Day 3574: Conflict.

 

"Conflict:: junk mail collage

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2GN2S ...

Building a real-life yellow brick road without any bricks.

There's a real-life yellow brick road forming in Ghana, and it shares at least one thing in common with the fictional path it's named for.  Serge Attukwei Clottey -- the artist behind Ghana's "Yellow Brick Road" -- is motivated by a longing for home.

As a child, Serge Attukwei Clottey used "gallons," or yellow plastic jerrycans to collect water for his household in Ghana. Now, the containers are central to his art

 The objects used to create Clottey's work carry a special significance in Ghanaian culture. The "Yellow Brick Road" is composed of deconstructed "gallons," or yellow plastic jerrycans that were originally containers for imported cooking oil. They are widely repurposed to carry water amid the country's ongoing water shortage, and got their name during a particularly bad time for water access: the tenure of president John Kufuor, who was in power from 2001 to 2009. That's when they became known as "Kufuor gallons," or simply "gallons."

They are still a common sight in Ghana, where 1 in 10 people has to travel up to 30 minutes to collect water, according to UNICEF. A powerful emblem of the struggles of everyday life, they have also become a symbol of African art, since Clottey put them at the center of his "Afrogallonism" movement.

 

Clottey grew up using the containers to fetch water for his house before moving in with his uncle, who had a running tap. But the gallons, which actually have a capacity of 20 to 25 liters, or about 6 US gallons, then took on a different meaning for the Accra-born artist. "I found them as available materials that I can work with for a long time. So I put them together like a wall and then painted on them," Clottey said recently on CNN's African Voices, terrific videos: here. 

 

Soon, the containers started to pile up. "I didn't have a place to store them, so it was becoming a problem," he said. He then had the idea of cutting them up, which wasn't initially well received by the local community. "When I started cutting them, the entire community was against that because they thought they needed them to survive and I'm getting rid of them, I'm destroying them. So it was a whole conflict, I had to engage them in my studio and tell them that it's not hygienic to store water in them."

He demonstrated the concept by showing the effects of leaving the jerrycans out in the sun and filled with water for a few days. Not only can plastic particles leak into the water, but the high temperatures create a breeding ground for bacteria, making the water potentially unsafe. "So they began to get rid of them in their system. It's a gradual process, where they get rid of the old ones, they bring them to my studio, they donate some, I have to buy some from them. You know, we sort of trade with them and all that," he said

Clottey then started cutting up the jerrycans and incorporating the pieces into his art, creating his signature yellow tapestries and using the top of the cans as masks in photographs, with the round opening symbolizing a human mouth. In 2016, after cutting up hundreds of them, he started the "Yellow Brick Road" -- his largest public installation -- in Accra's Labadi Beach area, where he grew up. The pieces are stitched together and then, with the help of the locals, used to carpet the streets of Labadi. The work is meant to symbolize the resourcefulness and resilience of the community, but its bright boundaries also highlight the fact that many local residents, Clottey's family included, can't offer proof of ownership of their home or land due to the lack of paperwork.

Update ...

Who Is the Best Karate Practitioner in the World?

by Dave Lowry

 The question itself is simple: “Who is the best karate practitioner in the world today?" And when I saw this post with my Sensei's photo, I thought "Yes"! But in fairness, most martial arts practioners feel that their Sensei or Sifu is the best.

I can only speak for myself, but I too think my Sensei is best. I base this not only on his great knowledge and many skills, but also on his down-to earth personality, his wonderful sense of humor and his amazing patience. Some of us require a lot of patience.

Yesterday, after day class I was leaving and went to his desk to thank him and we started talking. He endures daily dialysis treatments, has a restricted diet, and somewhat limited mobility, but yet he rides daily to our honbu-dojo to oversee and fend calls, correspondence and the many detail of running Shito-Ryu, Genbu-Kai Karate-do, a world-wide organization. He has been through amazing highs in his long career, and in the past eleven years, health problems where he was given only a 5% change of survival. Yet he continues with all the terrific qualities mentioned above. I said "patience is muzukashi", a Japanese word for difficult which I learned long ago. He nodded and showed that great smile.

.........

*In Dave Lowry's article he included a link to this article. This may be too much information, but I couldn't make any cuts?

Here's a short article on the long career of the Shito-ryu karate and kobudo legend. See lots of historical pix and a few of his old Black Belt covers!

Fumio Demura, ninth dan, is one of the most highly respected karateka in the world. Born in Yokohama, Japan, he began training during his grammar-school years, studying kendo as a means of building his strength and improving his health. When his teacher moved from the area, Demura transferred to another dojo that taught karate and kendo. He then studied aikido in high school and, later, judo.

While at Nihon University in Tokyo, from which he received a Bachelor of Science degree in economics, Demura developed a special interest in kobudo, including the use of such weapons as the bo, nunchaku, kama, sai, eku bo and tonfa. He honed his technique under the tutelage of Okinawan karate master Kenshin Taira and weapons expert Ryusho Sakagami.

 

Ed Parker with Fumio Demura

 

 

 

Fumio Demura's reputation as a martial arts champion was secured in 1961, when he won the All-Japan Karate Freestyle Tournament, and he was rated as one of Japan's top eight competitors for the next three years. His many tournament wins include the East Japan Championship, the Shito-Ryu Annual Championship and the Kanto District Championship.

