SHIHAN STACEY KARETSIAN

Stacey Karetsian entered the world of GKR in the early 90's, just as GKR was about to explode into the world martial arts scene.
He has since developed into one of GKR's most recognised and respected instructors.

Early in 1991 Kancho was embarking on a program of developing students in Adelaide South Australia, at that time the program was a plan to expand GKR interstate and possibly internationally, he was selecting students to come abroad, a full time program of training in karate and general management & administration skills.
Some applicants were existing students and others replied to newspaper ads.

One of these respondents was Stacey Karetsian, who had trained in the Shotokan style of karate for over 7 years and held his 1st Dan Black Belt.

Stacey was accepted into the program and started the very next day.
Stacey had an excellent karate ability so Kancho made the decision to allow him to wear his Black Belt even though he had to learn the GKR style and kata.

Respecting his parents wishes to finish his civil engineering degree, Stacey held back going full time for a couple of years.

In 1993 after completing his degree, Stacey and his now wife Vicky came to Sydney to dedicate himself to GKR on a full time basis. He was outstandingly successful and became the Regional Instructor of Region 2 in the north west area of Sydney in May 1994.

In 1994, Stacey became the GKR National Kata and Kumite champion and also took out the National All Styles (NAS) New South Wales State and Australian Kata championships.

In January 1996 he was promoted to the level of Zone Director for the Northern part of Australia (NSW, QLD and ACT), he did an outstanding job in this position and under his leadership the Canberra Regional Instructor, Jason Wright became the Zone Director for the (Midlands) Northern Part of the UK. Recently Nabil Fanous, who replaced Stacey as the Regional Instructor in Region 2 in Sydney also replaced Stacey as Zone Director.

Earlier in 2000, Stacey was selected to become Assistant Chief Instructor for Go Kan Ryu Karate. Stacey along with Kancho is responsible for the marketing and management of GKR Karate and administers policies of karate standards, e.g.; teaching formats, grading systems, kata curriculum, tournament management and the selection and establishing of all new senior instructors.

Stacey Karetsian is a 4th Dan Black Belt with over 18 years karate experience.
On the 15th July 2000, Stacey was awarded with the coveted title of Shihan. The title of Shihan is not given lightly, It is awarded only to special people.

Shihan, in simple terms means "Master" and while mastery is a life long pursuit, Stacey is certainly GKR's first master.