06/16/2022
I'm sorry to announce, Sensei Dean Stephens passed away this morning. This isn't going to be a full on obituary but I do want to say a few things.
I was introduced to Sensei Dean, who I never in all my years heard called Sensei Stephens, by Jeramy Stinnett after I came to Boise from Okinawa almost 25 years ago. I started studying from Sensei Dean at Jeramy's dojo, the largest school in the valley at the time, shortly after. I remember asking Jeramy about payment, and he explained that Dean refused to accept payment for the classes and with Dean having refused to take payment, Jeramy didn't feel right asking for money for either. Never mind the rent he was paying for the building and the fact that introducing a new art to his school was soon to have cataclysmic consequences on the number of students attending. Jeramy refused to accept payment. This was just the tip of Sensei Dean's influential shadow.
Sensei Dean never did accept monthly dues. It's not that he was rich or selfless. It's that when you were in Sensei's presence there wasn't room for money. What there was room for was karate, kobudo, and fighting...and nothing else. No compliments, that's ego and there's no room for that. Had a bad day? Leave it at the door, there's only room for karate. Didn't practice? You are probably going to regret that choice, but no room for practice now, only karate. Is it a holiday? Presidential election? Want to argue about the way someone else does it? Doesn't matter. There's no room for those things in front of Sensie Dean. Only karate, kobudo, and fighting.
It was a pure experience. Sensei Dean had flaws, but what he brought to the dojo was pure, brilliant, and alive. It was effective and that wasn't just a theory. Whether you were prepared or not, he was always happy to show you. I think it confused him to some extent that people needed to see it though. To him a technique's effectiveness was as clear as a neon sign on a wall. Same with a kata. Same with a person.
"How did that feel?" was his favorite question in class. He asked it more often than not after doing a kata with him or having him watch. Almost like he was trying to get each student to talk with their real teacher. The way something feels. He would point to the way something feels over and over, like pointing to a neon sign.
We are having class today. He wouldn't have it any other way. I encourage every person who knew him to do at least one kata today. Ask yourself how that kata felt after you do it and then I think he'd approve. Maybe not of the technique itself as he almost never did, but of practicing karate and listening to how it felt. There's really no room for his approval anyway. Only karate. He'll go first:
https://youtu.be/5w_mS-67bSw
