I’ve often written about Shihan Kenneth Funakoshi, who taught your HISKF instructors so much of what we know. Sensei Peter, Wayne, and I were fortunate to have him personally instruct us for years at both the Special Training classes at the main dojo in the 1970s and, years later, at the Mililani dojo. Even Sensei Trisha’s first lessons were under his tutelage. Shihan is in his mid-eighties these days and retired from active teaching.
In our memories however, he is still that young, charismatic karate champion of our youth. In his prime, he was a burly, solid, and powerful presence both inside and outside of the dojo. As earnest young students, we all tried out best to emulate his movements. The magic of YouTube allows you to see how we remember our teacher’s movements in kata. This was filmed back in 1986 at Magic Island. Shihan was in his late forties at the time and had been asked by Panther Productions to film a series of videos on Shotokan Karate-Do. As I recall, it was a perfect day in the perfect location to feature Shihan performing kata in the natural tropical outdoors. In this video, he’s demonstrating Heian Godan. That perfect day also meant that it was hot and sunny, with Shihan executing kata after kata (sometimes with multiple takes) with various beachgoers walking by. He had great stamina, as we were at the park for several hours that day. A group of us black belts were videoed in other portions of the 10 tape series and I can confirm that performing in our gi’s out in the burning sun, on the grass and later, on hot concrete (Sensei Ed continued to perform despite developing blisters on his feet from the concrete!) was harder than in the dojo – but made for great scenic shots.