Kembudo-Kai Kempoka
Senior Master
Richard Kevin Glines, the first and only person I privately trained from white to black belt, has passed away after a short bout with AML leukemia. His loving wife, daughter Jessica, and son Anthony survive him.
We met as sophomores at Fountain Valley High School, in Southern California. I had just received my provisional shodan in kenpo (full-blacks not granted until 18 years of age). I trained with an imbalanced instructor of dubious origin throughout most of the nights of the week after training at more normal schools in the evening hours and so caught up on my sleep in class. Richard sat behind me in history, and used to bug me awake to tell him about karate, and what I learned the night before.
Before long, we started training together for a couple hours after school each day. We soon had a small club, of which he was the senior student. For the next several years of misadventure, Richard was my constant companion and closest friend. We explored practicing martial arts in hypnotically induced altered states, and broke some personal performance barriers and solid objects we never imagined possible.
I was constantly seeking out new sources of information, and bringing it back to our training sessions. I would focus on jujutsu & judo for a spell, and make Richards training be about that. He would almost get ready for black belt, then I would come in with a totally new curriculum, and start him over at white belt. I had done this to him a number of times, so that by the time he finally tested for black belt, he had been exposed to the requirements for black in TKD, 3 offshoots of kenpo, a jujutsu style, kobudo, kodokan judo, and tien shan kung fu. Needless to say, at 1st degree black belt, he was more than proficient for his rank.
When he was a brown belt (in one of those incarnations), we went to spar with a local wado-ryu club. Sickly, I failed to make any kind of decent impression. Richard, on the other hand, clashed with an old gang-member, 20 years his senior and with 50 pounds on him, who was a higher-ranking black with nearly more years in the art than Richard had been alive; he was the assistant instructor for the club. The assistant instructor shortly became infuriated that he couldnt pierce Richards defenses, and in trying to do so, ripped both sleeves off of Richards heavyweight Tokkaido gi, and tore open up the crotch. In a famous verbal exchange, they clashed, and the AI nailed Richard in the back with an inward crescent, causing a very loud thud. Richard leaned over and asked, are you alright?. To which the AI responded, Im still standing, aint I? While our vision was obscured by the crescent, Richard had put up some interference with his hands between them, which apparently blasted the other guy in about three places almost at once (we were big on duplicity).
Popping in and out of different arts caused me some issues, with which Richard was always patient, and amused. One of my instructors, Mr. Bob Perry, didnt like me, as much as tolerate me as a pest who wouldnt go away. When I showed up at the internationals one year with my spankin-new 2nd degree on, Richard & my girlfriend Janet in entourage, he came down off the platform, very severely interrogated me as to where & when I got it. When I told him it was awarded by one of the other instructors Id been working with, he became angrier. Told me I cheated him out of the satisfaction of completion for work he had done. With Richard in tow, Mr. Perry waltzed us down one of the hallways that goes beneath the loges, put Richard behind me as catcher, and gut-kicked me mighty hard for an initiation. As I gasped for air, Mr. Perry was continuing to lecture me about loyalty and impertinence until he saw Richard. He was laughing so hard he couldnt breathe. Mr. Perry let out an amused little chuckle, and walked back to the announcing platform while Richard laughed and I sucked wind. I think my good friend may have saved my impertinent little hide that day, finding humor in my misery. He was always quick to laugh.
Richard joined the military, and due to his duties, was put through 3 different boot camps. While at LaJeune, he contracted spinal meningitis, and nearly lost it then tubs of ice in a Navy hospital, and massive amounts of anti-biotics, he slugged through to move on to better days. He married his first sweetheart; they had two kids and moved to Wisconsin where Richard drove trucks (oddly, loved it). After a divorce, he moved to California, married the woman of his dreams, and started a computer tech business. In addition to being a fine martial artist and honorable man, he was possibly one of the best guitar pickers Ive ever personally known. He could hear a complex picking pattern, and mimic it perfectly. Croce; Kansas; you name it, he could play it. We had many great nights of jam sessions with a couple of acoustics, whiskey sours, and lots of laughter. And bodysurfing lots of bodysurfing. Almost from the day we started hanging out together, we rarely missed a day for several years following. Flat or huge from storms; in the heat of summer or the biting cold of winter we always ended a training session with a trip to Huntington Beach for a splash in the drink.
