Clarence Allen replaced one of the original Karate 5 Senseis. In this photo he was receiving a promotion from the legendary Master Harold Long. He always trained hard and was one of our dear friends. We miss you, dear friend! ****************************************************************************************************************Remembering Clarence, by Jon Whitehead
I first met Clarence Allen a short time after I joined the Karate 5 Dojo. My friend Jim Dykes and I were getting our in first lesson in Veejitsu from Master Lee. Clarence arrived shortly after we started and joined in the class, and we spent the evening working on the " V " step and humanized makiwaras. After class, Clarence opened his gym bag and began pulling out an amazing variety of martial arts weapons. Sticks, knives, nunchaka......Clarence used to demonstrate the Philippine balisong knives in exhibitions. I remember Master Lee shaking his head and commenting " if he gets pulled over, he's going to jail " I was a brown belt returning to training after an extended absence. Clarence was a second degree black belt. He also had been on a hiatus from martial arts training; he had been working a second job. We both were ready to get back in shape and hungry to learn more. Clarence told me that we were going to rely on each other for motivation because of the strenuous training we had to endure. Since both of us had not trained this way for a while , we could help each other. This would help me in my new studies of Vee-jitsu and Sanuces Ryu. Clarence always watched each student closely. His specialty was in not having a specialty, he concentrated on filling in any gaps he saw in a student's training. If we had been sparring a lot, Clarence would look at our katas. He worked to make sure no important areas were overlooked in our training. We practiced the humanized makiwara and stick drills from Veejitsu regularly. We also ate a lot of hot dogs together at Hardee's after class. It is sad that Clarence didn't live to see the recognition the Karate Five Dojo began to receive in the late 1990s, but his spirit is with us today. Rest in peace brother, we all miss you.
