Part 4 of an interview we did with Noonan Sensei some time ago. Noonan Sensei is currently the most senior ranked teacher of Chito-Ryu Karate-Do in Australia. In this episode he share some of his expereinces training with people from other styles and martial arts, and he also shares his views on what he considers to be the biggest problem with the martial arts industry.—- Transcript —-Sandra: Welcome back everybody. Today we are continuing with part four of the five-part interview with Noonan Sensei.Martin: And if you haven't already heard the first three parts, be sure to go back and listen to the previous episodes.Sandra: Yeah, in this episode Noonan Sensei shares his experiences training with other martial artists and his views on what he considers to be the biggest problem with the martial arts industry.Martin: We've noticed everybody faces challenges in life, some big and some small, but not everyone has a way to navigate these problems.Sandra: It's not always easy, but we've found that we always keep coming back to what we've learned from our years in the dojo.Martin: And that's what this podcast is all about.Sandra: Helping us all find the solutions to last problems or even better yet to remove the problems before they arise.Martin: This is Martin and Sandra Phillips and welcome to the Karate4Life podcast. I'm going to conintue on where Sandra left off and perhaps cover some things from a different angle. And, obviously over the years outside of Chito-Ryu, you've trained with quite a few different people, different martial arts, different styles of karate. What have you taken from that?Noonan Sensei: Look, I don't want to be a style slob because I don't really believe in that. And I think no matter what you do, if you practice it well, practice it deeply, you're going to find something. But I went to other places because I wanted to find, I wanted to see what people were doing.I didn't go there arrogant and arrogant and passionate. I went there to learn. And I wanted to find out right or wrong.If you, you know, my teacher was in Japan and I was here. So access to knowledge was a little difficult those days. And so right or wrong, I decided, you know what, I'm going to go and look at different styles.And I'd actually asked Sogen at the time what he thought of that idea. And he said, that's a good idea. And I think that shows you what kind of a teacher he is.That's a very confident teacher that can say, by all means, go and enjoy and see what you find. So previous to me, so previous to going to Japan as kids, we used to go and do some kickboxing and other things like that. But after I came back to Japan, I did study with the Tai Chi with Montague.And again, he's passed away. But he, I thought he was excellent. I thought he was a fabulous technician, a very powerful man, very practical.So I didn't agree with everything. But I certainly learned some things from him. I also did Wing Chun, which I appreciated as well.I found that gave me some knowledge in other areas, various, various styles of karate. I joined him, you know, joined together with, it wasn't that I was there day in day out, but I certainly got together with senior people and talked about karate, trained karate. There was a Tai Chi with Cathy Sensei, he came to Australia.That was the early 90s at the time. And I went to a camp with him, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was, yeah, there was a whole bunch of people.But ultimately, I wasn't, you see, I wasn't, I didn't, I never felt that I was going to join another style or this or, ultimately, all I want to do is understand history more. And I thought that if I understand what everyone else is doing, maybe I'll understand what I'm doing a little deeper. So that's, that's the reason for that.Martin: I guess I kind of ask because I've, in all honesty, I've probably led a very narrow path, very sheltered life. I haven't really