Okazaki Teruyuki
Okazaki Teruyuki
Okazaki Teruyuki
Okazaki Teruyuki was born on June, 22nd 1931 in the prefecture Fukuoka as the second son of a Samurai family.
He began with Karate training in 1947 at the Takushoku university, after it practiced during its childhood Judo and Kendo. At the university he practiced Karate also very intensively beside that Aikido under O-Sensei Ueshiba. Ueshiba called him "the most incapable pupil, whom he had ever seen" and so Okazaki gave up Aikido short time later and dedicated for Karate training.
At the Takushoku university Kendo, Judo, Karate and Aikido were practiced. His parents rejected that Okazaki did Karate and wanted him to practice Kendo. " Karate was new and my parents regarded it as road fight. I was always a bad child - I loved it to fight. They did not want that I would become worse." Okazaki's grandmother convinced its parents that Karate would change his love to fight modify and teach him to be responsible for its deeds. " My grandmother was 100 percent Samurai. She was one of few humans who I know, who lived as Samurai. She was a woman with very much spirit. She knew that Karate would have a good influence on me... "
He graduated in 1953 and remained in Tokyo, in order to practice Karate. He looked for work, which he neglected however for training. But he had the luck to be employed as a coach at the university. " I did everything. I went everywhere. I fought in other styles, in order to analyze, how they are related to Shotokan. I did not care for nothing. My attitude had changed since the Shodan check. I wanted to do everything over to learn - there were no limits. Everything which I wanted to do was to continue training and to listen to master Funakoshi and Nakayama. And they tried everything at me!"
In 1955 Okazaki became coach in the JKA Dojo. Although it was a badly paid job, Okazaki was finally happy to do what he had liked.
Later he was active in the JKA and in 1961 he was send to the USA as an Instructor of the JKA, where he established himself first in Philadelphia.
1962 he created the East Coast Karate Association,
witch was member in the All America Karate Federation of Nishiyama.
After in 1965 some of his black-belts left the Dojo, in order to follow
Oshima, Okazaki also left the Association of Nishiyama, in order to create
the International Shotokan Karate Federation. This has today about
50,000 members and Okazaki is the Chiefinstructor.
