This week in history (11 June – 17 June)

On 12 June 1965 Hirokazu Kanazawa took his first teaching trip outside of London to the British Karate Federation’s (BKF) Liverpool dojo. The trip lasted from the 12th to 19th of June. 

Kanazawa’s teaching schedule included teaching on the Sunday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. On the weekdays he taught from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. 

During his visit Kanazawa did not perform any gradings. It is thought he taught the katas Heian Yondan, Heian Godan and Tekki Shodan. 

On 17 June 1938 the former Chief Instructor of the JKA in Belgium, Satoshi Miyazaki, was born in Sagai, Japan. 

In 1956 Miyazaki enrolled at Takushoku University to study economics, having been persuaded by Masatoshi Nakayama to do so. He joined the university’s famed Shotokan Karate school as a white belt, studying under Nakayama. Nakayama would be his instructor for the next eleven years. 

Miyazaki eventually became a member of the Takushoku Karate team that included Shiro Asano, Hideo Ochi, Kazumi Tabata and Katsuya Kisaka. The team were very successful, winning the All-Japan University Championships. 

On completing his degree, Miyazaki was asked by Nakayama to enroll on the 1961 JKA Instructor Course. Others enrolled on that year’s course included Ueki Masaaki and Keinosuke Enoeda. 

Many of the graduates of the JKA’s instructor Course eventually left Japan to spread the JKA’s brand of Karate around the world. Miyazaki eventually got the chance to travel abroad in 1967, when he was asked to take over from Taiji Kase who had been teaching in Belgium for six months. 

Miyazaki became the Technical Director of the Belgian Karate Federation (BAKF), a position he held until his untimely death in 1993 from cancer.