I wanted to share a few thoughts on lineage, as it applies to karate-do. I’ve said many times before that the most important thing is your immediate instructor, his/her abilities as a teacher, knowledge, disposition, etc; coupled with your earnest efforts, which hopefully produce good results. However, one of the reasons I have devoted so many years to Shotokan Karate-Do is that I guess my own inclination is to like a traditional martial art with a history to it. As a result, I have spent quite a bit of time studying the history of our style, its famous instructors, etc.

As most of you know, I began training in Shotokan right after I entered college, back in 1969. While I first began teaching in 1974, I also continued to train until about 1995 or so, stopping when I was about 44 years old. During this time, I was fortunate enough to have many excellent instructors, but four of them stand out in my mind: Shihan Kenneth Funakoshi, Sensei Ed Fujiawara, Sensei Ron Taketa, and Sensei Chester Sasaki. I trained under Funakoshi and Fujiwara for a combined period of about 15 years, with Taketa during my formative ikkyu and shodan years, and with Sasaki while I was in California. The greatest influences on me, Funakoshi and Fujiwara both were black belts prior to ever studying Shotokan…the former in Kajukenbo, the latter in Wado-ryu. Both were direct students of Senseis Kanazawa, Mori and Asai over a 9-10 year period. These three JKA instructors were “missionaries” sent out by the famous Japan Karate Assn to spread the practice of Shotokan to America back in the early sixties. Kanazawa and Asai were both all-JKA kumite champions and among the very few graduates of the grueling JKA instructors course, offered as a graduate level program. Kanazawa went on to become a legend in karate world-wide, with millions of members in his organization, the ISKF. Asai went on to become the Chief Instructor world-wide, of the JKA in the late 80’s (millions of members) before it was finally rent apart by politics and legal challenges. He now heads up the JKS, an international organization. Mori is one of the highest ranking Shotokan sensei in America, currently teaching out of New York. These JKA instructors were all students of Nakayama Masatoshi, founder of the JKA…who, in turn, was a direct student of Funakoshi Gichin, the Okinawan master who founded the Shotokan system, and introduced it to Japan in 1922. Obviously, I never knew the founder (he died in 1957), but from reading his writings and what others write about him, he appears to have been a very humble, probably religious man, a school teacher and intellectual who was called away from his rural island and family, to share this art in Japan proper, when he was in his late fifties. We’re fortunate to be given the opportunity to learn Shotokan due to his sacrifices and the efforts of other sensei down the line.

In future notes, I’ll try to share something about these various Shotokan experts with you, so that you get a feel for them, as person, beyond just a name. They are directly in the lineage of instructors who taught what they knew from one person to another, which ultimately leads to you and whoever you might share with one day. I think it’s important to know that so much of what I share with you, comes either conciously or unconciously, from what I picked up directly or indirectly, as a student of my instructors. This is what makes an art, an art…it is more than just sterile training…it is a transmission of the underlying values and character of the instructor who is willing to personally share the benefits of the art with others over a period of years. I think that knowing some of this history, can help make the practice of Shotokan, a deeper, more meaningful experience for each of us.