This article originally appeared in the March 24, 1998 issue of "The Bangor Daily News". It is re-printed with their kind permission. You may follow this link to "The Bangor Daily News" Interactive website

Sitting on a chair with legs crossed, waiting for the students to politely file into Kishintaikan Dojo, master Hiroyasu Kobayashi doesn't look like the kind of guy who could kill you with a few well-placed blows.

Wire-rimmed glasses frame his round 52-year-old face, and Kobayashi appears to sport a small middle-aged paunch. He may be 5-foot-4. He may not.

But look Kobayashi in the eyes - orbs that in turn sparkle and dance at a joke, then bore through you during an intense conversation - and you catch a glimpse of the martial artist behind the social man.

This, after all, is a seventh-degree black belt. He's one of the most accomplished practitioners in the Kyoto Nippon Seibukan form of karate in the world. He was handpicked to become the head of that lineage.

And if he wanted to - or more accurately, if he was forced to - Kobayashi could take a few seconds and make absolutely sure you wake up dead.

But he wouldn't do that. As Stephen Boardway, head instructor at Kishintaikan Dojo, tells his students a couple hours later, "Control means never having to say you're sorry."

And in the martial arts world, people like Kobayashi exude control through every pore.

A couple times a year, Kobayashi comes to Bangor to visit Boardway, a third-degree black belt who has been his pupil in the traditional goju-ryu style of karate since 1992.

According to Boardway, that visit ensures that the chain that links Kobayashi's sensei, the late Masafumi Suzuki, to Kobayashi and Boardway - and every student Boardway works with - remains intact.

Kobayashi is the overseas director (outside Japan) of his lineage, and is being groomed to assume control of worldwide operations. Boardway became acquainted with the "polished expert" in 1992, when the sensei put on a workshop in Sanford.

For the past few years, Boardway has served as one of Kobayashi's shihan-dai, or master's assistants.

As it turns out, he's shihan-dai to quite a guy.

Recipe for revenge

Kobayashi didn't start out in karate at a young age, as many in the United States do nowadays. But it turns out that his reason for taking up the martial arts is one many Americans can probably relate to.

"I started in judo," Kobayashi says before correcting himself. "Well, I played baseball as a regular kid at first. Then always when I went to school, someone beated me up. So I said, 'I have to become strong.' Because I'm a small guy, and some guys are big."

His parents wanted him to take up judo, which involves more throwing and pushing than karate. But the 18-year-old Kobayashi wanted more. He wanted to strike back at the bullies.

"I saw a demonstration and thought, 'Wow,' " he says, recalling the karate experts breaking objects with violent kicks and punches.

"I started sneaking into training."

By his own estimation, Kobayashi was an uninspired student at times.

Then came a day that would change his life forever. He got an offer he couldn't refuse from a Japanese hero, Suzuki.

For the next three years, he didn't learn karate. He lived it. And sometimes, it seemed like he'd die for it as well.

Full-time tutelage

"I was bad as a student," Kobayashi admits. "I don't care about color of belt. "Finally, (Suzuki) pick me out. 'Why don't you work. I give you a little salary. I give you (a place to stay in) the house.' "

Kobayashi agreed.

"Then he changed," Kobayashi said. "He hit me several times."

Kobayashi says that the uchi-deshi way of training isn't used much any more, and admits that it essentially amounted to him being a slave for the great Suzuki.

"So, I have to wash (his) underwear," he said. "If you are master, I have to do it every day in morning. Shoe shines and car wash."

And that wasn't the worst part.

"My sensei say, 'This is black towel,' " Kobayashi says, holding up a towel that is clearly not black. "I say, 'No, white.'

"And he go, BANG," Kobayashi yells, swinging a meaty paw at his own head. Then he laughs.

"It was crazy," he says. "I was going to quit many, many times. But I just wanted to learn everything in technique."

And the fact remained that he was learning from a legend. Suzuki was a national hero in Japan, and was the man chosen to be the center-ring judge for the widely publicized Muhammad Ali exhibition bout against Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki in 1976.

After three years, he moved out, but remained aligned with his sensei until the man's death. But his teaching methods in the dojo are different.

In Boardway's class, he demonstrates a jump to young students, saying it is the kind of jump a cat would make. Then he hops around the dojo, squealing "Meow. Meow. Meow."

The kids love it.

Still, the lessons he learned are never far from his mind. And he doesn't for a minute doubt the effectiveness of Suzuki's methods.

"I don't think you have to hit," he says. "But if you (are) hit, you never forget."

Brushes with fame

By working with Suzuki, Kobayashi was exposed to the top levels of karate in Japan before moving to the U.S. 25 years ago.

Now he runs a dojo in Los Angeles. But back in the 1960s, it seemed everybody wanted to learn from his sensei.

When he was 21 or 22 - the year is uncertain in his mind - Suzuki took him to Hong Kong, where they put on a well-attended demonstration like the one that had drawn him to karate originally.

"I did the breaking roof tiles by head," Kobayashi recalls. "My sensei by strong hand."

In his prime, Kobayashi could break 15 tiles seven different ways.

And as the featured performers, Kobayashi and Suzuki didn't have to lug their own props.

"Bruce Lee was carrying my roof tiles," Kobayashi says with a laugh. "He was a little older than me, but he's just starting (to practice karate)."

And how well did Kobayashi know the man many American identify as the epitome of the martial arts? Not too well.

"My students teach him," Kobayashi says, pointing out the hierarchy of the karate world. "Because usually black belt doesn't teach the white belt. Brown belt may teach him."

Kobayashi, of course, was focused on his job that day. He was informed years later that this movie star Bruce Lee was the same man who carried his tiles at Hong Kong City Hall.

Jumping for money

Then there was the time that a Japanese TV station approached Kobayashi with a proposal: We'll give you some cash if you'll perform a trick for us.

Over the years, Kobayashi has had performed all kinds of "tricks." At one time he was the only man alive who could chop the top off a whisky bottle with a shuto strike.

But in 1972, the trick was a little more dangerous.

It was just a little jumping sidekick over a car. Oh. And the car would be traveling at 45 mph.

"TV company pay me $2,000 cash if I can do that," he says. "I didn't ask for more. Two thousand dollars was a lot of money at that time. But I was so afraid."

He did it, and Boardway says the film is still making the rounds.

Now, though, Kobayashi is perfectly content leaving the stunts to others. He travels the world officiating tournaments, visiting dojos and teaching.

And with the wisdom of a seventh-degree black belt comes the knowledge that there are some things that are left to the young. Like jumping over cars.

"Tricycles," Kobayashi says of the vehicles he feels comfortable leaping in a single bound. "Little kids come at me. I can still jump over them."

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