Haha, I guess that it’s around now that we stop saying “Happy New Year” when we someone for the first time in 2018.  Five days in, though, the year is still very new.  I have such great memories of the new year – and several relate to karate. Waaay back, nearly 50 years ago, it was the cusp between the 1960’s and 1970’s.  I was a young freshman at the University of Hawaii, enjoying the holiday season and my first semester break from classes.  One fateful night, I called an old friend and classmate to wish him a Happy New Year.  He invited me to come over and talk story.  I drove over to his parents’ Pearl City home (hadn’t seen him in a year or two, as we went to different high schools) to wish him and his family Happy New Year as the world said goodbye to the 1960’s.  Years earlier, we trained in Aikido together but had lost touch with each other and the dojo by 1969.  While waiting for him in the living room, I noticed that there were several karate trophies on the stereo – with his name on them.  He had started training in Shotokan Karate and [...]

This is for those who are interested in “how we got here”.  Back, over 25 years ago, a fellow instructor and friend of mine and I decided that we wanted to teach our children Karate-Do the way we thought it should be shared.  His idea was to train our own children in his garage, which I felt was a somewhat limited venue and made less than full use of two veteran instructors.  One thing led to another, and we ended up founding a dojo with him as Chief Instructor and Vice President, and myself as Asst Chief Instructor and President.  It turned out to be a good dojo with a membership of between 50-70 karateka.  I felt that we offered good quality training in the art of Karate-Do and folks enjoyed training with us, while we truly enjoyed sharing our perspective on Shotokan with others.  My initial purpose for this endeavor – training for my children – was fulfilled, as my son made it to ikkyu (high brown belt) while my daughter achieved her shodan there.  I had a great time with that dojo for nearly 10 years. Everything was going well, but over time two things nagged at me: The necessary cost of incorporation, taxes, rent, insurance, etc were all charges [...]

Well, here’s a Youtube video of a brother and sister (they were around 10 and 6 years old at the time of filming) practicing the Heian Katas and Tekki Shodan.  Sensei Peter and I thought you might find it interesting since the majority of our group is practicing one of these half a dozen katas (Shotokan actually encompasses 26-30 katas, depending upon the dojo, so you can imagine that it does take a while to learn them all).   At the same time, we thought you might find it inspiring as the two siblings have good basics, form and speed.  They’re very serious students from Japan.  Since they practice the Shotokan style of Karate-Do, you should find the movements the same as ours with a few very minor differences.  These children (Mahiro and Masaki) likely spend time practicing their karate on a daily basis, which is a big reason that they are so accomplished in the art.  We don’t expect you to do that, but just think how much better you could be if you practiced your techniques with this intensity for a couple of hours every day. Please note that there is no extra movement – they quickly thrust and lock into each step with precision and kime.  They [...]