Karate England: The saga continues (to go downhill rapidly)

Apologies for the long quote. This is from the Times newspaper.

 

Sad ennit? We knew this was coming - and believe me there's a LOT more!

If anyone's worried about insurance, coaching, CRB etc go to the Martial Arts Standards Agency website at www.masa.org.uk or you can always email me at info@martialartstandards.org

 

Karate (and all MA) are supposed to be about respect.
There are thosands of people who do Karate in this country, people who work hard in training, instructors who care about their students and the general ethos, people who selflessly give their time to help others, people who get injured and can't wait to get back, people who get knocks and bruises and turn up for the next class still smiling, kyu grades who just want to do as well as they can, quality fighters who aspire to better things, parents who want to give their kids some options that they didn't have.
They are the ones who are being let down by this sort of thing.

When you have millions of pounds involved, you need competent managers involved, people who can handle a budget; there should be some alarm bells ringing when talk is of converting a garage into an office.
That said, the salaries mentioned here do not seem huge for the magnitude of the job (to oversee a united Karate in the UK). I earn more than that for looking after a few computers.

 

here here prowler

 

Best start warming up now, wouldn't want to do myself an injury whilst performing my world reknowned told ya so dance.

But on a plus side, can we raise our glasses to Terry Wingrove Sensei, who is showing himself to be a legend on all counts here.

Terry Wingrove for supreme dictator of Karate England!

 

I knew the article was on its way as Terry gave me a heads up on Monday.

Interesting that they described him as a 7th Dan and didn't mention his other 9th Dan grade or his former position with FAJKO and WUKO.

 

isn't he a 9th Dan in Jiu Jitsu? Hardly relevant.

 

Yes he's a 9th Dan in Ju jitsu. Of course that's relevant!!! Terry has the higher grade in Ju Jitsu because he has always focused on the combat side of his martial arts rather than the sport side - which is why he has been awarded the higher grades by the Ju Jits community but not by the Karate community. The senior grades all come from back slaps by the boys. Terry's 7th Dan makes him seem more junior than he is - but he predates pretty much every other active karateka in the UK (this is taken from his bio - by my estimation he should be 9th Dan in Karate now going by his 7th Dan date):

7th Dan Karate (FAJKO, WUKO), 9th Dan Jujitsu (EJJU, IJJF), 3rd Dan Aikido, 3rd Dan Judo
Terry was born in London on 8th May 1941, his first contact with martial arts was practicing Judo as an 11 year old at the Budokwai in London. By the time he was 16 he came under the influence and teaching of the late Vernon Bell. By the time he was 17 he had enrolled in Vernon Bell's Jujitsu and Karate classes, the first classes in Karate anywhere in UK. Terry's drive to improve his knowledge meant he studied with all the instructors that Vernon Bell invited to the UK including Huang Nam, Tetsugi Murakami both of whom were teaching Yoseikan style Karate. Terry attended the first Aikido course ever held in the UK in 1960 under Tadashi Abe.
By late 1960 Terry was travelling to Paris to study with Murakami in Henry Plee's Dojo. Also Terry attended the infamous classes at Jim Alcheiks - the great French Karate teacher who studied martial arts in Japan in the 1950's and subsequently was killed in Algeria by anti-terrorist police in 1962. By 1963 Terry was an assistant instructor in Karate and Judo in UK. In December 1963 Terry captained the first ever British Karate team in Paris where he and Jimmy Neal were the highest grades in the UK team at 1st Kyu with Vernon Bell as the national coach. Other members of the team included B Hammond, A. Sherry, A Smith.
In 1965 Vernon Bell invited the JKA to UK and Senseis Kase, Kanezawa, Enoeda and Shirai arrived in the summer of '65. Terry was now 24 and motivated to go to Japan to see for himself and train in Karate, Aikido and Jujitsu. He married in 1965 and went to Cape Town, South Africa following Shirai Sensei who was teaching at Hugh St John Thompson's Dojo. Eventually in 1967 he obtained the necessary work visas and arrived in Japan in August '67. He was employed as a physical education teacher at the Marist International School in Kobe and joined the biggest Karate Dojo in the area which was the ****o-Ryu Dojo of Chojiro Tani and became secretary of the internationl Shukokai organisation training with Kimura and Tani. Tani Sensei was a school and university teacher and very articulate in English and greatly respected as an original student of Mabuni.
During the mid 60's there was a major and sincere effort to unite all the styles of Karate under the patronage and sponsorship of Japan's richest man Ryoichi Sasakawa. Tani Sensei introduced and recommended Terry to Sasakawa and Terry was appointed to the secretariat of Federation All Japan Karate Organisations (FAJKO) and the World Union of Karate Organisations (WUKO) as the only foreigner working in the organisation of FAJKO and WUKO.
Terry helped organise the first World Karate Championships in Japan in 1970 and subsequently travelled the world many times as a WUKO staff member. This was the so-called “golden years” of united Karate with the great Masters such as Nakayama, Yamaguchi, Ohtsuka, Iwata, Tani, Mabuni and many others teaching and grading in unison on instructor courses. Terry attended the first and famous all-styles course in 1972 in Chiba, near Tokyo where he was awarded his 5th Dan.
Terry was also studying Jujitsu and Aikido and he was invited as a Karate instructor to many countries. Terry's position in the secretariat of FAJKO and WUKO opened many doors for him to study with great Masters in martial arts during his 21 year stay in Japan. Terry was awarded his 7th Dan Kyoshi in 1989, by Masafumi Suzuki 10th Dan and founder of the Seibukan in Kyoto
Terry's passion is Karate as a martial art not sporting Karate. His research and specialist study of Karate has taken him all over Japan, Okinawa and China. This again was possible as Terry combined his study of martial arts with his business as an Oriental art dealer.

