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Takayuki Kubota - nicknamed the "Living Karate Legend". This is the short film about soke Kubota. Click on the Master's portrait below (film wmv 5,6 MB).  One of the few grand masters still alive, cultivating samurai traditions in the contemporary world, owner of the highest rank in karate: 10 Dan. Born in 1934 in Kumamoto (Japan). Aged 4, he began to train ju-jutsu and karate under the instruction of his father, Denjiro. He studied many Japanese hand-to-hand and sword combat types, but what prevailed was karate training, which he seemed to be greatly gifted for. His talent can be measured by the fact that he started teaching karate at the age of 14, and at the age of 17 he had his own dojo in Tokyo and was a hand-to-hand combat police consultant. In 1964 he arrived in the USA, where he still teaches karate in the Headquarters of the International Karate Association, founded in 1953 in Japan, headed by master Kubota and uniting karate students from all around the world from different karate styles, especially Gosoku-ryu and Shotokan. Master Kubota developed Shotokan techniques basing on Goju-ryu defences and stable Shito-ryu stances creating his own dynamic Go-soku style (go - toughness, soku - speed). Hence his title - Soke (master and the style's founder). FBI and the American police, as well as Hollywood are making use of his talents. He acted, trained actors, devised fighting sequences in over 300 films, co-operating with such Hollywood stars as: Yul Brenner, Charles Bronson, James Caan, Michael Douglas, Sean Connery, Christopher Lambert. It is James Caan who is one of the most faithful Soke's students, an expert in cane-fighting and honorary president of the International Karate Association. Soke devised new weapons, recognised by the American law as serving self-defence purposes: kubotan and kubotai. He developed the techniques of police PR24 cane and tonfa fighting. He is the author of many books and instruction films. You can read about him in the Internet, and his name appears in nine different places in the encyclopaedia of all martial arts published in the USA. Soke Takayuki Kubota is a master of the following martial arts: karate, toshin-ryu, taiho-jutsu, kubo-jutsu, shindo-tsuye-jutsu, kubotan, kubotai, kubokido, aikido, judo. He has his own website, which you are welcome to visit: http://www.ikakarate.com
Takemasa Okuyama
- Master Okuyama is the Head of the International Karate Association and has the Kancho title.
Tomasz Piotrkowicz
- chief of the Gosoku-ryu style in Poland, 7th dan. He received the "shihan" title (martial arts' professor) from the Japanese masters as the first Pole (in 1994 from International Karate Asso.). He began ju-jutsu training in 1970 and karate at the age of 15 in 1972, as one of the first and at the same time the youngest in Poland. During studies at the Warsaw University, he co-founded the AZS karate section, at that time he trained Shotokan karate and the Korean Kyoksul style.
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