The History of karate In America
The American Black Belt Society

THE HISTORY OF MARTIAL ARTS IN AMERICA
From The American Black Belt Society

ALSO SEE THE HISTORY OF JUDO IN AMERICA

THE HISTORY OF KARATE IN AMERICA

Kung-fu arrived in the U.S. with the first Chinese immigrants in the mid-19th century, but the growth of karate is largely owed to contact between American servicemen and Japanese experts during the post-World War II occupation of Japan and Okinawa.

Kung-fu: the Forerunner of Karate Kung-fu was a part of the Chinese lifestyle in the labo camps and mining towns that grew up following the gold rush of 1848. With the importation of large numbers of Chinese laborers to work on the Central Pacific Railroad, beginning in 1863, the swelling Chinese communities isolated themselves within their own, transplanted culture.

Conflicts over control of gambling, prostitution, and the like, arose; rival secret societies fought each other in the notorious "Tong Wars," which lasted until the 1930s. The troops in these internecine wars were "hatchetmen," so-called because they used meat cleavers and hatchets as weapons. They were skilled also in kung-fu, in the art of "pin-blowing," and in hurling lethal, razor-edged coins. Hatchetmen in the U.S. handed down, from one generation to the next, the secret and sinister practice of kung-fu, the forbearer of modern karate.

Until roughly two decades after World War II, kung-fu was not available to non-Chinese on the U.S. mainland. The early Japanese and Okinawan communities in the U.S. were isolated, introverted, and intensely secretive about their ethnic arts and crafts. Judo was the only exception: Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, encouraged its spread. According to martial arts scholar Donn F. Draeger, Kano asked that " judo training be undertaken not only in the dojo but also outside it, and so make of its physical aspects the focus of human endeavor for the progress and development of man." The other martial arts had no such original intention.

The first club to practice kung-fu in organized classes with instructors from Chinese provinces was a branch of the Chinese Physical Culture Association, founded in Honolulu in 1922. This association promoted physical culture among the Islands' Chinese communities, but kung-fu remained unavailable to non-orientals until 1957, when Tlnn Chan Lee, at'ai-chi-ch'uan specialist, became the first Chinese sifu to open his teaching to the general public.

In 1964 the closely-guarded doors of kung-fu finally opened in the U.S. mainland. Ark Y.Wong of Los Angeles, born in China, broke the traditional kung-fu "color line" by accepting students of all races at Wah Que Studio in Los Angeles's old Chinatown Also in 1964 the movie idol Bruce Lee and his one-time partner, James Yimm Lee, began accepting non-Orientals at Lee's kwoon in Oakland, Calif. In fact, the notorious John Keehan, a.k.a. "Count Dante," claimed to have trained there as early as 1962.

Teachers like New York's Alan Lee, Ark Y. Wong, and T.Y. Wong popularized Shaolin. Choy-Li-Fut and t'ai-chi-ch'uan quickly became public and, soon after, the various branches of northern and southern Shaolin kung-fu.

In northern California, sifus Kwong and Brendan Lai helped establish the praying mantis system. Y.C. Wong promoted the hung gar and tiger crane systems; Kuo-Lien-Ying promoted t'ai-chi; George Long, the white crane; and Lau Bun and the Luk Mo Studio, the Choy-Li-Fut. Noted scholar Wen-Shan Huang, with his protege Marshall Ho, started the National T'ai-Chi-Ch'uan Association in the early 1960s, opening up instruction in this "soft style" of kung-fu to Caucasians.

Throughout the U.S. kung-fu spread, especially during the Bruce Lee era, when so-called Eastern Westerns dominated American and international movie screens. Even so, the majority of kung-fu styles and teachers still remain hidden.

Many of the first karate students were street fighters. Few of these rough types possessed, however, the discipline necessary to remain with the art and learn it thoroughly. The small number who did found their original attitudes startlingly transformed.

Today, karate classes are predominantly composed of business persons, professionals, skilled workers, and students-a cross section of American society.
Karate Comes to Hawaii

In Hawaii, a great cultural crossroads, karate secured a foothold long before its emergence on the mainland. Although practiced within the Okinawan community, no wider audience had seen karate in Hawaii until 1927, when Kentsu Yabu, a famous Okinawan master, introduced Shuri-te in a public demonstration at the Nuuana YMCA in Honolulu.

A few "naichi" Japanese (i.e., Japanese from one of the four main islands of Hawaii) who observed the YMCA demonstration adjudged karate a strong fighting art, possibly even stronger than their judo. Interest in karate by non-Okinawans flourished thereafter. Yabu's open teachings also brought together interested groups of Okinawans for practice and recreation, something the rivalries of llaha, Shuri, and Tomari had prevented on Okinawa.

