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The History of our club

The history of any club revolves around the history of it's Sensei.

Our history start way back in 1968 when Dave started karate with Kempo in Johannesburg.
In 1969 he moved to the Natal South Coast with his family.
He wanted to share his knowledge of the martial arts with others and started the first karate school on the Natal South Coast at the Margate Lifesaving club house in 1970.

Early 1972, Sensei Derrick Ridgeway, Sandan at the time, moved to Uvongo, joined up and started teaching with Dave then at the St Michael's lifesaving club. The sport proved to be popular and they soon started looking for bigger premises, which they found in 1973, at the Uvongo Townhall. Unfortunately, not long after that, these premises had to make space for development and again they had to move. They found the ideal premises in the form of an old night club called, Popular, in Margate, that was not in use anymore. This, they hoped, was to be their home. But, from here, they moved to the old 20th Century movie house at cross roads in Margate (now, Browsers), then to the lower level of, what now is known as the Supa Quick Auto Center. Again, this stay was short lived and in 1976 Dave moved to the shopping center at the drive-in at Shelly Beach.
After a year he had to move again, a garage at the house of a Mr. Nicholas was made available to him and this time he was able to stay a couple of years.
Finally, our sensei, got permission from the municipality and was able to built a dojo next to his house, in Margate, where he had been since 1983.

In these early days, we affiliated with Budoryu Karate ( based on the Shitoryu style) at the time. Budoryu was formulated by senseis' Ray Rayn and Richard Salmon.
We stayed with Budoryu until Sensei Ray Rayn passed away in 1989.
In 1990 we joined Shukokai Kobe Osaka, led by Tommy Morris of Scotland, together with Sensei Sakkie Louw (from Johannesburg) and several others in South Africa.

Tommy Morris trained directly under Sensei Tani (Shukokai World Karate Union) of Kobe, Japan. 1992 Dave was invited to Scottland to take part in the annual KOI gusshuku and world championships and again in 1993.
In 1994 he obtained top marks for a referee course and was selected as the main referee for Kobe Osaka wolrd championships until, with the decline of our Rand, we could not afford to stay with Tommy Morris any longer, as it became to expensive.
Dave atributes that all his referee skills and knowledge is due to the tuition given to him by Mr. Tommy Morris. Due to the experience of refereeing, with Mr. Tommy Morris; has enlightened him to the understanding and the bunkai of kata.

For a short while we were part of Sensei Lionel Marinus's group in Johannesburg.
After long deliberation it was decided that we want to revert back to the traditional way (The Old Way) and not the "Western way" or sport karate, which is the only karate practiced in most dojos in South Africa today.
This is when we joined Karate Association Shukokai South Africa who affiliate directly to Shukokai World Karate Union, in Kobe, Japan. Led by Kancyo Takeshi Masuyama. We are proud to be members of this prestigious organization.

We are proud of our dojo. Our sensei has got our interest at heart, his students come before himself. We are very fortunate to have Sensei Dave as our sensei. At his Third dan grading, in 1978, he undertook to develop himself to enable his students to be developed to their fullest.

He wrote: "By doing karate and studying 'the way' it made me realize that nothing of real value could be achieved without determination and a great deal of effort. You get out of karate what you put into it. The only way to improve is through constant practice and spending many many hours of training and sharing in the dojo, developing mind and body.
Children, through their innocence, determination, energy and concentration have over the past years given the incentive to improve my own level of karate.

We teach by example, therefore there is a great deal of responsibility attached to self development, so that I could set examples to others.
I try to develop relationships with those above and below me within the discipline.