My First Club V

1986 was a really big year for me. Got Shodan (Black Belt), quit my job as a salesman, and biggest of all married Helen.

When January of '87 hit, I went back to school, at Northern Lights College. I was going to follow Helen into the teaching profession. Was ecstatic to learn that my decade old university credits still counted. I had about two years worth of those.

Eventually I ended up completing a degreen with the University of Victoria, and went into a Simon Fraser University teacher's program. Did most of it in Ft. St. John, with summers away. The intense part ran in 1989, so I almost totally stopped Karate.

Turned it over to my Black Belts, who likely ran it better than I did. Got out of touch with association news. Sometimes I could afford an evening to drop in, but only trained and left it all to them.

Became a teacher and got hired at a high school, so still too busy for much Karate. The question arose. Would Helen and I stay north forever, or try to transfer out? We'd been there for one year, ten times already. So job applications went south, and Helen got hired in Sechelt. We didn't really know where that was.

It was sad to leave my old Karate chums, but knew that from Sechelt I could get to Vancouver on Saturdays to train with Sakurai Sensei. He is the best instuctor I've ever seen...in every way.

We packed, said our goodbyes, and in July of 1990 Made Sechelt our home.