Talk:Richard Kim
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Richard Kim was a remarkable and colourful figure who influenced many serious students of the martial arts, although it appears his cult status has eclipsed the truth in some instances. For many years he organized a widely attended karate summer camp in San Diego, California with the JKA, and Sensei Hidetaka Nishiyama. In the evenings, after training, Richard Kim would entertain students in his lodgings. Students were required to bring him a six pack of Heineken, and, as they sat on the floor, and he sat on a chair in the middle of the room, he would work his way systematically through the beer while recounting in graphic detail his sexual exploits in China in the interwar years, interspersed with rambling philosophical musings on the martial arts, and humorous anecdotes of his ex-students.
The four paragraphs proceeding this and the article in the encyclopedia were written by person's who were not very familiar with Richard Kim. Having studied under Richard Kim from 1967 until his death in Nov. of 2001 I was very familiar with what Richard Kim did and what he claimed to have done. Having attended UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSC in the 1970's and having majoring in History, I can attest to Richard Kim's remarkable memory of historical facts and his ability to communicate his interpretation of history both in writing and especially via the oral tradition. Don Warriener has written a book about Richard Kim in-titled 20th Century Warrior ( I contributed a small amount of research and lecture notes to this work), and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the actual history of this remarkable man.
Having attended every summer camp in San Diego that Sensei Nishiyam held (Richard Kim was a guest instructor, not an organizer of the camp as stated in the paragraphs above) from 1975 until 2001 I would categorize the accounting of Richard Kim lecturing while "he would work his way systematically through the beer"... as written by someone who did train with Richard Kim or who has some-kind of "ax" to grind. The above characterization of Richard Kim's lecturing style and requirement of a "six pack of Heineken) is false and does not represent the thousand of hours of lectures he delivered both formally and informally to his students.
Richard Kim was one of the most remarkable men I have had the privilege to know. Richard Kim never alluded to himself as a meijin (though he did imply the Yoshida Kataro was a meijin). Those of us lucky enough to have trained under him for any length of time learned to appreciate his ability to teach the physical and philosophical principles of the martial arts.
Richard Kim was a man, ( as he would often lecture us) who had weakness's and strengths, but in balance I know that those strengths far and away out balance the weakness's. In life we see what we want to see, and it was no different for those of us that trained under Richard Kim, but to only see the worst in people is a reflection of the person seeing, not in the person being "seen".
in gassho,
Louis Jemison Secretary General- Zen Bei Butoku Kai 204.119.233.128 20:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
