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MASTER CLYDE STANLEY

Some people may not be familiar with Clyde Stanley. Clyde’s dojo is in Louisiana and he attends only the Hall Of Fame tournament in our region. That is our loss. Clyde is one of those guys you always wish you could spend more time with. Interesting and instantly likeable, you always come away having told him a lot about yourself and not hearing much about him. That’s because he prefers it that way. For those who don’t know and don’t want to spend years pulling it out of him, I’m going to share with you a few of his accomplishments. His dojo, "Clyde Stanley’s Karate and Self Defense is located in Minden, Louisiana. For starters it was named as one of the top 100 martial arts schools in the nation. In 1998 it was chosen "dojo of the year" but the H.O.F. Clyde is a student of the Legendary Joel Chandler. Which in itself is an honor. Clyde began his martial arts training in 1972. He is currently president of the Tatsu-Kan Society. He is the co-founder of Half Circle Jiu-jitsu and is a charter member of the American Freestyle Grappling Association. He has also been featured in several who’s who publications to include Black Belt magazine. There’s more......He is a member of the Louisiana Blackbelt Hall of Fame and was inducted in 1998 into the Isshin-Ryu Hall Of Fame. He has also been named to the Isshin-Ryu Hall Of Fame board of directors. Aside from His Dojo duties he trains police officers, sheriff’s deputies, FBI and swat teams members. He currently is the chief survival instructor for the National Association of Certified Interdiction Officers. This organization was founded to better educate police officers in the detection of illegal drugs. There’s more but the most telling description of Clyde’s accomplishments came from "Super Isshin-Ryu wife"; Trish. She wrote me a letter telling me what a great guy Clyde is and how unselfish and giving he is. It was one of the more touching testimonies of love and support that I have ever read. It was only typical in this since. Every person that I have written about so far or plan to write about has a "Super Isshin-Ryu spouse”. It becomes increasingly clear that in order to dedicate yourself to the Martial Arts, your greatest asset is a supportive spouse. My old senior partner use to lecture we junior partners that success is a family endeavor. You got to be in it together he would say. How right he was. He was talking about people like Clyde and Trish. Once again you have to talk about them because they won’t talk about themselves. Get this!! Clyde doesn’t wear his Masters belt most of the time in class. Most of his students don’t know what rank he is. Guess what! I don’t know what rank he is either. He is proud of his rank; it just doesn’t define him as a man. On the other hand it kind of does. Accomplished Master; credit to his family, Sensei, students and friends. What he appears to be and much more.

 Master Denny Shaffer, Ku-Dan