Jim Mather (Kyoshi)

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Jim Mather (born Nov. 28, 1942) is an American karate teacher and founder of the United States National Karate Association.

He is probably best known to many as The Arrow Catcher, owing to his many appearances on major network TV shows. But also among his many accomplishments are Stanford University graduate and post-graduate, declared a “Living Martial Arts Legend”, former national coach, member of the martial arts hall of fame, ground-breaking researcher in speed enhancement, fashion model and commercial actor, award-winning screenwriter, internationally acclaimed magazine writer and columnist, and international speaker, to name only a few.

[edit] Biography

Mather’s descendents came to America from Scotland and fought in every American war, beginning with the Revolutionary. While one branch of the family stayed on the East Coast, early members of his family branch traveled further west, settling in Texas.

His great grandfather, Samuel, was a Grand Mason and mayor of the small Texas town of Gabriel Mills. The small log cabin that served as his meeting hall is now a historical landmark in Georgetown, Texas. Mather’s great uncle, Andrew, was a famous Texas Ranger and friend of Buffalo Bill Cody. He was such a big man he had trouble finding a horse tall enough his toes wouldn’t drag. Mather’s grandfather, also named Samuel, worked cattle for a period in Wyoming with Harry Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid, immortalized in the movie Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid. His Uncle Tom was one of the top three polo players in the world in the twenties and thirties and captain of the Texas Polo Team for thirty years. Tom was also a good friend of actor/comedian/political commentator Will Rogers and was supposed to accompany him on the flight that killed Rogers. Mather’s maternal grandmother was part Cherokee and born in what was called Indian Territory, later Oklahoma.

Fitting his family tradition, Mather was born at a ranch house north of San Diego, where his father worked, helping to build a new dam. A year later, his family moved to San Jose, where his father, Robert, opened an auto repair shop, which would later play an important part in Mather’s introduction to the art that was to become his life-long passion.

When Hiro Nishi, a Japanese black belt studying at San Jose State College, wrecked his car, it was towed to Robert’s shop. A teenage Mather noticed his karate gi in the back seat. No one had heard of Karate at that time, only Judo, so he asked Nishi if he studied Judo. Nishi demonstrated his unknown art. Living in the roughest part of the Eastside of San Jose, Mather asked if he would teach him. Nishi agreed.

When Nishi returned to Japan, Mather was a junior at James Lick High School, alma matre of another famous martial artist, Bob Wall, who stared in Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee. Mather enrolled at the only other martial arts school in the area, Pacific Judo Academy, and trained under highly respected Okazaki student Bill Montero. A Kenpo instructor named Sam Brown, student of the legendary William Kwai Sun Chow , who came over from Hawaii to teach Kenpo at Pacific Judo and picked up Mather as a student.

After graduation, he attended San Jose City College for a year before enrolling in the Army to fulfill what he felt was his duty to his country. He was eventually sent to Korea, where he worked in Army Intelligence and did reconnaissance. While there, he studied the martial arts with Dr. N.B. Lee, who awarded him his black belt. He returned home after his discharge and opened a dojo (karate school) near downtown San Jose. Branches in Santa Cruz and Livermore soon followed. Palo Alto and Modesto were later added.

Soon after opening his first school, Mather went to a secluded beach in Santa Cruz early one morning. As one of his students filmed the attempts, his older brother, Bob, shot arrows at him to test his speed and reflexes. Mather watched the first go by, deflected the second, and caught the third.

In 1965, Mather hosted the U.S. Winter Nationals Karate Championships at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. Chuck Norris won his first grand championship title and Mather’s friend, the then relatively unknown Bruce Lee, performed one of the electric demonstrations that would soon make him famous.

Mather also hosted the Pacific Coast Karate Championships at Foothill College. There, another relatively unknown martial artist, Ron Marchini of Stockton, defeated the nationally ranked Joe Lewis as the legendary Mike Stone, former many-time world champion, refereed the match. A couple of years later, Mather hosted the U.S. National Karate Team Championships at San Jose City College. Chuck Norris came out of retirement to compete in his final amateur match, along with eight of Black Belt Magazine’s top ten American fighters of the year.

While teaching Karate at night, Mather earned an A.A. degree at San Jose City College, before applying to Stanford University for one of two openings in their junior class. Out of the hundreds who applied, he was one of the two accepted. At Stanford, he earned a BA degree in Communications (Film) with a minor in Creative Writing. Normally, major universities like Stanford won’t allow undergraduates to enter their graduate program. But they not only accepted Mather into their MA degree program in Education but allowed him to pursue his Ph.D there as well.

In 1970, he won the lightweight division of the U.S. Summer Nationals, and placed in several others before his acceptance at Stanford, which forced him to put off competition to earn a degree.

