Elvis Presley: Say MMA Hall of Fame
“The King”
Specializes in Karate
Elvis’s Black Belt
Elvis was exposed to Karate in 1958 in the Army, stationed in Germany. His first instructor was a German shotokan stylist named Juergen Seydel. During his leaves he would go to Paris to take private lessons with Tetsugio Murakami, one of Japan’s top shotokan stylists, whom helped pioneer shotokan in Europe. He would sometimes spend nine straight days studying for several hours a day with Murakami. It was during this time than Elvis would also start conditioning his hands for board breaking which was something he would need when he would later test for his Shodan under Hank Slomanski. He also began collecting books on Karate.
Training with Hank Slomanski was broken down into:
- Basics; Kick-Punch-Block.
- Rolling and falling.
- Close hand-to-hand self defense.
- Hand-to-hand against knives and other weapons.
- As part of the training, and in the test for Black Belt, Elvis had to know how to set broken and dislocated bones.
- Breaking of boards – bare first – and fingers against boards.
- Kumite – no pads – no gloves – Contact – especially to the body was expected and demanded.
“…The report was that no one ever tried twice to become “top gun” – your first “ass kicking” by Hank or his top assistant, fourth degree black belt Sgt. Saur, was your official initiation into the real world of “self defense”.
As Hank would tell us later: He wanted to find out what the kid was made of. The first day of training was simply designed to let Elvis get used to the type of training he was in for. To his credit, Elvis was in great shape physically and came through the hard, tough, training drills as well as most of Hank’s own “rangers.”
Hank took his top student, 4th degree Black Belt Sgt, Saur, aside and told him: Keep away from his face, but put him down. I want you to hurt him bad – break a few ribs if you have to. Everyone sat back to watch Elvis to see if he was really the “King” or a whimpering “candy ass.” The “match-up between Elvis and Saur started out slowly as Saur was feeling him out and setting up his man. Of course Elvis had watched other fights the previous lesson and realized this was something he had never been exposed to before. Then at a nod from Hank, Sgt Saur exploded with a series of full contact blows to Elvis’s body which dropped Elvis to his hands and knees. It was obvious that Elvis was hurt and feeling the pain. Then Hank related, “I saw Elvis slowly get up with that sneer on his face … then I saw in his eyes what we usually see only in war: Elvis wanted to kill!”
As the two men once again clashed the fight had to be broken up and the two men separated. “…Hank further related, “but I found out what I wanted to know. The kid was a fighter – not a quitter. And prove it Elvis did. He was awarded his coveted black belt after six weeks of persistent suffering inflicted by Hank Slomanski, and anyone who knew the principals in this little drama knew there could be no favoritism involved. It should also be noted that Elvis was only one of a handful of civilians to whom Hank ever awarded “Black Belt”.
Story from full article at: www.tracyskarate.com