We are saddened to note that Grandmaster Philip Ola, High-Dan Board Member Elect, passed away on December 11, 2013. Mr. Ola was one of the original black belts in Allen Steen’s Texas Karate Institute in the 1960s and went on to teach not only for Mr. Steen but also for Jhoon Rhee in Washington D.C. He trained in other styles and earned dan rank in several other martial arts. The AKBBA and Mr. Steen awarded him a 10th Dan in the summer of 2013. He served in D.C. as a legislative aid to the House of Representatives and as a lobbyist for the steel industry. He earned an MBA from Loyola University and later returned to his native Texas and opened a real estate business in Arlington, TX. The martial arts community is richer because of the influence of Phil Ola.
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WAY-back, in the 1960’s, I actually trained, under Phillip Ola, AND his younger BROTHER, Bob Ola, in a modest Dojo, in East Arlington, Texas, RIGHT-next-to a little-bitty, but perfectly-good Mexican Restaurant. This was where I first observed then-Brown Belt WALT BONE, who, in ALL of my SUBSEQUENT DECADES of Martial Arts training, in five different systems, was STILL the ONE man who could deliver, 100%, THE very-most utterly-disastrous SIDE KICK.
No, SERIOUSLY, Folks, Walt Bone really OUGHT to-have-had a Federally-mandated SIGN, on him, that simply-said: “DO NOT APPROACH!”
Perhaps my very-favorite memory about the Ola Brothers, was that, farther-back, deeper-in, to the back-end of their DOJO, was their sleeping area, where MUCH of that floorspace had been taken-up, with the disassembled parts of what looked, to-ME, like EVERYONE ONE of the components of TWO Harley Davidson Sportsters, meaning that, for somebody from “back-then,” those Ola Brothers had torn those bikes down, to be built back-up.