Training with Grandmaster Reno Claudio
by Shihan Santiago Armstrong

This is a true story of training with Sensei Claudio 30 years ago. It was the spring of 1975 and the place was “Hoteikan” Island!

Let me tell you a story about some of the training that I, along with a small group of students endured with Sensei Claudio. You will understand why I say endured once this tale unfolds.

Back in the spring of '75, there was a group of students that were close friends and lived in the Bronx, N.Y., close to Sensei’s house. That spring, Sensei wanted to offer us special training so Henry, Caz, Tito and myself decided to take him up on the offer. All he told us was that we needed to be ready at 6am, and that he would pick us up.

On that first day, after Sensei picked us up, we asked him where we were going. His answer was Hoteikan Island! So I asked him where is this island? His reply was Orchard Beach. We all looked at each other and said, Cool, a beach workout! Little did we know what was in store for us.

We arrived at the beach and all piled out of the car. It was still early spring so the Beach was not officially open. It was still quite cool in the morning. Sensei got out of his car and started looking around. He told us to find the biggest rocks that we could carry in each hand. This took us a few minutes and when we returned we each had a pair of rocks and a very curious look on our faces.

We had just started commenting about our rocks when all of a sudden Sensei takes off running and says, “Follow me”. Well here we were running down the beach with big rocks in our hands. Sensei headed to the shoreline and continued to run along the surf. We must have run for about 2 miles when in the distance we could see the outcropping of the Jetties through the water at the far end of the beach. We all thought we were going to stop at this point, when Sensei hops on the Jetties and continues running, hopping from pole to pole. Again he tells us “Follow me”. So with rocks in our hands and slipping and stumbling along we tried to catch up to the Master. On the other side of the jetties we stopped in the marsh and Sensei told us to look to our right. To our surprise in the distance past the marsh was what looked like an island! Again he took off and we followed him to the Island. Now it really wasn’t much of an island, with only a couple of trees and large rocks covering it, but in all the times I had been to Orchard Beach I don’t ever remember seeing this here.

Sensei allowed us a few minutes to catch our breath before he said to us “Pick a tree”. With that we each stepped in front of a tree and wondered what he had in store for us now. His instructions were to punch and kick the tree non-stop without putting the rocks down. Yes, we still had those rocks in our hands! We must have punched and kicked those trees for over an hour before he told us to stop. After that we performed Kata. Sensei then turned to us and said that’s enough for today, time to go home. We were all relieved until we noticed that the tide had come up and that our path from the island to the beach was now covered with water. So with sweat pouring down our faces and rocks still in our hands, we now had to wade back to the beach.

When we finally made it back to the car we all collapsed on the ground. At that point Sensei says to us, “Same time next week?” We looked at him like if he was crazy, but each one of us turned to him and exhausted as we were said: “We’ll be here!” This training lasted for 4 weeks! I’ll never forget it as long as I live!