JKA of San Francisco Bay

Early on in his career, my late teacher, Mori Sensei, became famous for training successful competitors. When he taught in Hawai'i in the mid 1960s, he trained a team that defeated the Japanese collegiate championship team, which created quite a stir. He encouraged his students to enter tournaments, and he trained us hard for them. And yet, if you were his student he scorned you if you won. "You *lucky*, huh?" he'd say. His slogan: "Better to lose."

Competition serves training, he believed, not the reverse. Humility serves training. Training serves life.
—T. J. Stiles, Chief Instructor of the JKA of San Francisco Bay

My friend Christopher Wren has died at age 89. He was a legendary foreign correspondent for the New York Times. He was also a black belt in Mori Sensei's dojo. A good man. Here's a piece he wrote for the Times about training with our late teacher.
—T. J. Stiles

WEEKEND WARRIOR; Learning That Karate's Blows Go Hand in Hand With Manners (Gift Article) Christopher S Wren article on taking lessons in karate from Masataka Mori at his dojo, or training center, in Manhattan; for Mori, karate is not about mayhem, but about balance, focus and proper breathing, while for Wren and students like him, it is a way of sweating away tensions and cleansing the....

When my 6th dan certificate arrived from Japan, Nikos Anerousis, our assistant instructor, wanted to have a ceremony to present it, with all the students. It was a very nice moment, but of course a little embarrassing; I feel like maybe the JKA made a mistake. So I read aloud Mori Sensei's guidelines for instructors, and recalled the last thing he said to me. He said that for rice to grow, it can't just shoot straight up. It must be able to bow. Humility isn't just a good moral attribute; it is the only way to get better.

Nikos and I go back to 1991, making January 2026 our 35th anniversary as friends. He started training at the club I taught at Columbia University, after starting in karate-do in Greece. He went on to graduate from Mori Sensei's intermediate and advanced instructor training courses. He now has a 5th dan himself. I don't think of him as my student, I told our dojo; I try to enrich his understanding as he and I both follow the path that our shared teacher laid out for us, that Takahashi Sensei now lays out for us. I feel that same way about all the other ranks in our little dojo. We are all on the same path, and we try to push and help each other as we go up, little by little.
—T.J. Stiles, Chief Instructor of the JKA of San Francisco Bay

From "Fundamentals of Karate-Do," by the late Mori Masataka Sensei, 9th Dan, Japan Karate Association.

Two stories about Enoeda Sensei
First, let me say I am not a globe-trotting karateka with tales about all the great JKA instructors. My work and finances have kept me mostly at home, though I've been fortunate to train with a lot of amazing visiting instructors. One I trained with many times is the late Enoeda Sensei, justly lionized as the tiger of Shotokan karate. His students will have the most intimate tales of him (and I've heard some whoppers, third-hand), but I have two that might be a little unexpected.

Mori Sensei was Enoeda Sensei's senpai, and the two were friends. Enoeda Sensei came to many of Mori Sensei's summer gasshuku (pictured here, fourth from left, in 1991). He was a presence. I vividly remember my first class with him—how he positively vibrated with energy, speaking quietly then erupting. "Must use...STOMACH...to GET POINT!" God it was exciting.

One year I roomed together in a dormitory suite during a camp at Quinnipiac College with my students from the Columbia University club, which I taught two nights a week, when there were no advanced classes at Mori Sensei's dojo. One evening we were goofing around, and somehow started making fun of badly dubbed kung fu B movies. Two guys were pretending to spar, and two others did their voices while they moved their mouths. "You killed my father! Now I must destroy you!" That kind of thing. We were in hysterics, when suddenly a mighty figure appeared in the door to the common area, his arms crossed. It was Enoeda Sensei. I think he might have cracked up if we had kept going—he had a big laugh—but we were so embarrassed that the whole thing fell apart. We were abashed. Instead he made a close friend of mine who was testing for nidan perform his kata in his shorts and polo shirt, probably because Enoeda Sensei wanted something to do. I felt bad for him. But it was so funny and so humiliating at the same time.

Another year we somehow had the energy to have a softball tournament after the afternoon classes. Enoeda Sensei found out, of course, and he insisted on taking part. As the pitcher. For every team. And, contrary to softball rules, he threw overhand—every pitch a fastball. Of course no one objected, and he struck out about five times as many people as you'd normally expect.

