From July 12 to 13, Canada held its annual Ryusei Summer Camp in the beautiful resort area near Barry’s Bay, Ontario. The camp was special because it brought together long-time members from Ontario and Quebec with new ones, including people from Atlantic Canada and Whitby. Our long-time friends from Pittsburgh and Florida also joined us,…
This Q&A introduces Randy Roach and his Cheticamp Karate Club to the rest of the Ryusei members. Despite his remote location on Cape Breton Island, Randy has pursued his love of martial arts travelling hours at a time by car to get instruction. More than a decade ago, he and Scott Aucoin opened their dojo…
Mike and Dawn Brown are a married team in life and a karate teaching duo who run the West River School of Karate, based in Rustico and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Mike, a 5th dan, and Dawn, a 4th dan, combine an island sense of hospitality and charm with a devotion to martial arts excellence…
The head of our style, Sakamoto-Sensei, is an 8th dan, and he decided that Ryusei Karate-Do would be an eight-dan system. So we have no ninth or 10th dans. The fewer black belt ranks didn’t mean much to us 24 years ago when Ryusei Karate came to Canada. We were all far from reaching his…
Ce qui suit est une entrevue avec Chantal Lepage et Anik DesRosiers, les deux instructeurs du Onnano Dojo de Sherbrooke, Québec (Canada). Le dojo a été fondé par Chantal en 2001, dédié à aider les femmes victimes de violence et d’autres types d’abus. Aujourd’hui, le dojo suit toujours ce mandat et propose régulièrement des cours…
In December 2023, we were proud to accept Ed Docherty-Sensei and his International Chito-Ryu Karate & Fitness (ICKF) dojo as members of Ryusei Karate-Do Canada. Ed is a sixth dan who runs a strong school in Whitby, Ontario, and maintains a deep relationship with his own sensei, Art Bellhouse, one of the pioneers of Chito-Ryu…
Senior practitioners of Chito-ryu karate live under long shadows. First there is enormous shadow cast by founder Tsuyoshi Chitose, a martial arts virtuoso who studied under many masters and synthesized what he learned into his remarkable art. Then there are the shadows cast by the pioneers who introduced Chito-ryu to their countries and amassed impressive…
The English-language Ryusei Karate-Do Technical Manual was published last fall. It includes a translation of the original Japanese manual, written by Sakamoto-Sensei, with his understanding of Chito-ryu technique, as well some excursions into history and philiosophy. To this we have added illustrations of the lower belt techniques, kata and bunkai and an expanded glossary. To top this…
When Sakamoto-Sensei came to Canada in 2000, he did a demonstration and for the first time I got to see the koryu kata being performed. These are old style or ancient kata once performed in Okinawa and often with Chinese roots. I was really impressed by his performance. I had never seen anyone move like…
The following is a piece I wrote about my teacher, Shane Higashi – 9th dan, head of the Canadian Chito-Ryu Karate Association – for the program given out at the celebration of his 50 years of teaching karate, held last April in Toronto. * * * To the cheers of 1,500 enthusiastic fans a 24-year-old…
Most martial artists train to learn how to protect themselves and others. Eventually they ask themselves how well their training is preparing them for this task. After all, there are many styles and systems and not all really teach adequate self-defence skills. This oversight, in my opinion, could have grave consequences. Since I am a…
It’s a well-known fact that more than 100 years ago karate was referred to as “te.” I understand te to be a means of self-defense, an unbeatable martial art, and also a martial art that can transform into dance. However, I continue to question why karate was referred to as te (hand), why not bujitsu…