Bill Zarchy, a graduate film student at Stanford and award-winning filmmaker, heard of Mather’s arrow catching ability. With access to an extremely high-speed camera, Zarchy filmed Mather catching arrows at Felt Lake, behind Stanford. He edited some of the footage into a demo print he sent out to get film work. PBS saw it and was intrigued. They interviewed Mather and, using Zarchy’s footage, created a short feature entitled “The Arrow Catcher”, which ran on PBS for many years. Ray Anders, stunt coordinator for The John Newcomb Show saw the feature and invited Mather to appear on his show, calling his arrow catching “One of the ten greatest visual stunts he ever witnessed”. Anders later became stunt coordinator for a show entitled The Guinness Game, in which participants tried to set a new Guinness World Record while a panel of contestants bet whether or not it could be done. Mather succeeded in setting a new world record.

He later appeared twice on ABC’s That’s Incredible! The first time, he caught arrows. The second, he broke an arrow in mid-flight with a karate chop. In 1985, the BBC invited him to appear on The Paul Daniels Show, its top rated variety show. Knowing this would be his last performance, Mather demonstrated several new skills – including shattering an arrow in mid-flight with a pair of nunchaku and cutting one in two with a samurai sword.

While a graduate student at Stanford, Mather taught tennis, weight training, and volleyball in Stanford’s physical education department, as well as continuing to teach karate at his dojo, the California Karate Academy. He was also goalie coach for the Stanford Water Polo team, which was one of the top four teams in the U.S. at the time. In addition, he served as start coach for the sprinters on Stanford’s top rated Swimming Team, which included two of the world’s top sprinters.

He also developed three programs – StreetWise, SafeChild, and JumpStart.

StreetWise was one of the first comprehensive, short-term self defense programs for children. Its goal was, within a world of increasing violence, to give people ways to greatly reduce the chance they would ever become the victim of violence, as well as ways to defuse a potentially dangerous situation, and to effectively deal with violence that couldn’t be avoided (using skills that were easy to learn and remember). It has been taught to thousands of high and junior high students, as well as members of the Santa Clara Probation Department, Sun Microsystems, Underwriters Lab, and others.

SafeChild was developed in response to a number of high profile child abductions, including Polly Klaas. It focused on teaching younger children (and their parents) ways to avoid becoming a victim of abduction. It too has been taught to thousands of children and parents. When Bay Area Parent magazine hosted a conference on anti-abduction techniques, Mather was one of three invited to speak at the event.

JumpStart is an anti-dropout program for at-risk kids. It focuses on instilling self confidence, self control, and self discipline in kids at a high risk for dropping out. It has been taught successfully at local high schools. He was a keynote speaker at the National Dropout Prevention Convention.

He authored hundreds of articles for various national and international publications. For several years, he wrote a monthly column for Black Belt Magazine, the world’s most read martial arts publication.

In 1979, he was hired as off-shift plant manager for National Semiconductor Corporation, which was the third largest maker of semiconductors in the world at the time. He oversaw 5,000 employees and 55 major buildings spread over several miles.

Around this time, he was approached to model for Macy’s catalogue. Amazed, and never seeing himself in this light, Mather became one of the highest grossing models and commercial actors in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was represented by the top model’s agent, Jimmy Grime, and top commercial actor’s agent, Ann Brebner. On the East Coast, he was represented by the legendary Ford Models in New York. And in Los Angeles, his rep was the equally famous Nina Blanchard. He appeared in many national and local commercials and ads, played the lead in local theater productions, including Hamlet and Oedipus Rex. His work earned him membership in the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA.

One of his students, Tom Sadowski was selected to represent the United States at the World Karate-do Championships in Los Angeles in 1975. Several of his other students have been selected over the years to the national team.

In the late ‘80s, he joined the USAKF, the official national governing body for karate under the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), and was soon named one of five martial arts instructors comprising the National Coaching Staff for the official U.S. Karate Team, which led the U.S. team into international competition. He was one of a group of coaches who worked with the USA Karate Team at its first training session at the U.S. Olympic Training Center at Colorado Springs. He was also named director of the West Coast Training Center for the National Karate Team. And the International Students Karate Union, the official world governing body for intercollegiate karate competition, elected him its Vice President.

Now in his mid-sixties, Mather continues to teach at his dojo, California Karate Academy, in the Cupertino section of San Jose, his love of the martial arts as strong as ever. He has also gotten back to writing film scripts, which he began while a student at the Stanford Film Institute. His student film, Korea Recon, won its category at a student film festival and resulted in him being offered a scholarship at USC’s film school. When he began writing scripts again, his first new script, Dalton’s Harvest, won awards at major screenwriting festivals and was read by Clint Eastwood’s Malpaso Productions. His action-adventure script, The Vicious Lamb of God, recently advanced to the quarterfinals of the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, the most prestigious screen writers competition, and sponsored by the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who host the Oscars.

[edit] External links

• California Karate Academy