In 1932 Choki Motobu, a legendary, eccentric Okinawan karate fighter, was denied entry to Hawaii when a group of Okinawan promoters living in Hawaii tried to import him for a public match against well-known Island fighters. In 1933 Zuiho Mutsu and Kamesuke Higaonna were allowed into Hawaii with the understanding that they would teach and lecture but not compete in the boxing ring. Both refused to engage in public matches and prepared to depart immediately. Thomas Miyashiro, who had studied with Yabu in 1927, convinced other karate enthusiasts to approach the pair collectively and urge that they remain in Hawaii to teach their art. They agreed and, after great initial success at the Asahi Photo Studio, the site of their original school, the two karate masters chose a new facility for their classes, the Izumo Taishi Shinto Mission.

The club formed from these classes, the Hawaii Karate Seinin Kai (Hawaii Young People's Karate Club), subsequently staged a public karate demonstration at the Honolulu Civic Auditorium. A number of Caucasian spectators in attendance, mostly members of the First Methodist Church, became interested in learning karate. Through their efforts, the first known Caucasian group in the Western world to study openly and to sponsor karate activities was formed in 1933 Shortly thereafter, both Mutsu and Higaonna departed for Japan, where they had been teaching previously.

In May 1934 Chinei Kinjo, editor of the Okinawan newspaper Yoen Fiho Sha, invited grandmaster Cholun Miyagi, the founder of goju-ryu karate, to Hawaii. Miyagi lectured and taught to popularize Okinawan goju-ryu karate-do, staying almost a year and returning to Okinawa in Feb. 1935.

The spread of kempo to the Islands is largely owed to Dr. James Mitose, a Japanese-American born in Hawaii in 1916. At age five he was sent to Kyushu, Japan, for schooling in his ancestral art of self-defense, called "kosho-ryu kempo," said to be based directly on Shaolin kung-fu. Mitose returned to Hawaii in 1936. In 1942 he organized the Official Self-Defense Club at the Beretania Mission in Honolulu. This club continued under his personal leadership until 1953, when it was assigned to Thomas Young, one of his chief students. Only five of his students-Young, William K.S. Chow, Paul Yamaguchi, Arthur Keawe, and Edward Lowe-attained the rank of black belt. But the kempo arts flourished in Hawaii and later on the west coast of the mainland, where three of Mitose's proteges formed clubs of their own. In 1953, before going to the mainland, Mitose wrote What is Self-Defense, reprinted by his students in 1980.

Of Mitose's students, perhaps Chow played the most significant role in the evolution of the American martial arts. Although he had learned kosho-ryu kempo under Mitose, Chow was the first to teach what he called kenpo (first law) karate. From 1949 Chow trained a great number of students to therank of blackbelt, including Adriano Emperado, Ralph Castro, Bobby Lowe, John Leone, and Paul Pung. By far the most famous of Chow's students is Ed Parker, a leading pioneer in the American karate movement.

Adriano "Sonny" Emperado was a co-founder in 1947 of the kajukenbo system, formed by five experts: Walter Choo (karate), Joseph Holke (judo), Frank Ordonez (jujutsu), Emperado (kenpo), and Clarence Chang (Chinese boxing). The name is an acronym derived from the five disciplines of its founders: ka from karate, ju from judo and jujutsu, ken from kenpo, and bo from Chinese boxing. Today, this style is one of the most prominent in Hawaii. In 1950 Emperado founded Hawaii's first and largest chain of karate schools, the Kajukenbo Self-Defense Institute, Inc., in which he still holds the office of vice-president. Probably Emperado's most famous student is Al Dacascos, founder of the won hop kuen do system.

In 1954 Japan's colorful Mas Oyama visited Hawaii for a month to assist Bobby Lowe, a Chinese -American, in setting up the first overseas branch of Oyama's kyokushinkai style.
Karate Emerges on the Mainland

The first karate school on the U.S. mainland was established by a former sailor, Robert Trias, who began teaching karate in Phoenix in 1946. In 1942, while stationed in the Pacific, Trias trained with Tong Gee Hsing, a teacher of heing-I and Shuritode ryu, and a nephew, according to Trias, of Okinawa's Choki Motobu. The word "karate" was not then in universal use; Shuritode ryu was a style of Okinawan shorei-ryu karate.

Upon his discharge in 1946, Trias returned to the U.S. and established his private, 14-foot-square dojo. He charged a low annual fee for instruction in judo or karate for two to three hours daily, seven days a week. Until the late 1970s, when John Corcoran investigated the subject, little acknowledgment was given Trias as the actual founder of karate in America. Later, in 1948, Trias formed the United States Karate Association (USKA), the first karate organization on the mainland.

