The song goes with the story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QYNaG5pxmc

I try to live in the moment!  Meditation helps.  But every so often I remember a moment from the past and I smile.

On a Thursday night in the spring of 2005 Elhalev did a martial arts performance fundraiser for Mavoi Satum (Dead End), an organization dedicated to freeing women whose husbands refuse to give them a divorce.  The fundraiser took place in Raanana.  My female students and I had over a month to rehearse our performance.

I chose the song, “Hit the Road, Jack,” by Ray Charles (which, under the circumstances, I thought was appropriate) and acquired a copy of the disc from a musician friend.  Ray’s female back-up singers sing the chorus four times and the song lasts almost four minutes.

During the first chorus we did the kata Gekisai-Dai Ichi, during the second we did Gekisai-Dai Ni, next was Saifa.  We worked long and hard to achieve synchronicity.  Then my five ‘back-up kata people’ sat in seiza and I performed Seipei which was, at the time, my favorite kata.  I ended exactly when the song ended.  We bowed and practiced walking off stage.

The guy who made the disc for me warned that it might not work on the sound equipment at the theater, and I was concerned about this, so I bought the Complete Collection of Ray Charles at considerable expense (it was the only disc they had) and brought it with me, unopened.

Sure enough, the night of the performance we discovered that the home-made disc did not work, so we started rehearsing with the new disc.  After half the song a very nervous director said, ‘That’s enough, you look fine,’ and shut off the music.   ‘We weren’t finished,’ I said, but she waved me away.

After much waiting the show began.  Jujitsu, Kung-Fu, Aikido and finally, us.  As the music started we began our kata and suddenly a machine spewed out a noxious gas that was supposed to be fog and, I guess, make our performance look more dramatic.  Really, it made it hard to breath.  And to see.

The first, second and third kata all went well despite the lack of oxygen and then, just as I was about to start my solo – the song ended.  Who knew that Ray did more than one version of that song?  We left the stage and my students were devastated.  ‘Why didn’t you do your kata anyway?’ they demanded.  A background in theater had taught me well.  ‘That’s show business,’ I said.

But the magic moment didn’t come until the next morning when I arrived at the IOGKF headquarters in Netanya to train with Pantanovitz Sensei and his black belts.