Satsuma Karate Dojo

Please note the updated seminar times (same date) for Sensei Fumitoshi Kanazawa. Both seminars will be after the lunch hour. I hope you can join us! OSS! Sensei Fumitoshi Kanazawa, the third son of Soke Hirokazu Kanazawa, 2006 SKIF World Champion and 7-time SKIF Japan Champion, will teach at Satsuma Dojo on Sunday, May 14. OSS!

Here are some photo highlights from this past week's SKIF International Seminars. The event was filled with good food, good training and reconnecting with many in the international karate community who I can see just once a year!

I'm always grateful for the opportunities to train with Kancho Nobuaki Kanazawa and for the very warm hospitality of the SKIF-Hawaii family! It was also a pleasure to meet and train with Sensei Nobuaki Satsukawa, coach of the Tokyo City University karate team!

OSS! Our advanced class on Thursday, February 16, will be taught by Hanshi Jonathan Kwok, 8th dan, Chief Instructor of Shotokan Karate-do InternationalU.S. Federation (http://ski-usf.com/about-us/founders/our-instructors/). The class will be held in the Columbia Middle School multi-purpose room (usual Thursday location), and I hope that all advanced members can attend! OSS! j

Karate is a martial art!

OSS! Satsuma Dojo Members, In accordance with today’s mandatory moratorium on gatherings of 35 or more people imposed by Santa Clara County’s Public Health Department, Satsuma Dojo is suspending its classes immediately. Likewise, we will resume classes in accordance with guidelines that we anticipate the Public Health Department will issue in the future. At this time, we do not yet have an estimate of when classes might resume.... Thank you for your understanding. You're welcome to contact me if you don't hear from me for a while. Please know that our actions will align with the Public Health Department. j OSS!

OSS! Satsuma Dojo Black & Brown Belts, It is with great sorrow that I inform you of the very recent passing of Sensei Isao Wada, founder of Satsuma Dojo about 1974 and one of the three sensei in the U.S. to first join SKIF in 1983. Wada Sensei's family notified me on Wednesday that Wada Sensei passed away this past Monday, March 19. See this link for more information on Wada Sensei.... https://xtinas.wixsite.com/isao I am personally very saddened by Wada Sensei’s passing. He first accepted me into his dojo in 1980, and he provided me with many valuable and memorable training and teaching experiences, including trainings in Tokyo with SKIF and in Kagoshima with his original karate instructor, Soke Isamu Tamotsu of Renshinkan Shorinji-ryu Karate-do. Wada Sensei's unfortunate heart attack in 2000 forced him to become inactive in karate at the early age of 48, and it forced the senior dojo members to assume responsibility for Satsuma Dojo and for its members, and to quickly develop our own teaching and leadership skills. Everything we have now began in the small dojo on El Camino Real in Santa Clara in which Wada Sensei taught classes and raised his family. I’ll forever be grateful to Wada Sensei for his personal instruction and for the many people and experiences I've enjoyed as a result of his misfortune. j OSS! ___________________________ Jay Castellano, Kyoshi, 7th Dan Chief Instructor, Satsuma Dojo General Secretary, Shotokan Karate-Do International-U.S. Federation www.satsumadojo.com

Enjoy some pictures from Sensei Fumitoshi Kanazawa’s recent visit to Satsuma Dojo!

A surprise early birthday celebration for Fumitoshi Sensei Happy Birthday again, Sensei!

1986: This picture includes Soke Hirokazu Kanazawa of SKIF, Shihan Osamu Ozawa of Las Vegas Shotokan Karate and the most senior Japanese instructor in the Western Hemisphere at the time of his passing in 1998, and Sensei Isao Wada, founder of Satsuma Dojo and my instructor. Jay Castellano