Don Buck was a student of Masutatsu (Mas) Oyama, the founder of Kyokushinkai and the first man to perform a "100-man Kumite," defeating 100 black belts, in order: (20 black belts x 5 times each).

So, of course, Don did that too. However, that was just a small slice of Sensei Don's career.

He was Mr. California. He was a U. S. Navy Pacific Fleet boxing champion. He taught hand-to-hand combat to U.S. Marines in the Admiralty Islands in World War II, and his instruction continued to military families on bases back in the U. S. later on.

Don taught at Hamilton Air Force Base where my mother coached the Voodoos swim team, and my father, a retired Navy Commander, ended up marrying Alyce Hennings, assistant to the base commander, after his divorce.

Alyce's first husband died on take-off at Hamilton in a famous accident. So I was sort of embedded in base culture.

After warmups Don would divide us into two lines and we would punch each other as hard as we could in the stomach for 20 minutes to "toughen up."

Don killed a man with a punch while defending himself serving as a San Francisco Policeman. I'll talk about that in the blog.

Here's a couple websites with his history, including Buck's School of the Tiger, now run by his son, Fred, and Sonic's School of the Tiger page, where I cribbed the photographs of Don and Mas Oyama.