THE STRIKING POST

This is a start of a new column I will be writing once a month. Through the years I have been asked a number of questions about Karate and Keishinkan. So this will be an attempt to answer those question and subjects. Some of the articles I will be writing about are “KI” “Speed and Focus    THE START OF BOISE KEISHINKAN

Keishinkan came into the Boise valley around 1972 by J.D.Conn a blackbelt from the Midwest. Mr. Conn was an okay blackbelt,  but his expertise was in talking and sales. I asked him once why he was in Boise, His response was “just going down the map” which pretty much sums him up. The best thing about him was bringing in Keishinkan; He had met Sensei Shinohara in the Midwest and was promoted to blackbelt.

Around March or April of 73 I took a karate class at a Community Education class in Boise. This was a shotokan class taught by Mr. Herman a blackbelt under Sensei Oshima of the S.K.A. I finish the eight-week course and really like the training.  One of my best friend’s brother was working at the Keishinkan Dojo and ask me to” come and train with us.” This was May or June of 1973. I ended up getting a job with the Dojo. The next five years were training and tournaments and opening new dojos. As I said before that Jim Conn was into opening new dojos and making as much money as he could. It turned out that he would never pay the bills or his employees, I remember one time I was going to his office to collect my pay, (he owed me weeks of back pay), and quit working for him, well after a hour in is office I walk out with 50 bucks and happy to be there. ????

He was so good at using people; also I was so into Karate that I really didn’t want to quit. Sensei Odaohara was here at this time and he wasn’t very happy about what was going on. It was a bitter/sweet time of my life, having the time to work and train with Sensei Odaohara and be at the Dojo and then having to deal with J.D.Conn. We would do demos and travel around to tournaments. My job was to enroll students. We had three sales people and we had to sigh up five new people a week So it was a busy time we would get names of people from demos and call them up, get then to come down to the dojo and sell them a membership. It was easy because I was so into karate that I felt I wasn’t selling, I was just letting them into the dojo. Well when we finally got rid of Mr. Conn. Sensei Odaohara and I open up the 36th St. Dojo it was what we both had wanted,  a true dojo just for students who wanted to be there. This went on for two years until Sensei had to leave, we couldn’t get him a green card. So after he left,  I moved to L.A. to trained with Sensei Shinohara at his dojo.  I enter a few tournaments down there and did all right, I was a brownbelt at that time. I tested under Sensei Shinohara in 1983 for my blackbelt. I began teaching for the Community Education, which lasted for seven years.  This is when I met an exchange student named Yoichi Kawai, a blackbelt in Kyokushinkai. We trained together for a number of years and he help me get back in touch with Master Takazawa. I met Sensei in Las Vegas in 1989 and started to travel to Japan in the 90’s for training and tournaments. This was the time when Master Takazawa sent Konosuke Yokoyama to My dojo for nine months for training. I had met Ko in 1992  in Japan when I went to a Koshiki Tournament,  I torn my Achilles tendon fighting with Ko.

I built the Willow Street dojo in 1995 and have been teaching and training there every since.

There as been some rough times but I kept on going and my love for karate as never left. Over the years I have been lucky enough to train with some of the best karate-ka, not just Keishinkan but other styles. I have promoted a number of blackbelts,  some have  started their own schools and some are still training with me every week.

Keishinkan as been my only style of karate and after 39 years of training I still love to be in the dojo. I pass on the Katas of Master Masumura and Master Itosu and the teachings of Master Toyama and Master Takazawa as I was taught. All of my ranks have been from Japanese teachers, and I am very proud of being able to say I am a member of Keishinkan Karate-do.

Life is just moments you remember one here and there,  some of my best moments are of karate, from the early 50’s watching karate demos in Tachikawa Air force base where Sensei Takazawa was teaching, Seeing Master Takazawa doing Kata in the 70’s,  winning tournaments in the 80’s, training in Japan in the 90’s, and watching my students grow up in our dojo in the 2000’s. Remember if not for us who will pass on our Karate…

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US Branch of Japan Keishinkan Karate