Free Web Hosting Provider - Web Hosting - E-commerce - High Speed Internet - Free Web Page

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.

Muhd. Yakub - Singapore
I am a male student of 17+ years.

Martial Arts that I've studied: Shorin-ryu Karate-do = 2nd Dan, WTF Taekwondo = Brown Belt, Silat-Junior Instructor, Self-taught street style fighting = Brawling / Muay Thai style.

Martial Arts which I would like to study and know:
Muay Thai Kickboxing, Kempo or Kenpo./Okinawan/Nippon, Chinese Martial Arts, Indian/Philippines/Asian Martial Arts.

I would like to know more about Kyokushin and Ashihara karate kaikan. I have a friend who is in Ashihara Karate_KaiKan and another in Kyokushin KaiKan. I know that Ashihara Karate Kai Kan was formerly connected with Kyokushin KaiKan of The Late Oyama Sensei. Of all that i know, Ashihara Karate KaiKan has SABAKI method. So, ...what does Kyokushin Kai Kan has? Other than Full-Contact Style???

I am also interested in Studying KENPO / KEMPO. I've done some of my very own personal researched and found out that KENPO or KEMPO uses Multiple fast hand strikes which is almost similar to that of
the Chinese Arts. Wushu uses this method of fast multiple hand strikes. I would like to study Kenpo or KEMPO. If anyone could advise or tell me some info about KENPO, I would be grateful and thankful.

George Yanase - USA
Hello, My name is George Yanase. I currently train in Okinawan Goju Ryu in Los Angeles, California. I had begun training in karate when I was much younger, I'm 42 now. I began in Shudokan, then with Isshinryu after leaving the military. I injured my knee and stopped training for 13 years, but, two and a half years ago, I started my daughter in Goju and couldn't resist the call of the art. I was recently promoted to Shodan by my sensei Kent Moyer, 7th Dan, Head instructor of the USA branch of Tetsuhiro Hokamas' Kenshi Kai in Okinawa.

Nihat Yigit - Turkey
Hello,

Allen Yuen - Canada
I started training in Shaolin Kung Fu (Sil Lum Gung Fu in Cantonese) at the age of 13, in 1973. The instructor Mr. Kwok Chan, had just arrived in Kingston Ontario Canada, fresh off the boat from Hong Kong. It was the height of Bruce Lee and Hong Kong Chop sockey movies, and Kingston only had one Judo and one karate dojo at the time. So Mr. Chan's arrival and opening of the 'China Kung Fu School' was a timely one.

There were no coloured belts/sashes of rank in Kung Fu at that time. Your rank as it were was your experience in the style and ability to demonstrate and assist instructing newer members.

Mr. Chan's club suffered the fickle nature of the martial arts cycle as Ninja movies came out, and became the flavour of the next cycle. Membership declined drastically and Mr. Chan operated out of his garage and basement in his backyard for a couple of years afterwards. Eventually I stopped going as the demands of high school studies took more and more attention.

I was accepted into Queen's University at Kingston Ontario Canada, and discovered the Queen's Karate Club. At that time, Sensei Ken Fuller (then Sandan) was the instructor, teaching Shorinjiryu Kenyukai Karatedo. Shorinjiryu is a safety contact style. By that I mean full contact punches and kicks to a chest shield ( in the beginning modified kendo armour, and later Supersafe(R) chest protectors) and controlled contact to the head gear. I studied with the Queen's club for a couple of years and ran into an old Gung Fu brother at a Shorinjiryu Tournament in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Mr. Leroy Throop also had joined the Shorinjiryu Kenyukai a few years previously and was now shodan, and operated his own dojo, Bu Yu Kan in Kingston Ontario.

He contacted me a while later when he injured himself in a construction accident. I received permission from Sensei Ken Fuller to leave Queen's Karate club, and go to assist at Bu Yu Kan. In 1983, I was recommended for Shodan, by Mr Throop, and was tested before the Chief Instructor of Shorinjiryu Kenyukai in Canada, Sensei Shigeru Ishino (then Godan). I received my First Degree Black Belt (Shodan) certificate and embroidered black belt. In 1986 I was recommended for Nidan and again tested before the
Chief Instructor of Shorinjiryu Kenyukai in Canada, Sensei Shigeru Ishino (then Rokudan). In 1988, I was recommended for Sandan, but had to decline for financial and health reasons (back injury). Soon afterwards the Shorinjiryu Kenyukai Federation of Canada disintegrated, when Sensei Ishino returned to Japan.