I can't say much more about Enoeda Sensei. I didn't know him personally, despite a number of interactions and classes I had with him. I can say that he and Mori Sensei were close, yet were very different people, despite the imperious manner they both had.
—T.J. Stiles, Chief Instructor, JKA of San Francisco Bay

Another Memory: Mori Sensei vs. Ueki Sensei
I thought I'd post another memory of Mori Sensei that illustrates what it was like to be his student. At a summer gasshuku held by Mori Sensei's organization, Ueki Sensei (pictured) came as one of the guest instructors. This was in 1988, I believe, when I tested for nidan (the other photos are from 1991). At the time, Ueki Sensei was the new technical director for the JKA. He was a great instructor, technically exceptional. But Mori Sensei was his senpai—and at this camp he would not let him forget it.

One of the quirks of training with Mori Sensei was that, though utterly loyal to the Japan Karate Association, he insisted on teaching kata as he had learned them, c. 1950, not as the association currently practiced. (The camp in question came before Sugiura Sensei consulted with the Shihan-Kai in 1993 and issued new standardization). For example, in movements 34 and 36 of Bassai Dai, withdrawing after yamazuki to heisoku dachi, Mori Sensei insisted we turn our bodies to hanmi, instead of keeping the hips square. Normally a visiting instructor would look confused as we all did the kata "wrong," and then corrected us. Usually Mori Sensei didn't protest, though he insisted we do it his way when we were back in the dojo. I learned not to sweat it.

At this camp, as we trained in a 6:30 AM class in a grassy field at Quinnipiac College, Mori Sensei called out Ueki Sensei for how he taught these movements. He yelled at him, mid-Bassai Dai, in Japanese, and added, shaking his head, "makes no sense!" Then he turned to us and cupped his hand to his mouth, as if he were whispering and Ueki Sensei couldn't hear him: "Bucho say," he said, using the term for a department head, "do it this way, but I think we do it the old way."

It was hilarious, because Mori Sensei could be very funny, but it was extremely uncomfortable. Ueki Sensei rubbed his head sheepishly, unwilling to contradict his senpai, who kept derisively calling him "bucho." The funny thing is, they were great friends, as far as I understand it. I don't think Mori Sensei resented Ueki Sensei's promotion to technical director, and later to chief instructor, in the least. And he was used to being an outlier, when it came to kata. It was just one of those moments when he decided to throw his weight around as only he could. He really missed his calling as a medieval daimyo.

You might well ask why I didn't sweat it? Weren't we supposed to practice kata in the official way? First, I learned something from those peculiarities. Even though I now perform kata according to JKA standards, I think I understand them a little better from Mori Sensei's older version. Second, small technical variations were a small price to pay for being Mori Sensei's long-term student. It's possible, even likely, I would have advanced technically more quickly if I had gone to Japan, as many fine American karateka my age did back in the '80s. At times, Mori Sensei intentionally made it harder for us; training in the Manhattan dojo in the summer with the fans off did not improve our technique. But having that long-term relationship with this very traditional master, whose idea of karate-do was imparted not so much in words as in the daily intensity he brought to bear on us, was a rare and wonderful thing I would haven't have experienced if I had gone elsewhere. We came to be in a place without compromise. For some, it eventually proved too much. But it was profound.

Again, I'm not saying your training experience was inferior; I'm just saying that, for me and many others, this was something special. Hard, but special.

Ueki Sensei came back more than once. We never heard "bucho" used again. He was deservedly famous for his blazing front kick; I swear his legs turned liquid when performing maegeri. One time he called me up in front of the class and told me to attack him with oizuki. As I did he counterkicked. He was around my age today at the time, but his kick was so fast I didn't see it. He did not hold back; his foot hit so hard I nearly threw up. Then he said, "Again." I came in again, lumbering this time because I was squeezing every core muscle as hard as I could. I had a check-up after the camp ended. My doctor said in shock, when he saw the bruise, "What happened to you?!?" I said, "A 60-year-old Japanese man kicked me." He said, "You're lucky he didn't hit your spleen. You'd be dead." It certainly wasn't luck.

In any event, all this illustrates another side to Mori Sensei. As imperious as he was, as rock-certain that his way was the right way, he wasn't afraid of bringing in lots of different JKA instructors who had their own wonderful insights, who taught kata the standard way. (You should have heard him rave about champion Kokubun Toshihito!) A good instructor lays out a clear path for the students, I think, but encourages them to enrich their understanding with other teachers. I'm no shihan, no Mori Sensei, and I think I can only do it this way.
—T.J. Stiles, Chief Instructor of JKA of San Francisco Bay

P.S. Ueki Sensei’s respect for Mori Sensei can be seen in the fact that he held a rare memorial service for Mori Sensei in the JKA honbu dojo after the latter died in 2018.

