This photo taken at the South Jersey Karate Club in the early 1970's shows the
posture "seiza" which is how a traditional class begins and ends. I am the 3rd from the right in the photo, the 5th person is
Mr. Sal LoPresti, 7th dan, head of the U.S.
Branch of Kissaki-Kai Karate & head of Club Shotokan New Jersey). The SJKC dojo was headed
by Mr. Leslie Safar, 9th dan (now Chief Instructor for the European country of Hungary). He was, for many years, Mr. Okazaki's most senior student
before he co-founded the American JKA Karate Association (AJKA) along with Mr. Ray Dalke,
9th dan, Mr. Richard Gould, 8th dan and Mr. Randy Hassell, 8th dan. I trained at the South
Jersey dojo under Mr. Safar for more than a decade, splitting my classes between the South
Jersey Club and the Philadephia Karate Club under Mr. Teruyuki Okazaki, 10th dan.
 
The photo on the right was taken following an Instructor's Training class in the mid 1970's with Mr.
Teruyuki Okazaki, 10th dan at his hombu dojo in Philadelphia. Mr. Okazaki is explaining
to me some details of what we practiced in training just minutes before. The JKA/ISKF
Instructor's Training is a 3 year course teaching instructors the fine points of
teaching traditional karate using modern sports science principles. It was in one of
these many classes that I first became interested in pursuing chiropractic and sports medicine
as a career.
 
For the past several years my teacher has been Mr. Kiyoshi Yamazaki, 8th dan, Chief
Instructor of Japan Karate-do Ryobu-Kai. Mr. Yamazaki serves as the Technical Chairman
of the USA National Karate-do Federation and as a member of the Technical Committee of the
World Karate-do Federation.
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