Demura also received the All-Japan Karate Federation President's Trophy for outstanding tournament play and was awarded certificates of recognition from Japanese Cabinet officials for his contributions to the art of karate.

In 1965 Demura came to the United States at the invitation of martial arts pioneer Dan Ivan to teach shito-ryu (itosu-kai), one of the world's four major systems of karate. Within a few years, Demura was educating and entertaining thousands of people at such diverse places as Disneyland, the Las Vegas Hilton and the Playboy Club.

Demura has been a stuntman and an actor, with credits that include The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), The Karate Kid (1984), Mortal Kombat (1995) and Ninja (2009).

Fumio Demura was captain of the U.S. Japan Goodwill Championships of 1972 and a member of the Amateur Athletic Union national technical committee. He is on the board of directors of the International Martial Arts Federation; chairman and president of the Japan Karate Federation of America; president of the JKF International; and chief instructor and president of Shito-Ryu Karate-Do Genbu-Kai in Santa Ana, California.

 

The editors of Black Belt spotted the rising star early on, which explains why Demura scored his first magazine cover in December 1967 (above). The black-and-white photo showed him posing with the sai. The cover story spanned 13 pages. He was on the cover again for the March 1969 issue (below left). The story focused on the nunchaku — as did the article that accompanied his third cover in February 1972 (below). Three more cover appearances followed. Two of them highlighted another popular kobudo weapon: the tonfa.

Throughout the '70s, Fumio Demura developed a reputation as an extraordinary teacher of karate and kobudo. Black Belt twice honored him: In 1969 he was named Karate Instructor of the Year, and in 1975 he was Martial Artist of the Year.

 

In the 1970s and '80s, Demura wrote a series of kobudo books that were published by Ohara Publications, Black Belt's sister company. In the late 1980s and early '90s, he committed his insights to video in a set of VHS tapes produced by Black Belt's Dan Ivan. Later, those video masters were digitized and distributed in DVD format.

 

Fumio Demura: Career Highlights From Pages of Black Belt Magazine

 January 1967 issue: Bruce Lee plays Kato in The Green Hornet. Joe Lewis is the No. 1 karate fighter in the nation. Fumio Demura introduces America to shito-ryu karate.

October 1967 issue: Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Fumio Demura demonstrate at Tak Kubota's 3rd Annual Invitational Karate Tournament in Hollywood.

December 1967 issue: Fumio Demura gets his first Black Belt cover. He's shown with a pair of sai.

September 1968 issue: “The power of the fist does not come from the fist," Fumio Demura says. “It comes from the wrist. I work with the makiwara no more than 30 times a day to strengthen the wrist, but there is still no better way to strengthen the wrist so that the wrist will not give, except through the use of the sai, the short sword and, for those who do not have a sai, push-ups on the fingers. When the fist is strong, it is because the wrist is strong and won't give in an attack."

March 1969 issue: Fumio Demura appears on the cover again to teach the nunchaku, an Okinawan weapon that's mesmerized America.

January 1970 issue: The Black Belt Hall of Fame inductees for 1969 include Fumio Demura, Wally Jay and Thomas LaPuppet.

February 1972 issue: Once again, the front cover features Fumio Demura wielding the nunchaku.

October 1975 issue: Fumio Demura, Chuck Norris, Willie Cahill, Joe Lewis and Tommy Martin enter the Black Belt Hall of Fame.

August 1978 issue: Fumio Demura appears on his fourth cover, this time with the tonfa.

October 1980 issue: Fumio Demura gets his fifth Black Belt cover — without a kobudo weapon, for once.

February 1982 issue: With tonfa in hand, Fumio Demura returns to the cover for the sixth time.

July 1990 issue: Celebrating his 25th year in the United States, Fumio Demura has a celebratory meal with Chuck Norris and Karate Kid star Pat Morita. 

April 2000 issue: Fumio Demura is asked about the new trend of wearing shoes in the dojo. “I would never wear shoes," he says. “Nobody I fight wears shoes. That is the way we grew up. I have been practicing for over 50 years, and it is difficult for me to get used to wearing [sparring] gloves; the shoe issue is no different."

May 2001 issue: It's revealed that Chuck Norris modified the tang soo do he learned in South Korea to include hand techniques he was taught by Tak Kubota and Fumio Demura.

June 2006 issue: Joe Lewis is asked which martial artists give the best seminars. His reply: Jeff Smith, Bill Wallace, Renzo Gracie and Fumio Demura.

July 2010 issue: Chuck Norris originally suggested Fumio Demura for the role of Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, but Demura declined.

 

 

Throwback Thursday ...

 

 

Demurs Sensei's Costa Mesa Dojo, Adult Class, 1989. 

 Black-belts: Duke Olrich, Rick Anderton, Bud Arbuckle, Roy Center, Margaret Guarderas, David Alduenda, Robert Tjan.  

Brown-belts: Matt Johnson, Brian Bingman, Kevin Dillon, Kathy Roberts,

 

 

 

  

 

An unusual 2-minute video, woodpecker in hair? here.

 

Just because ...

 

Southern Red Bishop

 

 

Smiles for Thursday ...

 

 

 

 

 

                                                               Thanks for coming by today.