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Sabaki List Member Profiles

This page will feature profiles on members of the Sabaki Talk Discussion List.
Members are listed in alphabetical order. New members to be added in due course.

Diana Davila - USA
martial arts background - I have a background in northern shaolin kung fu, but also have experience sport karate and shorei goju ryu. My instructor is a 5th degree black belt from the Baker brothers in Chicago (preston and otis)

Harry Davis - England
Me?.. er.. Briefly.. started in MA in 1967 ... doing judo here in England... did that for five years... ended up getting injured .. took 23 years off to grow up a bit, have a family, emigrated to the US and all that.. and finally plucked up courage to get back into things when my son showed interest in karate... studying Joshinmon Shorin-ryu, a Kyan lineage Shorin-ryu which spread mostly to Soviet-influenced countries after being initially being introduced to Cuba .... and then spread through Cuban emigres to the US
and elsewhere... and so, anyway we did the old father/son thing and trained together and were awarded our Black Belts together on the same day.. We subsequently moved back here to UK... and on after a visit to Japan last year I was "invited" to start teaching.. and so I do.. and have a small school down here in the west of England... and rank wise I am amazed to find myself Nidan.

Badal Dayal - India
My name is Badal Dayal , I am 24yrs old and I am an Indian living in Delhi , I am practising karate from last 9yrs . I am brown 1st kyu in ashihara and kyokushin as well. Actually previously, I was in ashihara kai kan under shihan Dadi Bulsara but now I am in kyokushin under sensei Vimal Kumar and hopefully will become Blackbelt in January 2002.

Keyvan Dehnad - Switzerland (Iran)
My name is Keyvan Dehnad and I live in Zurich. I was born in Iran and I have been living a long time in Switzerland, USA, Japan... I am a specialist in general sports and my major sport is martial arts,7th Dan Judo,5th Dan Karate-do
International referee and highest rank as Iranian in Judo.
I complet my study (Ph.D) in Physical Education. and I continue my second major in Human Behavior, graduated,master of Arts in Human Behavior (Education). Now, I pursue my second Ph.D.
President of BUDO INTERNATIONAL & IRAN JUJITSU FEDERATION
HONBUCHO OF IRAN & SWITZERLAND THE NATIONAL KARATE &
KOBUDO FEDERATION OSAKA JAPAN
Chairman of International Devision of Iran Seishinkai Shito-Ryo Karate Union
& DC Member iran karate federation&Iran Judo federation

Koen de Backker - Belgium
I started with Judo at age of 12 and became 3th kyu after 5 years.
I took up karate at age of 18 at the Oyama Karate Dojo in Turnhout under leadership of sensei Pol Van Den Troost. This dojo was regulary visited by shihan Max Gebhardt who brought Kyokushin in Belgium as the first branch chief of Sosai. At this period Shihan Gebhardt had already broken with the IKO.
After a few years the dojo was taken over sensei Chris Snoeckx. The training in this dojo was very severe and the number of students gradudally lowered. In the end the dojo had to stop and the students went to a another dojo under leadership of shihan Willy Beernaert (around 1989). In this dojo the system was very different and the kumite system was not semi contact iso knockdown. So I left for an official IKO-affiliated dojo in 1990. Already a 3th kyu I had to do 3th kyu grading again according to IKO-syllabus. In this organisation I became 2nd and also 1st Kyu. When I reached 2nd kyu I started with another Karateka a dojo in Turnhout.
After the death of Sosai Oyama, the Belgian group was devided in two and we followed the IKO_2 direction. I left this in group 1996 to join the in the mean time erected IKO_3. Together with my teacher shihan Marc Van Walleghem we went to Japan to have a public grading under supervision of Kancho Matsushima, Shihan John Taylor and lots of others shihan and sensei from Japan and abroad. At this moment I am nidan and run again my own dojo in Vosselaar (Belgium). I'm also secretary of the Belgian Kyokushin IKO_Matsushima group.
I my Karate-life I had the honour of training with a lot of people often with tremendous skills or profound insight of Karate-Do, Budo and/or Kyokushinkai. I would like to thank them all, osu!
Besides practising Kyokushin I also trained Wado-Ryu at the Leuven University Karate Club as well as self-defence (a mix of Karate, Judo, Kick-boxing etc ...).

Lloyd de Jongh - South Africa
My

Chris de Wet - Singapore/USA (South Africa)
My name is Chris de Wet, a South African on seemingly continous transplantation. I am now living in Singapore after 8 years in the USA, and time in Europe before that. I started my Karate training in 1977 after having been taught some rudimentry boxing skills by my father for a couple of years. (A man to whom I owe a tremendous amount. He was very dubious about this Karate "thing", so he gave me stern direction, "You can start, but you can never stop. Don't cry, don't whine, I don't want to hear it. Now go and make your decision." I have never been as thankful for any other piece of advice.)