Finding Mori Sensei

I started in karate in high school in rural Minnesota, practicing at 6:30 in the morning twice a week with a JKA nidan named Tom Strang. I went to Carleton College, where the karate club was taught by Michael Fusaro, the son of the chief instructor of the Midwest Karate Association, Robert Fusaro. I started taking the bus to Minneapolis twice a week to supplement my training, and trained in the Minneapolis dojo in the summers. Fusaro Sensei was a skillful karateka, a lucid and magnetic instructor, as was his son. As I contemplated where to go to graduate school after college, my new dojo was a big consideration.

The senpai in the Minneapolis dojo urged me to go to Chicago. "Sensei Sugiyama is really nice. Don't go to New York. Mori is *mean.*" What I gathered, though, as I investigated, was that Mori Sensei was considered an extremely traditional instructor. His being strict was a draw for me, not an obstacle.

I moved to New York in 1986, and went to Mori Sensei's dojo and signed up on my first day. When I went home on the first Thanksgiving after I moved to New York, I stopped in at the Minneapolis dojo for a class. "What's it like training with Sensei Mori?" the other students asked. "Is his technique really great?" The question was natural. That's the way I thought about karate sensei—it was all about their technique.

That's not it at all, I had to reply. I could only say it was "intense." Training with Mori Sensei was completely different. Yes, as people say, the etiquette was strictly enforced. But it was all a part of the intensity of the environment. Mori Sensei's eagle eye caught the smallest error from across the dojo. He brought constant heat and pressure on us. "Mental strength!" he'd shout, as he turned off the fans, even closed the windows, in Manhattan's murderous summers. "Karate-do is not just moving your arms and legs," he said. He forced us to focus on everything at every moment. In any class where I had the passing thought, "Hey, I'm in the zone today!", he would somehow sense it and start yelling from across the dojo, "T.J.! Baka! No good!"

I would in time see many demonstrations of his perfect timing, the power he generated from his deep stance. But he didn't see karate-do as a mere technical exercise, as technically demanding as he was. He made it truly transformative, in a way that merely moving your arms and legs better does not.

I certainly have nothing negative to say about my first instructors; I absolutely do not want any students to feel disrespected. I can only say Mori Sensei was different, in a profound way that's hard to explain. He possessed a cultural authority that allowed him to strike us with the shinai, to insult, to press as I myself cannot with my own students. He remade us as no one else could. It wasn't just that he was Japanese. A senior JKA instructor who was his student decades ago in Japan said his nickname back then was "Oni," the horned demon of Japanese folklore. I could only follow him, and remained his student until his death thirty-two years after I first set foot on his dojo floor. We came to change the answer to a question: "What can I do?" He helped us do that, but in service of changing our answer to another question: "Who am I?"

There was one other way in which he was different from my first teachers. Both he and Mr. Fusaro were loyal to Nishiyama Sensei, who was Mori Sensei's senpai at Takushoku University. Mori Sensei stayed aligned with Nishiyama Sensei when the ISKF formed. But I remember Mr. Fusaro explaining that Nishiyama Sensei's goal was to get karate into the Olympics, which meant that national karate organizations could not be colonies under a Japanese headquarters. Nishiyama Sensei quietly stopped having anything to do with the Japan Karate Association, stopped registering dan rankings in Tokyo, even though he remained on the books at the JKA as a senior instructor. Mr. Fusaro approved. Mori Sensei did not. He once told me he was trying very hard to persuade Nishiyama Sensei to remain within the JKA. But when the break became unavoidable, Mori Sensei remained loyal to the JKA.

I'm grateful to Mori Sensei that he chose to stay in the JKA. I never want to disrespect other karateka or other organizations; I'm simply speaking for myself, not comparing the JKA to other schools or styles. As a student and instructor, being part of a large and storied school with institutional depth and standards keeps my own training sharp and my karate alive in a way that I like. People will always complain, and that's fine. But I have been exposed to so much good instruction, and remain a part of a high-quality karate environment that's wide and deep. I'm glad to be certified as a rank examiner, tournament judge, and instructor, as well as to have JKA dan ranking. Years after Mori Sensei's death, my karate continues to grow.

Mori Sensei's successor as chief instructor of JKA SKDI, the organizational affiliate of the JKA World Federation that he founded, is Takahashi Shu Sensei, 7th Dan, founder of the JKA of Brooklyn. I cannot express how much respect I have for Takahashi Sensei, who has his own way of preserving that intensity of instruction, who has maintained our connections to our larger JKA family. He has taught me many things over the decades. One of the first things he taught me was that, in Japanese culture, what's in front is not what matters; it's what is behind that counts. In karate, in life.

T.J. Stiles
Chief Instructor of the JKA of San Francisco Bay

Happy new year! Our first class of the year is tonight, January 2, at 7:00 PM. Hope you join us.