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 1973, 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 finished the eight-week course and really liked the training. One of my best friends’ brother was working at the Keishinkan Dojo and asked 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, 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 and quit my job. He owed me 5 weeks of back pay. Well after an hour in his office, I walk out with 50 bucks and was 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 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 sign up five new people a week.  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 wasn’t selling I was just letting them into the dojo. Well we finally got rid of Mr. Conn, and Sensei and I opened up the 36^th St. Dojo. It was what we both had wanted: a true dojo just for students who wanted to be there.

This went on until Sensei had to leave, we couldn’t get him a green card. So, after he left I moved to L.A. and trained with Sensei Shinohara for five months. I entered a few tournaments there and did alright. I was a brown belt. I tested under Sensei Shinohara in 1983 for my black belt. I taught for the Community Education programs for seven years, and met an exchange student named Yoich Kawai, a black belt in Kyokushinkai. We trained together for a number of years and he helped me get in touch with Master Takazawa again. 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 that Master Takazawa sent Konosuke Yokoyama to my dojo for nine months to train. I had met Ko before in Japan when I went to a Koshiki Tournament. I tore my Achilles tendon fighting with Ko.

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

There had been some rough times, but I kept on going and my love for karate has never left me. 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 black belts,  some have  started their own schools and some are still training with me every week.

Keishinkan has been my only style of karate, and after 37 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, visiting Japan in the 90’s and watching my students grow up in our dojo in the 2000’s. Remember, if not us who will pass on our Karate?

See you in the dojo