelmont</A>. This school belongs to a pair of 5th degrees black belts brothers from the style of Shuri Ryu, Eddie and Ciro Dominguez. They are great karate-kas and very good friends of the undersigned. Ciro (41 years old) works as Assistant Chief of Tampa International Airport Police Department and our friendship goes back almost 20 years, when both competed for the first time at the National Police Olympics in Miami, Fla. I finished second behind him.
This dojo was the first and only one that I visited for training purposes after my transfer to Tampa, Fla. I believe that they may have some photos of me in their website. The Dominguez are known to go every year to participate at the well known ???Karate College Camp??? offered by champions such as Bill ???Superfoot??? Wallace and Joe ???The Legend??? Lewis among others.
I believe that the Dominguez would be soon promoted to Black Belts in the Joe Lewis??? Fighting System. I said all this as a background to allow you to better understand the following incident. ?? Approximately a pair of weeks ago, I was called by Eddie Dominguez who wanted to know if I was interested in taking a seminar with Full Contact Champ Joe Lewis, at a cost of $50.00 on August 30th, 2003. Imagine that, ???The Legend???, Joe Lewis, Undefeated World Heavy Weight Full Contact Champion from the decades of the 60s and 70s.
He only had to mention it ones. To my surprise, he told me that I could invite some of the RONIN black belts. I Invited four (4) of the black belts and a pair of them were flying directly from Puerto Rico. They were: Sensei Rafy Rodriguez 2nd Dan, Sempai Juan Javier Adames - brown belt, Renshi Javier Ortiz 4th Dan and Shihan Bob O???Neil 6th Dan. ?? Saturday 30, 2003, at approximately 1:00PM, we arrived and began to prepare, (no uniform was needed, only t-shirt, long comfortable pants, karate shoes and shin protectors).
Introductions of the various participating schools and respective directors/head instructors were made. During my introduction turn, very proudly I said that I was from Puerto Rico presently residing in Tampa, Florida and that two of the our participating instructors had just flew from PR just for this event that attracted about 50 other participants. ??
At 1:30 PM, Mr. Lewis arrived, accompanied by one of his black belts from Tampa, Mr. Mike Allen (4th dan). Mr. Lewis will turn 60 years old in six months. Mr. Lewis looks very fast, he moves like a 30 years old man. He has tremendous power punch and knowledge in the full contact field like very few. During the first half hour, I could see that the seminar???s inscription fee ($50.00) was already utilized to the maximum, because this guy knew his instruction material to fullness. He would teach a technique and we will practice for about 5 minutes.
Following that, I began to notice his enormous ego, however, I believe that we all have one. He openly began critics on other martial arts styles that were not involve with him. Like for example; Jeet Kune Do of Bruce Lee (there were some 7-10 young students-instructors from JKD), also the TKD, Goju Ryu, Wado Ryu among others. He mentioned that he believe that this seminar was not the right place to talk about his involvement with Bruce Lee, due to the fact that whatever he learned from him, if any, he didn???t noticed any difference because before Bruce, he (Lewis) was demolishing all his adversaries and after Bruce he continued to do the same. (Please read between the lines). ?? The best is coming right now, apparently he was observing me and asked me from where I was?
Very proudly I responded from ???PUERTO RICO???. Then, Lewis commented to everybody at the seminar, ???What a little Island, the only thing that you find there is??? in every corner you have the Beggars and on the other side the Communists???. It seems that when he saw me a little surprised, he said to me that he visited PR during 1978 while promoting one of his films (I believed it may have been ???Jaguar Lives???).
I answered to him that it might change, due to the fact that I was thinking to myself, how impressed I was with his knowledge on the Full Contact matter that I was already planning in my mind to take him to PR for seminars. Meanwhile, Mr. Lewis continue talking about Puerto Rico specifically about him been invited to the PR television and about this Puerto Rican dancer with a very ???big ass??? who interviewed him. Before he finished his sentenced I mentioned Iris Chacon? Lewis answered ???yes???. (All this is in front of all the class). His gesture as to describing the ???big ass??? was totally out of place and out of order, among participants were three women and three more as observers.
