Mantis , which I had always wanted to study even from starting way back when .
JEB : They didn ’ t have 2 more mainstream things , but they had this more obscure than Praying Mantis thing ?
JG : Yes , much more obscure but it had entirely to do with the ethnic groups which had settled in that area . him there . That has proven to be one of the great relationships of my life in a category with my father and the other people who are just very , very special to me . At that time , he was in his 60 ’ s . He is now in his mid-80 ’ s and I have been training with him since about 1993 . He is much more than a teacher to me . At first , I started by going down to his dojo for 3 days a month .
Pursuits of Happiness
JEB : Ok , that makes sense .
JG : So , for the 3 years of law school and the 2 years that I worked in Cleveland , I trained in that martial art , which is spectacularly beautiful but not something you can grow old with , because there is a lot of gymnastics and tumbling . Then in 1984 , I came back to Vermont when my father became terminally ill , and started practicing law with a predecessor of this firm .
JEB : So they had moved up from New York while you were at school ?
JG : Yes . My family has been in Vermont since 1805 . I am the first male member of my family since 1805 NOT to have been born in Vermont . So , after I graduated from high school , my parents moved back to the Rutland area . In Rutland at that time , there was no Taekwondo , there was no Praying Mantis , there was no GoJu Ryu , so I trained in a bastardized form of another karate style called Shorin Ryu . After doing that for a number of years I said , “ you know , I have to get back to something that is traditional and I have to get back to something that is legitimate .”
JEB : And something that you love …
JG : Yes , and something that I love , so what I decided was , I was going to pick up where I left off with GoJu Ryu . I spent probably a year trying to find a teacher who sort of fit with what my interest was and also , because I was so relentless about doing the real thing , somebody who was credentialed .
JEB : Right , and they would have to be good too , because they would have to be higher ranked than you , right ?
JG : Yes , and what ultimately happened is that I hooked up with a famous American teacher named Chuck Merriman --another one of those things where somebody was really looking out for me . He is probably the foremost practitioner of GoJu in this country , and he is somebody whom I had heard about when I was starting off in New York City -- sort of a karate legend .
JEB : So you had heard of him before ?
JG : Oh , yes , I knew of him even when I was a teenager , and so now in my mid 30 ’ s I sought him out and heard he was actually coming to Poultney to judge a tournament that was going on there , so I went and met
JEB : Where was that ?
JG : This was in Connecticut . I would train with him privately all Friday afternoon and Saturday morning , and then Saturday afternoon they ran a 4-hour black belt class , which was all advanced techniques , so I would attend that , and then I would do another session with him on Sunday morning before heading home . He would give me enough material so that I could come back here and practice on my own for a month until it was time to go back there .
JEB : So this was a 3-day thing once a month .
JG : Yes , once a month . Over time , we just became very , very close , because he had sort of started off in the same atmosphere in New York City and then had become more advanced over time by training directly with the Japanese . What happened , though , is that as I trained with him , he became more and more closely associated with a very famous dojo in Okinawa where 2 of the last surviving students of the founder of GoJu Ryu were senior instructors . So , with his sponsorship , I got the chance to go there and to train with the absolute top people in the world in the style .
JEB : Wow , did you go to Japan often ?
JG : I made a total of 6 intense training trips to Okinawa for about 2 weeks at a time .
JEB : That ’ s great .
JG : The way karate is taught there is it is very , very personal . You don ’ t just walk into the dojo . I mean when I first went there , the head of the dojo , who was a world-famous teacher named Miyazato Eiichi , sat me down probably for an hour with a translator and wanted to know everything about me . How old I was , when I started in training , what my goals in training were , what injuries I had , what my family history and education were and all the rest and he basically said , ‘ Ok , you come this afternoon to train .’
JEB : It seems worse than setting up a medical appointment .
JG : Oh , yes , and then he just watched me for a couple of days . The way dojos operate in Okinawa is they don ’ t have formal classes ; people come and go all the time , and there are instructors circulating all of
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