Mr. Throop contacted Shihan Shunji Watanabe at the Japan Karate Center, Reistertown MD in the USA to maintain ties to the Shorinjiryu Kenyukai organzation. After one year Mr. Throop announced to the Bu Yu Kan dojo, that we would be an independant dojo. What that meant was no further Dan promotions or opportunity for advanced learning. I stuck it out, because of my devotion to the club and the students.

Complications at the birth of my third son and subsequent surgery procedures in 1996, forced me to leave the club to concentrate on my family. Over the next two years away from the Bu Yu Kan, I re-thought where I was at in the Martial Arts and where I wanted to be after 25 years (1973-1998) in the Martial Arts. I wrote to Hanshi Masayuki Kukan Hisataka at the Shorinjiryu Kenkokan Hombu dojo in Tokyo Japan to seek out dojo in Canada I might affiliate myself with, and was accepted. I created a Shorinjiryu Kenkokan Karatedo webpage in 1998, and have assisted other Shorinjiryu branches and dojo with their webpages.

Through my webpage, a student of Shihan Shigeru Ishino, contacted me. This led to direct contact with Shihan Ishino and an invitation to his Genbukan dojo in Montreal Quebec to finally test for my Sandan in 2000.

I currently teach a small group of Shorinjiryu enthusiasts in my own dojo, Shi Ryu Kai. I also cross train with the Ninja Ryu Jiu Jitsu club out of the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) here in Kingston Ontario. I have purchased tapes from Hossain Narker's ASHIHARA Intn'l to take advantage of his Distance Learning program.

Shaharin Yussof - Australia
I started training in Kyokushin at the age of 13, for about a year, while I was living in Iran back in about 1972. The scoutmaster of the British school which my younger brother and sister attended was a shodan in both Kyokushin and Judo. The kids learnt Judo, and the older students could learn karate. I remember very little about it except that the instructor's name was Mr. Grant. (If you're out there and reading this, let me know how you are!) We only had an 8 kyu system there, which also included an orange belt, which is the highest grade I got to. I think it was the equivalent of what I now know of as senior yellow belt or 5th kyu. We were also required to know a bit of judo for the gradings.

The next time I started was in 1974 or 1975, while I was in Singapore. This time it was under the then 5th dan Peter Chong (now 7th dan). One of his students, then a brown belt, was a teacher at the school I attended (the United World College of South East Asia). He organised a demonstration, in which Peter Chong performed several amazing feats:
Firstly, he had a car drive over his stomach (using a plank for a ramp).
Then, he had two blocks of granite placed on his chest while he lay down, and someone smashed them both with a sledge hammer. The impressive part was that, before he lay down, he broke a few bottles on the ground where he was to lie down! When he got up, there was not a scratch on his back. And thirdly, a couple of his yudansha attempted, unsuccessfully, to break an (empty) Johnny Walker bottle with a mawashi geri, while it was being held by the neck. Peter Chong shouldered the black belt aside, wordlessly saying "Let me show you how it's done!" and he did it! The glass from the shattered bottle literally sprayed across the school's drive way like water!

I was sixteen and veeeery impressed! I joined his class. Unfortunately, I only got past one grading (starting at white belt), where I double graded, and then had to quit because my "A" levels got in the way. For those unfamiliar with the British educational system, those are the final year high school exams.

After I came to Australia, I decided that it was time to do something again, and I found the nearest Kyokushin dojo to where I live. That's where I've been training since 1990. I passed my shodan test on December 15th, 1996. It only took me about 24 years to get there. I am the senior grade in a class of about 10-15 adult students and up to 20 children, and sometimes, when Shihan Doug Turnbull is away, I get to teach. That's useful, since it makes me think about how I'm doing my techniques.

Return to Home Page

Updated by Hoosain Narker