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By Matthew O’Mara

It was a class for the history books.

In Aurora on July 29th, some of karate’s highest-ranking masters made a historic trip to Canada in order to teach a special seminars to some eager black belts. The senseis came from Japan, Alaska, and the United States all in effort to bring together the best in the world in one place.

The seminar was organized by Steve Armes of Shoshinkan Martial Arts who brought together these masters from all around the world using Facebook.

“I had started casually chatting with Kinjo Sensei last fall, and he said they might be coming to Ottawa in the summer of 2013,” Armes said in an email exchange with Nikkei Voice. “I said, ‘if you are coming, I would love to meet you and maybe have you visit my small dojo’, and from that the seminar was born!”

A number of seminars were held for students of all disciplines for 60 black belts and 45 of the Kyu Belt students hosted at nearby Aurora Montesori School. The visiting masters brought both their talent and expertise to participants, and some perspective on the art’s international reach. From the website:

The visiting karate masters were: Tetsu Gima Sensei (9th Dan) and Tsuneo Kinjo Sensei (9th Dan) from Okinawa, Yurio Nakada Sensei (8th Dan) from Alaska, and Mike Mancuso Sensei (9th Dan) from New York. They came to share their nearly 200 years of combined experience in traditional karate training from the Jundokan in Okinawa, the home of Goju Ryu karate.

From left to right: Senseis Gima, Kinjo, Nakada, Mancuso – Photo courtesy: Shoshinkan Martial Arts

“It’s almost like a visiting professor,” says Cezar Borkowski, head instructor with Northern Karate Schools in an interview with CTV. “We will be covering some aspects that are not usually covered day to day so it’s a treat for us to train with very high ranking individuals.”

All of the masters who attended the event have more than 40 years of experience teaching students around the world. They believe that even with all those years of experience testing yourself against the world is the best way to keep learning.