YOSEIKAN YOSHISU DOJO

 

My brother and I had occasion to correspond with fellow budoka, sempai and friend Dave Lowry regarding the passing of our beloved co-founder, William J. Dometrich, Hanshi.   As usual, Mr. Lowry responded with thoughtful eloquence and sage wisdom:

Mina K. Ludwig

 

Mina, Cyna,

There are those losses, tinged with sadness, regret, where an individual passes.   And there are those losses which signify not just the passing of an individual, but of a moment, a period in time that, once gone, is not soon, if ever to return.  

The bright young men who went East, went to Japan not to fight against an enemy but to assist in the reconciliation of nations and who, upon arriving, became attracted, then enamoured of it and its culture, were unique.  

Many, like Dometrich, had never ventured further from home than the closest horizon.   For a man like him, at that time in history, going to a place like Japan was like visiting another planet.   What was it? What was there that so resonated within him that he would hear it in the rhythm of his life, feel its vibrations, for the rest of his days?

Whatever it was, some aspects of Japanese culture became a compass for his life.   He used that compass to venture through the rest of his years.   An intrepid explorer, he was gracious, big-hearted enough to bring along others who wished to take the same sort of journey, to go in at least roughly the same direction where he was heading.  

And while he struggled and worked selflessly to assist them in that journey, it was always, I suspect, with the frustration and regret that he could not take them precisely where it was he was going.   They could not—and this is critical—go where he was going because they had not come from where he had started.   The era of Japan that uniquely shaped him was almost gone.   What little that remained of Dometrich’s Japan was what he kept in his own heart and in his vision.  

It was not entirely an accurate image.   The lack of language and some cultural talents prevented him from having a wider, deeper perspective, just as we are all limited in our own journeys, and by similar obstacles.   Nevertheless, he was a product of that time in Japan.   And he is gone now.   And so too, that image of his Japan.   That, as much as the passing of the man himself, is what we take time to regret today.  

There are few left like Dometrich.   There were probably not very many of them to begin with.   We are impoverished at losing him, not only in having lost a friend and a teacher and a model, but impoverished too, because what he knew and experienced and was shaped by, has passed as well.   Sad.   And at such times and amidst such pain, we can console ourselves in that with our losses, we are as well enriched for having known him as we did.  

Sincerely,

Dave

 

Please keep the Dometrich family in your thoughts, and honor Hanshi's memory through diligent and spirited practice.   "With peace, perseverance, and austere discipline, we will reach our goal without fail.  "

MKL