how great is this man ? I’m new to karate , but my sensei is a direct student of his son Nobuaki Kanazawa and from that line of karate, just wanted to know some of the history .
Kanazawa is a legend in UK karate but, I have to say, in the current martial arts climate, I find his bunkai and kata explanations lacking.
Kanazawa was one of the guys that popularised karate in the UK. He was the first chief instructor of the Karate Union of Great Britain and, in shotokan circles, is generally viewed as one of the "Big Four" (with Shirai, Enoeda and Kase) who really embedded shotokan karate in the Western consciousness. I get what you mean about his bunkai, but he's just not from that philosophy of karate. He's not an Iain Abernethy or John Titchen. He's from the three-Ks philosophy of karate where everything is just about training yourself physically. You punch over and over again until you get good at punching. You kick over and over again until you get good at kicking etc. I agree that most mainstream shotokan (and probably the other styles too) bunkai is terrible, but I don't think that's what people would go to Kanazawa to learn.
Just reading up on my own sensei it say that he is a direct student of Hirokazu Kanazawa and has been grading by him throughout his career so high praise for that
