It is refreshing to see all of support that we have received over the past few months. It is nice to see the consistency in the WMKA over the past few years. I am glad that the politics and drama are gone. It is even more inspiring to learn things that have never been taught outside of Okinawa before. I feel very fortunate that  my only 2 instructors (my entire life) were both from Okinawa. I am truly blessed to be in a position to be able to pass things on.  Now that the closed minded, hot tempered egocentric people are gone, we should continue to  help each other and work towards building up the style that O’Sensei Shoshin Nagamine created. Soke is working really hard to handle all of the memberships, testing and seminars in the WMKA. He is doing this mostly alone. We all should do our part to help him.

I am proud of the fact that we are the only Matsubayashi-ryu school under Soke / O’Sensei Nagamine in the Cincinnati area.

There will always be those  that self promote and dishonor the style and traditions that were started by O’Sensei. When times get rough or too much work is involved, they stop supporting things or make changes to make their lives easier rather than working harder. Those people get frustrated when things are not handed to them. O’Sensei said to study kata strictly and correctly. Yet there are instructors that change the kata to win a karate tournament because it will bring in more students.

I have to wonder why some of the people that I have met in the past get promoted to 4th, 5th and 6th degree blackbelt and now suddenly think they are masters of their art. They can not run a school or keep it open, yet they want to teach seminars. Most have mediocre kata and have closed minds. It is ashame that they will never get to experience some of the higher learning.( Some of which was never taught to even the senior most American’s in the past.)

Karate was build on courtesy and respect. Now that the positive influences are in place, lets continue to work hard to improve the art and grow the true art.

Please do your part to research, develop and support the art and its leader.