GILROY
– A stick, cord or a paddle may look harmless, but in the
furious fists of Gilroyan Ron Keaton they are deadly weapons.
Keaton, 42, is a first-degree black belt in the rare martial art
of Danzan Ryu Jujitsu, the Hawaiian School of jujitsu.
GILROY – A stick, cord or a paddle may look harmless, but in the furious fists of Gilroyan Ron Keaton they are deadly weapons.
Keaton, 42, is a first-degree black belt in the rare martial art of Danzan Ryu Jujitsu, the Hawaiian School of jujitsu.
“One of the things that we do with that Hawaiian flavor in our martial arts is ‘ohana,’ which means family,” he said. “There’s a lot of ohana spirit that we try to keep.”
Keaton can use a cord – or “ka’ane” in Hawaiian – to strangle an opponent, the broadside of a canoe paddle, “hoe,” to protect himself from an enemy’s punches or his favorite weapon, the split fork, a wooden spear split at the end like a snake’s tongue.
“This one is more versatile, and it’s heavy, too,” he said, pointing the tool at an imaginary opponent.
Besides wielding an arsenal of weapons, Keaton totes two video cameras and two still cameras to practices and seminars. He has recorded more than 200 hours of footage that he plans to use for a show on the local cable channel. Plus, he will be recording interviews with some of the Danzan Ryu masters residing in California to be edited and aired by a national cable TV network.
Jujitsu is just a hobby for Keaton. He has an electrical contractor’s license and is currently working for Palo Alto Unified School District. He also is raising his 9-year-old daughter, Madeline, a yellow belt in jujitsu.
“The main thing is I wanted her and I to learn self defense. I just got caught up in the beauty of it, the techniques,” he said.
Keaton became interested in Danzan Ryu Jujitsu six years ago when he discovered his cousin James Muro is a well-respected instructor who teaches classes in nearby Salinas and Marina. Muro has been voted Jujitsu America’s Instructor of the Year and inducted into Jujitsu America’s Hall of Fame. Jujitsu America is one of the premier jujitsu organizations in the world.
Among the techniques Keaton practices is the killing art of Lua, which originated in the 1750s as military training. Its secrets were tightly held, even forbidden from being taught to people who did not have Hawaiian blood.
“This stuff was secret because when you’re at war, you don’t want to give your secrets to your enemies,” Keaton said. “The instructor that is teaching us didn’t want these secrets to get lost.”
Keaton also was required to take a class in massage to earn his black belt. However, he became so interested in massage that he took some advanced classes from Muro, a certified practitioner and teacher of a special kind of massage therapy called Seifukujitsu-Okazaki.
“If I hurt somebody’s shoulder, I want to know how to heal it,” Keaton said.
It was Muro who suggested Keaton videotape a Danzan Ryu seminar. His interest in taping grew as students and teachers saw him recording events and began requesting copies. He bought more video equipment and attended a class at the Community Media Access Partnership on the Gavilan College campus to learn how to edit and tape live stage productions.
In the past year, he attended jujitsu seminars in Chicago, Portugal and Spain.
“We went all over the place last year,” he said. “I was videotaping all of them, and I never really had time to just sit down and start doing the editing.”
It doesn’t look like he’s going to get a break soon. Now, he is making arrangements to attend a seminar in Hawaii this summer, and recently the arts and entertainment channel asked him to record the stories of experienced instructors. He doesn’t know yet when the program will air. He’s excited about working on the project, because many of the instructors are reaching retirement age or are passing away.
“They can’t teach all of it to us in this short time, everything they’ve learned,” he said. “So, I try to get it before it disappears.”
