The Story of Joe Perez

Sometimes the best lessons of the martial arts are not necessarily learned in class or taught by your instructor, and almost always they take years to learn. This past April I celebrated my 45th year studying the martial arts. As I look back to the first four or five years of my training I realize that Saturday’s were the most important day of the week. My regular classes were at least three days a week for at least an hour and a half each day. They were rigorous, challenging and perhaps the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done in my life.

For 3 hours each Saturday however, after both the Judo and Karate classes were finished, there was three hours of free practice. No formal instruction, although there was always someone around to answer a question, we were free to practice what we were learning in our regular classes. It was a big treat to watch the higher grades practice on Saturday’s because it was the only time we had an opportunity to see what would come next in our training. Our classes were strictly segregated by rank, and when your class finished you weren’t permitted to stay around to watch the next class. Frankly, Sensei Pereira, as he was called at the time, chased you out the door.

Saturday’s were also one of the days that private classes took place. Usually it was one of the instructors who gave these classes to people who wanted and paid for this special attention. To be picked and used by one of the instructors as the uke during one of those private classes was a big deal. You had to be able to follow directions well, your ukemi had to be excellent, your stamina great, and your ability to withstand pain substantial. You were the instructor’s uke as he was demonstrating a technique and you were the private students uke during the course of his class. Occasionally, and I mean very occasionally, Sensei Pereira gave those classes himself. Needless to say, to be Sensei Pereira’s uke was a very big deal.

It was one Saturday in 1966, that I met Joe Perez. Joe had come to Sensei Pereira to learn Jujutsu. He was a tall, young, strong man, unremarkable and indistinguishable from the rest of us except for the fact that he had cerebral palsy. People with Joe’s type of disability have many types of problems with balance, coordination, and focus, but Joe wanted to learn. Sensei Pereira called me over to where Joe was standing and for the next six weeks I was Joe’s uke. Sensei Pereira was an excellent teacher and in some ways I felt like I was the one getting the private class. Joe worked hard and in spite of his disability made progress. He asked questions, tried very hard, and had a wonderful attitude. After a while, Joe changed his private classes to some time during the week and stopped coming on Saturday’s. I went on with my training and forgot about him, just another one of the thousands of students who passed through the Miyama Ryu system.

Joe however, did not forget and last fall I was invited to the house of an “old student” who wanted to see me. When I asked who it was, his name did not ring a bell until I walked into his apartment and saw him. His face hadn’t changed much, older as we all are, with the same smile, and the same attitude and resolve I had seen in that much younger man. Over dinner and between our stories of Shinan Pereira, Joe told me something about his remarkable life.

Joe’s father was a boxing trainer and was determined that Joe’s life would be much more than his disability. He screwed pipes along the walls of their apartment so Joe would learn to walk and tapped a rubber ball inside of Joe’s hands so he could exercise the muscles in his hands and wrists. He pushed him to lift and move and make himself strong. It all must have worked, because over Joe’s lifetime he has accomplished great things.

In 1985 he entered and completed the NYC Marathon. As a weightlifter, he competed in the 1985 US Nationals and won both Silver and Bronze medals. In the 1987 London World Games he won a silver medal. In the Barcelona games of 1992 he was awarded a Bronze medal and he competed for and was given a place on the team going to the 1992 Seoul Olympic Games. Along the way he married, held a regular job, and lived a remarkably regular life. Throughout his life Joe has lived well above his disability and constantly pushed himself to achieve more.

With all of this, he never forgot his time in Miyama Ryu. At dinner that night he asked me to help train him again, and I agreed. As he’s aged his disabilities have made some things more challenging but Joe continues to work with the same desire as he did as a young man. He is focused and determined and I have every confidence he will achieve whatever goal he sets for himself. Proficiency in the martial arts first requires an understanding of one’s own body and the finding of one’s own center. It is only in this way that balance can be understood and without an understanding of balance there is no martial art. Joe understands his body as well as anyone I’ve ever seen and is well on his way to developing a real center. This is a great accomplishment for any student of the martial arts, let alone one so physically challenged. Joe’s story is one that should inspire all of us. It is a story of constant curiosity and learning, a story that demonstrates what can be achieved through will and determination. It is a story of shaping your own life and pushing yourself to the absolute limit. I am happy to be able to speak about a very small part of that story, one that is still being written and from which there is much to be learned.