 

I don't think the Times have any agenda of playing down Terry Wingrove's importance. They present him in a pretty heroic light really!

As you said, higher grades in karate are pretty much pats on the back from your organisation and, if Terry is either head of his own organisation or eschews organisations completely, there's no reason he would be awared a higher dan.

 

Steady on Jemima, his grade in Ju-Jitsu isn't relevant to a discussion on karate, and besides the highest (deserved) British Dan Grade is only an 8th Dan as far as I am aware, so its not like he is being left lagging behind.

 

The discussion might be about Karate but if they wish to put his name in print surely they should give the proper details and he is a 9th dan no matter what art its in.

 

They gave the details that were appropriate for the story. His position as a 9th Dan in Ju-Jitsu offers nothing of value to the story except that he is also pretty good at Ju-Jitsu, it doesn't affect his ability to comment on Karate either positively or negatively, therefore it is redundant.

 

I would have to say then that its a matter of opinion. I would say that as he is being put in print it would be correct to put all the facts in the piece. The fact that he has Dan grades in other arts I think is quite important. But thats moving away from the thread. The fact is I think this venture was doomed from the start. Over the years I have lost count of the number of times Karate associations have tried to unify only for it all to collapse. As the old saying goes too many chiefs and not enough indians

 

Why is it? how does it show his seniority in Karate? If I trained under him at a course the last thing I would care about is his seniority in other arts, its totally irrelevant.

 

Crikey - I agree with holly!
The organisation is Karate England, and it is the Karate grade that is relevant in the given context.
The fact that he is an accomplished(!) all-round martial artist adds weight to his credentials, but the grade pertaining to the particular MA in question is the pertinent one.

 

As I said its a matter of opinion I regard it as important as to what you think thats up to you. You are allowed your opinion as I am allowed mine. I also said this is nothing to do with the thread. So lets agree to disagree.