A man of faith and commitment; honorable, and a more loyal and dedicated friend than I could ever hope to be. From the heavens we come, my good friend, and to the heavens we return, Angels once again. Sleep well buddy; I got your back.
We met as sophomores at Fountain Valley High School, in Southern California. I had just received my provisional shodan in kenpo (full-blacks not granted until 18 years of age). I trained with an imbalanced instructor of dubious origin throughout most of the nights of the week after training at more normal schools in the evening hours and so caught up on my sleep in class. Richard sat behind me in history, and used to bug me awake to tell him about karate, and what I learned the night before.
Before long, we started training together for a couple hours after school each day. We soon had a small club, of which he was the senior student. For the next several years of misadventure, Richard was my constant companion and closest friend. We explored practicing martial arts in hypnotically induced altered states, and broke some personal performance barriers and solid objects we never imagined possible.
I was constantly seeking out new sources of information, and bringing it back to our training sessions. I would focus on jujutsu & judo for a spell, and make Richards training be about that. He would almost get ready for black belt, then I would come in with a totally new curriculum, and start him over at white belt. I had done this to him a number of times, so that by the time he finally tested for black belt, he had been exposed to the requirements for black in TKD, 3 offshoots of kenpo, a jujutsu style, kobudo, kodokan judo, and tien shan kung fu. Needless to say, at 1st degree black belt, he was more than proficient for his rank.
When he was a brown belt (in one of those incarnations), we went to spar with a local wado-ryu club. Sickly, I failed to make any kind of decent impression. Richard, on the other hand, clashed with an old gang-member, 20 years his senior and with 50 pounds on him, who was a higher-ranking black with nearly more years in the art than Richard had been alive; he was the assistant instructor for the club. The assistant instructor shortly became infuriated that he couldnt pierce Richards defenses, and in trying to do so, ripped both sleeves off of Richards heavyweight Tokkaido gi, and tore open up the crotch. In a famous verbal exchange, they clashed, and the AI nailed Richard in the back with an inward crescent, causing a very loud thud. Richard leaned over and asked, are you alright?. To which the AI responded, Im still standing, aint I? While our vision was obscured by the crescent, Richard had put up some interference with his hands between them, which apparently blasted the other guy in about three places almost at once (we were big on duplicity).
Popping in and out of different arts caused me some issues, with which Richard was always patient, and amused. One of my instructors, Mr. Bob Perry, didnt like me, as much as tolerate me as a pest who wouldnt go away. When I showed up at the internationals one year with my spankin-new 2nd degree on, Richard & my girlfriend Janet in entourage, he came down off the platform, very severely interrogated me as to where & when I got it. When I told him it was awarded by one of the other instructors Id been working with, he became angrier. Told me I cheated him out of the satisfaction of completion for work he had done. With Richard in tow, Mr. Perry waltzed us down one of the hallways that goes beneath the loges, put Richard behind me as catcher, and gut-kicked me mighty hard for an initiation. As I gasped for air, Mr. Perry was continuing to lecture me about loyalty and impertinence until he saw Richard. He was laughing so hard he couldnt breathe. Mr. Perry let out an amused little chuckle, and walked back to the announcing platform while Richard laughed and I sucked wind. I think my good friend may have saved my impertinent little hide that day, finding humor in my misery. He was always quick to laugh.
Richard joined the military, and due to his duties, was put through 3 different boot camps. While at LaJeune, he contracted spinal meningitis, and nearly lost it then tubs of ice in a Navy hospital, and massive amounts of anti-biotics, he slugged through to move on to better days. He married his first sweetheart; they had two kids and moved to Wisconsin where Richard drove trucks (oddly, loved it). After a divorce, he moved to California, married the woman of his dreams, and started a computer tech business. In addition to being a fine martial artist and honorable man, he was possibly one of the best guitar pickers Ive ever personally known. He could hear a complex picking pattern, and mimic it perfectly. Croce; Kansas; you name it, he could play it. We had many great nights of jam sessions with a couple of acoustics, whiskey sours, and lots of laughter. And bodysurfing lots of bodysurfing. Almost from the day we started hanging out together, we rarely missed a day for several years following. Flat or huge from storms; in the heat of summer or the biting cold of winter we always ended a training session with a trip to Huntington Beach for a splash in the drink.
A man of faith and commitment; honorable, and a more loyal and dedicated friend than I could ever hope to be. From the heavens we come, my good friend, and to the heavens we return, Angels once again. Sleep well buddy; I got your back.
