Every now and then you meet someone who knocks you back a step.
Sensei Lucien was such a man. Literally. More than once he knocked me back a step with a twist of the hips and a perfectly executed tsuki-chuudan (chest punch).
I joined the Moncton YMCA Shotokan Karate club almost three years ago. I took my first class from Sensei Lucien’s son, Nathaniel. I liked it well enough to attend a second class, this one led by Sensei Lucien, who mostly dealt with the lower belts. The two of them founded the club, and have run it over the years with a fantastic group of volunteers. It’s quite popular and well attended. They’ve taught hundreds of students of all ages over the years.
Sensei Lucien pretty much ignored me the first several classes. Although I’d studied karate in the past, it was long ago and a different style, so I joined this dojo as a white belt. And I’m sure to Sensei Lucien I was just another white belt who would probably attend a hand full of classes, discover just how many freaking push-ups they do (the hard kind, not the easy kind), and quit.
But I didn’t quit, and closing in on sixty years old, I was approaching Sensei Lucien’s own age. He was a bit of a grizzled fellow, solidly built and sporting a short salt and pepper beard, probably about sixty-eight when I first met him. When he finally seemed to become aware of me, he decided we were about the same age.
“We’re not as flexible, you and me,” he would say. “At our age, we need to give our muscles time to recuperate.”
Or…
“You don’t have to do this,” he’d tell me, referring to some difficult posture or move.
“Why not?” I’d ask.
“Cuz you’re OLD.”
Which would just piss me off, as he well knew, and we’d have a good laugh while I tried even harder to move my body like a fourteen year-old, which I couldn’t even do back when I’d been fourteen.
The students always listened to Sensei Lucien because he was grizzled and gruff. There was no messing around in his classes. But we all loved him because he had a great sense of humour. I was constantly chuckling at his antics.
“Get set, ready… don’t go!” he’d yell at students lined up to race across the gym. Of course, several of them would go, only to have to return to the starting line. It never got old.
One day Sensei Lucien asked if I could hang around after the Saturday morning beginner’s class to help out with the Kindergarten karate class, for students between the ages of four and seven. I had caught glimpses of this class on previous Saturdays. It looked terrifying. I couldn’t help him that day as I had another obligation but promised to keep Saturdays free in the future to help as required.
Little did I know that agreeing to help out required being an official YMCA volunteer. When I found this out, I shrugged and said, “Okay!” I was semi-retired and didn’t think it would be a big deal. The YMCA pretty much consider volunteers staff. It took me six months of online courses and in-person First Aid training and a police check to become qualified.
The first forty-five minute Kindergarten Karate class I helped Sensei Lucien teach left me shell shocked and wanting a stiff drink afterward. Who knew little kids could be so intimidating? I’d raised two kids over the years, but two kids isn’t the same as fifteen of them.
“Whose bright idea was this class?” I asked Sensei Lucien afterward.
“Mine,” he told me.
Like him, I came to quite enjoy it. Once I learned how to keep the kids under some modicum of control, which mainly involves keeping them constantly moving. And Sensei Lucien always made it fun.
“Who’s tired?” he’d ask them after ten push-ups.
Several would raise their hands.
“Ten more push-ups!” he’d order. And then afterwards, “Who’s tired?”
Several would raise their hands.
“Ten more push-ups!” he’d order again.
This would go on for quite some time. You’d be amazed how many push-ups six year olds can do. How many they WANT to do! I think they were having him on just as much as he was having them on.
Or…
“Uh oh,” Sensei Lucien would say all of a sudden. “Something’s happening… “
“What?” I would ask.
“It’s the tiger!” he’d yell, before transforming into a fearsome tiger before our very eyes, and then chase the terrified but delighted kids all over the gymnasium.
Good luck getting the Kindergarten karate kids under control after that!
But with Sensei Lucien’s special blend of sweet and sour gruffness, he could, without fail.
At the regular karate classes Sensei Lucien was demanding. Always the hard push-ups, not the easy ones. The ones where you lower yourself with each count, and stay there, nose to the ground, until he counted again. I don’t mind push-ups. I can do a fair amount of them. But I hate those!
“Lower stances!” he’d bark. “From the hip! Relax your muscles, not so tense!”
Once he asked all the white belts if they knew the first kata, heian shodan. Many said yes, so he lined them up. “If you don’t really know it, don’t do it!” he said. “If you say you know it, and you mess it up, fifty push-ups!”
I was there helping out as a higher belt. I screwed up the fifth move.
He shook his head. “You’re placing me in a difficult position, Joe!”
He was determined to “fix” me. To correct all the little things I was doing wrong, such as tensing up, or leaning forward.
“I enjoy karate,” I told him one night. “But I have no talent for it.”
“It has nothing to do with talent,” he informed me. “It’s training.”
That spun my head around. No longer could I use the excuse that I wasn’t a talented karate-ka. If I wanted to get better at karate, I just needed to train. It was as simple as that.
One day, at the beginning of a class, I asked Sensei Lucien how he was doing.
He took me aside and didn’t beat around the bush. “I have cancer,” he told me. “It doesn’t look good.”
But he kept coming to the dojo. And he was always cheeful, even if he claimed to be grumpy. Except for a brief period of intense treatment, he kept coming, kept teaching. He led the warm-ups, directed the classes. He was slightly dismayed at the reduction in his strength and flexibility, but he kept moving.
He was there as recently as last week. Leading the classes. Laughing and play-fighting with the kids.
A few days later the cancer got the better of him.
And now he’s gone.
It doesn’t seem possible. I don’t understand how a person can be walking around one minute large as life and then no longer be with us. It’s ridiculous, actually. Who set up life this way?
Sensei Lucien Pomar came into my life just under three years ago, vital, strong, taking full advantage of every waking moment. “I don’t stop,” he told me. “I tell my kids, if I ever stop, something’s wrong.”
He made me and a whole lot of other people better. Stronger. He embodied the principles of Shotokan Karate. The Dōjō kun, which we recite every class:
Seek perfection of character
Be faithful
Endeavour (to excel)
Respect others
Refrain from violent behaviour
But beyond all that, Sensei Lucien and I became friends. We had a few good talks, but nowhere near enough.
“You would not believe the life I’ve led,” he told me just the other week, after class. “I’ve got lots of stories!”
“One day you will have to tell me those stories,” I told him.
He never got the chance.
I will miss him.
Osu.
Follow Joe Mahoney and Donovan Street Press Inc. on: Goodreads, Bluesky, Threads, Mastadon, Facebook, and Instagram
"Refrain from violent behavior", huh? Then not everyone is doing it right...
Joe, I'm very sorry that you have lost your friend and teacher. But I'm glad you were able to experience his friendship and wisdom.