Sensei Jeff Tyne Memorial

Heavy rain this morning heralds in this post of the passing of yet another Goshin-Do Karate-Do Yudansha (black belt). Sensei Jeff Tyne passed away on April 11th, 2015. During the camelot years of the Academy Of Goshin-Do Karate, Sensei Tyne, a Ni-Dan operated one of the four dojo teaching Goshin-Do Karate-Do under the leadership of Shihan Thomas DeFelice.

I first learned of Sensei’s passing shortly after posting the memorial of Shihan Paul Recchia’s passing on April 10th 2003. I waited a week before posting news of Sensei Tyne’s passing out of respect for both he and Shihan Recchia. So now, each year I have another memorial for a fallen Goshin-Do comrade to add.

As the rain pelts the window to my writing room, I look out at the cherry blossom tree in the yard. How strange is my duty? I take great pride in the fact that I am one of the few in Sensei DeFelice’s dojo to have known each and every one his his black belts. Now decades later, my duty is to simply remember them.

And so, here is the first hatsu bon memorial poem for Sensei Tyne, one of the two examiners who in 1976, when I was age fifteen, failed me on my first attempt to earn fifth-kyu, green belt in the adult division, but in doing so helped to forge my unrelenting spirit. Thank-you for doing so Sensei.

Hatsu Bon Poem

Please don’t cry before my grave
That’s not where I am
Nor am I sleeping for eternity
SEE!!
I am already part of the breezes
numbering a thousand
I am part of the light
that brightens this world
Like a diamond glittering in the snow
Like the sun that coaxes seeds to sprout
And in the Fall I become the gentle rain
that nurtures all.
When you open the window in the morning
I am the breeze
That causes your hair to flutter;
And at night, I am the star
That watches over your sleep.
So, please . . . don’t cry before my grave
That’s not where I am.
I am not dead.
I have been born anew.

Sincerity in sweat, Sensei.

Sensei John Szmitkowski

Endnotes:
During the camelot years of the Academy Of Goshin-Do Karate-Do (roughly in the 1970’s), there were four Goshin-Do Karate-Do dojo under the leadership of Shihan Thomas DeFelice:
The Hombu dojo of Shihan DeFelice located in Palisades Park, NJ;
Shibu (branch) dojo located in:
Maywood, NJ under Sensei Jim Kingston,
Lodi, NJ under Sensei Jeff Tyne,
Teaneck, NJ under Sensei Steve Malmoud.