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.
New! Here's a true story about me and a girlfriend of mine who lived on Hamilton AFB, a long, long, time ago that I still get the willies when I recall it.
In the late 60's I dated the daughter of a different Base Commander of Hamilton AFB. One weekend, quite unexpectedly, I received a call inviting me to a "party" at her home, as her parents were away for the weekend.
I didn't want to go, as she told me some of the people there were high on psychedelics and other drugs, and I thought "no way," although she insisted, so I said I'd drop by.
When I got there, I found a lot of very stoned people, including one man who seriously scared me, he was so high. I immediately realized that's why she insisted I come. Military families are no strangers to recreational drugs, and this was at a time when they were rampant in the North Bay.
I stayed straight and played "Sheriff" the best I could, and as the party would down and everyone started crashing on the sofas and beds, she and I lay down to rest for a few hours in the only bed left, THE BASE COMMANDER'S and no, we didn't do anything.
I've rarely been so freaked out in all my life, as I knew enough about military justice to realize that if the base commander found out and got pissed, I might NEVER LEAVE HAFB.
The good news is, everyone sobered up and left, so I helped her straighten up and drove home.
And we were never visited by the APs, even with all the noise from the party. Obviously they saw my car there, and I'm sure they understood that I would never let anything untoward happen.
(I'm also quite sure no one wanted to be the AP who busted the base commander's daughter!)
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