The Scorpion's Tale

all contributions much appreciated

8/07 A note from Trish:

This is Steve's place to air matters of personal and/or current concern. Recently it has become the repository for his ongoing expose on karate. The initial post dates from October 2006 and consists of a web of articles, references and notes all developed in response to one e-mail from Paul Norris, received I think in 2005.

There is a great deal more to come, but time pressures have prevented us from collating and editing the material that Steve has gathered. The sheer volume of it is overwhelming, to be honest. But we will be updating these pages at some point. Needless to say, we are greatly appreciative of the many paypal donations we received when these pages first went live. The financial support helps to give us the means to keep going with an otherwise thankless task.

We have also received moral support from a number of martial artists worldwide. Much of the encouragement came from total strangers, and some came from people that we never would have expected to support a project that is so heavily critical of Japanese karate.

Don Warrener, the student of Richard Kim and author of 20th Century Samurai, wrote, 'Bravo!! Steve. I am nowhere near as articulate as you are and could not have said it better if I had spent ten years writing it. Many of the Japanese are exactly as you put it. My Sensei was Richard Kim of San Francisco until his passing in 2001. I like many was intimidated by much of his ways but I think he knew that I was not about to personally take any real BS from him or anybody so it was minimal that I was subjected to. It was called Samurai training. It was intimidation so as to extract money from many of his followers. It involved a great deal of hypnosis as well both direct and indirect.'

We could probably spend years and churn out reams of material on this subject. The Scorpion's Tale is only a small part of Steve's work, and he doesn't enjoy doing it. Going back into the past to dig up dirt is no fun. On the other hand, I believe that Steve is almost uniquely positioned to do the job, and so I keep nudging him to carry on.

It is our sincere hope that these pages will make people think about what they are practicing, and why.

October 2006 The Scorpion's Tale includes various sub-pages of detailed articles and notes.

Scorpion's Tale Archives -- older articles of a more personal bent