January of 1980 I joined the International Okinawan Goju Ryu Karate-do Federation (IOGKF), of which I am still a member. Higaonna Sensei recently gave me the honor and responsibility of being the member representitive for Singapore, and I look forward to this new challenge. In addition to this affiliation, I am also a member of the Kodokan under Kimo Wall Sensei and IKO 1 under Shihan Peter Chong, as a very junior member.

Long known by the fond nickname of 'dojo nut' (and some others, not so nice), I totally agree. I am probably happiest on the dojo floor, and wish to train with any and all that have the same outlook.

I believe that there is no growth without challenge, and that we should all challenge ourselves in one thing every day of our lives. GAMBATTE!!!

Vivian Dhaliwal - England
My name is Vivian Dhaliwal and I have been training since errmmmmm 1974/5 or thereabouts. My introduction to martial arts was through a friend who insisted that I go with her to the new ladies class in Nottingham (United Kingdom/England).

I started training and from then on I was hooked. I not only continued my training but proceeded to marry my Sensei (Ustad) and have two wonderful sons (17) and (19) who also train (well the choices was theirs but when you leave stuff lying around the house young people have a tendency to pick them up and read/use etc).

My eldest son Dev (19) and is a first degree black belt in the Artform of Tetsduo (see www.tetsudo.co.uk - any questions relating to this artform would prefer to answer on a one to one basis rather than use up bandspace(width?) on this Sabaki forum. My youngest son Arun (17) is a fully fledged blue belt and for the first time attempting competitive freestyle at our National Competition this year at the Moorways Centre, Derby on 14th April.

Myself, I continue to train in my artform and I enjoy adding to my martial arts skills the joys of "pumping" iron which I do like. What you see is maybe what you get (see profile picture) J I enjoy talking martial arts to like-minded people who can look beyond a technique and/or movement and look at the principles behind the technique. Bearing in mind that thought I also like to look beyond behavioural aspects of what people (martial artists) are doing and try and work out what direction their thought processes are coming from. I like thinking people that are polite and courteous. I have an open-minded attitude without recourse to martial art political arenas which
are fights where the generals are nowhere to be find but the soldiers get shot a lot for their ideals (this is said with much smiling and hopefully I wont got shot down myself in flames for my first attempt at communication on this list).

Diane,
I am also new to the list. I have been studying Shotokan for about 4 years and have red kyu. My sensei is Dan Kairaitis from Lithuania. Enjoy the list very much. Osu,

Frank Docherty - England
My name is Frank Docherty, I am 36 years old, live in London, and I am a practitioner of the English martial arts - that is Bare fist fighting, Quarterstaff, sword work, knife work, as well as many other weapons. I work in the security field for the government and have practised the Martial Arts for over twenty years now. I have been practising the English Martial Arts for nearly 13 years now and am a Provost in grade, and am very pleased that I was able to find genuine western martial arts still alive today.

I studied kick boxing before that and am a qualified self defence and kickboxing instructor. I have also studied western boxing, as well as five animals kung fu (Hap Kune Do), in which I reached a black sash in, I also managed to grade Shodan in Jodo, and Iaido. But I stopped all of this to concentrate on the English methods.

John Diweshek - USA
My name is John Diwishek, I've been training in the arts for 15 years (traditional: taekwondo, shotokan, shorin ryu, FMAs, jujutsu and eclectic/modern: chanshoudo, buryudo, boxing, kickboxing) I'm currently preparing to test for sandan in taekwondo, shotokan, & shorinryu.

My present system/instructor is koncho Shigeki Umemoto w/ Toushikan martial arts institute, based out of Great Falls, Montana. I teach for a youth organization called Young Olympians (have about 350-400 kids/students) and periodically do seminars or classes with my old schools in Minnesota.

I haven't competed since the early 1990's but will be getting back into things next year as toushikan will be competing internationally again. Even though I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 250-300 fights under my belt (never really counted or kept track as they were in so many different formats/organizations), I've only switched over to training with Koncho Umemoto about a year ago. I will say that I have the utmost respect for him and for giving me the opportunity to train in his organization.

As a side note: I was at this years sabaki in Denver and was a little dissapointed to the lack of turnout/participation (6 middle weights and only 2 heavy weights) I was very impressed with, and glad to see, the womans division. Hisako Nomura fought incredibly well considering that she gave up so much height,weight, and reach.

Looking forward to some good discussions,

John Diwishek

Niel du Toit - South Africa
I am Niel du Toit from East London in South Africa. I have been practising Martial arts for about 10 years now and as they say still going strong.
In my martial arts career I have studied various styles but my main style is Tae Kwon-do in which I have attained my black belt. I have been very successful so far being awarded Springbok colours twice once in 1994 and then again in 1995.
Other styles I have practised in Aikido, Genbukan Ninpo,Kokusai Ju-jitsu renmei and Koga ryu Ninjutsu. I have attained various gradings in all of these styles but have not been able to practise them fullu due to the scarcity of instructors.

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