Finally he finished the subject saying: ???You get me those Puerto Rican women and I may go back???. To all this I could say that this conversation should have been personal and not to the entire class, beside that I do not know him from before. ?? My seminar techniques??? partner was Sensei Jim Kelly a 5th dan from Isshinryu from Florida and even him felt uncomfortable. I was just wishing that my guests ??? students didn???t feel the same way.
Approximately 20 minutes after explaining and demonstrating boxing techniques from boxers such as Ali, Forman, Patterson, Duran, etc. then Mr. Lewis asked, already knowing the answer, where are the Puerto Ricans, referring to us. When he turned and saw us he asked. What do we think about ???Tito??? Trinidad and Bernard Hopkins fight. How this old man beat up the young Trinidad, in a very despective manner he described how Hopkins destroyed Trinidad???s timing.
At this time one of the Ronin black belts (Renshi Ortiz) took off his gloves and walked outside from the Dominguez??? dojo. Then Lewis mentioned: ???If you take a group of ignorant and dumb people then you just have a dojo and black belts.??? This was leading to believe that he was the greatest existing thing in the karate world. He also mentioned to the participant that if your sensei is a traditionalist he is teaching you a bunch of crap. Among the participants were kids too. ??
Another of the guys from Ronin (Sensei Rodriguez y Sempai Adames) mentioned to me: ???Kyoshi what a disappointment and waste of money and time???. Later Mr. Lewis and to spill the last drop, he began mentioning as how this little man Roy Jones beat ???Giant??? John Ruiz. As a joke, he asked me if they were real Puerto Ricans or not. ??
At that time I took off my gloves and with a tapping on the shoulder of the Ronin guys we walked out of the Dojo, not before listening to my friend Ciro Dominguez said that he (Lewis) was too familiar in his comments and out of place and order. Eddie Dominguez apologized to one of the Ronin guys (Renshi Ortiz) for all the out of place comments and also said that he (Lewis) is always like that. ??
When we were almost leaving the dojo (still on the front sidewalk) Mike Allen (who was on the cellular phone most of the seminar) approached me and asked me if the Dominguez had my address so he could send the ???I train with a Legend??? seminar???s certificates. Then and only then I let him know my impression of Mr. Lewis as a karate-ka and as a person, also how offended we were due to his racist comments. I told him that the average time in the martial arts of the Puerto Ricans karate-kas participating in this seminar were between 23 years to up to 40 years.
I also let him know (due to his comments regarding ignorant and dumb black belts) that the academic background of the Ronin Puerto Ricans participating in this seminar were between bachelor, masters to include one who had two masters degrees. I let him know that before coming to the seminar we have left the video of the movie ???Jaguar Lives??? ready and after a jump at the swimming pool in my house we were planning to see the movie. That was not going to happen. I was also planning to attempt to get him an annual contract for training/seminars, same as the Gracie???s, for the members SRT (SWAT) teams of my federal agency.
Allen stated that Mr. Lewis had done that in the past and that he (Allen) would like to apologize on Mr. Lewis behalf. I told him that that was not his duty and that I do not accept them. Then he asked me if I would accept them from Mr. Lewis in person, at that time I told him I will not accept those neither because if it happen it was because Alien asked him and not because it came out of Lewis??? heard. ?? I would like to add that for you to really appreciate the way everything happened, you had to be there.
I have traveled with martial artists, such as, Bill Wallace (1989) for approximately 5 days to Quito, Ecuador to compete in the same full contact event in which other World Champions like Tony Palmore, Bart Vale among others competed. We never had a misunderstanding or any problem whatsoever either with egos or attitudes like we may have had with Mr. Lewis. ?? ???Now, I apologize to the Ronin students for invited them to such humiliation???
?? Kyoshi Carlos H. Montalvo
Ronin Goju Ryu Kai - Kaicho