 

So many kind words make an old man embarrassed!! Let me put the facts to you re my grades. I lived in Japan 21 years from the mid 60's during which time I studied Karate,Ju-jitsu & Aikido. I worked at the karate HQ of FAJKO & WUKO and travelled the world trying to sort out the initial problems of starting a world organisation. I was very fortunate in that my work at FAJKO enabled me to train with some of the best masters of the time without having to be "political" and stick with one style as was very common in that period. I got my 5th Dan at the 1st All Japan All-Styles grading examination under FAJKO in Chiba in 1972 and my last karate grading was in 1989 where i was awarded 7th Dan Kyoshi at the FAKO grading at Masafumi Suzukis dojo in Kyoto. Following the deaths of 3 of my teachers, I like others(Sensei Alan Ruddock for example) decided out of respect to our teachers we would not grade again and that is my personal decision. Many of you are aware that I am a very firm believer that all ability and all capability can be seen on the mat not on any certificate or fancy gi/belt. "Feeling is Believing" is my motto and I now prefer Technical Director as a description of my role it seems much easier.
Now to the matter in hand KE. I do NOT teach Karate as a Sport so many people wonder why I got involved and why did I sponsor the English karate team to go to Finland ? The reason is that I live 2mins from Bisham Abbey where I also teach (hello Melanie) I was asked in mid-Sept.by one of my instructors if I would come along to Bisham to see the last English selections for the team to go to Finland. When I arrived I saw Ticky Donovan the English National coach that I have known for 38 years and he explained that he had to pay to rent the dojo as KE was nearly bankrupt also there was no money to send a team to the WKF(successor of WUKO) championships in Finland in mid Oct. I was amazed as I knew the razzamatazz that KE had been launched with in Nov 2005 with Govt(Sports England) backing and a so called unified front of English karate. I just could not understand what had happened with all the "High Flying" executives who were supposedly in the driving seat to guide KE into a major sports organisation. I made a few more enquiries and talked with a lot of very disappointed athletes who had trained for this opportunity to compete for their country at the highest level. After consulting with the directors of Cyberbudo and Budoworld (all of whom have lived in Japan & China for many years) it was decided to sponsor the English team with no strings attached. The sponsorship was apparently very much appreciated and I refer anyone to the comments of the team that can be read on my website www.cyberbudo.com in the meantime as I was very well known to the board of KE, I was subsequently asked by them to look into the failure of KE. This I have done and I am amazed how the money just gushed out( much,much faster than it came in) of KE almost from day one. The anger,animosity and vitriolic comment that the demise of KE has attracted has amazed even me. The one thing that I advise time and time again is to separate the problem into two parts: The future of English Karate on one part and the autopsy to decide recrimination and blame to be completely separate. There is another very interesting fact, over the past 40 years there have been a number of unifying attempts such as BKCC then MAC then KE the one common denominator in their failure was the Civil servants at their head,all of whom had NO knowledge of Karate and who proved for many reasons NOT good for English Karate(with the singular exception of Alan Francis a good man in the wrong job) Then we had the scene which seems to be being repeated with KE, of the executives riding off into the sunset with not a care about karate, leaving the ashes to be raked over by the Karate groups who have no alternative but try and sort out the muddle and very big problems left by the "Lone Ranger" and his gang. I hope this has proved informative and I'm always available to answer any questions if I can.
Terry Wingrove
www.cyberbudo.com

 

Osu Sensei!
Can't say much more than that, really...

 

Hello Mr Wingrove, nice to see you here on MAP - really makes you think that the martial arts community is actually a community after all!

Firstly, a big thank you for the efforts you've put in to sorting out Karate England's problems. As someone who is neither important nor good enough at karate to have had any contact with karate england nor felt any of the repercussions at a club level, I've still been quite sad to see the collapse of another attempt at collaboration between karate organisations. Particularly as two of the people my club regularly comes into contact with (Senseis Bob Poynton and Andy Sherry) seemed enthusiastic that this was going to work out and took committee posts.

Do you have any insight into what the future will hold for KE? Is it to be disbanded/replaced? Do you feel we need a centralised governing body for sport karate and do you think one is feasable? Do you believe sport karate should be divorced from "traditional" karate completely - sort of like the WKF/ITF split in taekwondo? What will your recommendations be to the sports council?

Apologies for the barrage of questions - I've just been following this topic closely and am quite interested in how it will proceed!

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