From March to November, 1952, Mas Oyama of Japan toured 32 states by invitation of the U.S. Professional Wrestling Association-officials had heard of his exploits in Japan. While in the country he began his famous challenge matches with professional wrestlers and boxers, all of whom he is said to have defeated. Oyama's exhibition bouts and demonstrations, including the breaking of boards, bricks, and stones, received great public attention, including articles in the New York Times, which covered his bout with a pro boxer at Madison Square Garden.

In 1951 Emilio Bruno, judo teacher, pioneer, and administrator, had been named supervisor of judo and combative measures for the Strategic Air Command (SAC). Bruno formulated a new approach to military combat training, integrating parts of aikido, judo, and karate into a systematic unarmed combat technique. To implement his idea, he suggested a pilot program to Gen Curtis LeMay, then commander of the U.S. Air Force and one of Bruno's judo students. The program had a significant effect on the subsequent propagation of karate in the U.S.With Gen. LeMay's endorsement and SAC's sponsorship, Bruno initiated eight-week training programs for Air Force instructors at the Kodokan, judo's mecca, in Japan. Kodokan officials contacted the Japan Karate Association (JKA) to manage the karate instruction, and that organization selected Hidetaka Nishlyama as one of the coaches. Financially backed and supported by SAC, Bruno invited ten martial arts instructors of judo and karate to participate in a now famous four-month 1953 tour of every SAC base in the U.S. and Cuba. The touring group included seven judoka and three karate dignitaries: Nishiyama, Toshio Kamata, and the late Isao Obata, a JKA co-founder and senior disciple of Gichin Funakoshi.

The 1953 SAC tour was responsible for opening up communication between Japan and the U.S.,accounting for the migration of dozens of Japanese karate instructors to America. It also influenced other U.S. military branches and departments to adopt similar martial arts programs.

In 1954 the JKA established its first, small headquarters in Tokyo, and, with the establishment of a central dojo, Nishiyama was elected chief of the JKA instruction department. He conceived a plan to train large numbers of karate instructors and send them across the world to establish karate. His plan, once put into operation, accounted for the migration, beginning in 1955, of many instructors who pioneered Shotokan karate wherever they settled. Nishiyama himself assumed responsibility for furthering karate in the U.S.

In 1954 Ed Parker, black belt kenpo student of William Chow, began teaching a karate course at Brigham Young University. Hawaiian-born Parker, who had arrived on the mainland in 1951, limited instruction to Americans attending the university His evening classes enrolled as many as 72 students: city police, state highway patrolmen, fish and game wardens, and sheriffs' deputies. With some of his students, Parker formed an exhibition team, and through various chambers of commerce, he and his group performed in several Utah cities.

William Dometrich, who began his karate training in Japan in 1951, returned in Dec. 1954, settling in Kentucky. A student of Dr. Tsuyoshi Chitose, the founder of Chito-ryu karate, Dometrich was the first to teach this system in America. He formed the U.S. Chito-Kai in 1967.

Denver's Frank Goody, Jr., who had as early as 1924 started judo lessons with his father, is the first instructor to have taught karate in the Rocky Mountain region. Jack Farr, in compiling the history of martial arts in Colorado, reported that between 1945 and 1951, Goody promoted yawara tournaments within his judo school in Denver. While Goody's background is the subject of much confusion, his contribution to karate's growth is not. In 1957, he opened a karate school in Boulder, Colo., and is credited with teaching nearly all the other karate pioneers in the Colorado area.

Dewey Deavers, a jujutsu and karate instructor who reportedly traveled in China and Japan in the 1920s, surfaced around 1954 in Pittsburgh. By then he had already trained two students to the rank of black belt: Warren Siciliano and Larry Williams. Williams in that year introduced karate to a promising student, Glenn Premru, who in the late 1960s and early 1970s, became a noted performer and national kata champion.

Another pioneer was Atlee Chittim of Texas. After studying tae kwon do in Korea, Chittim returned as a brown belt in 1955 and taught his art at San Antonio College. (Interestingly, the name "tae kwon do" had only been created in April of that year.) As far as can be determined, Chittim was the first to teach any form of karate in the southwestern U.S. outside of Arizona. And he sponsored the entry of Jhoon Rhee to America from Korea in 1956. Rhee, a tae kwon do black belt, came to the U.S. to study engineering at San Marco's Texas State College and began to teach his art on campus, opening a commercial club in 1958. Rhee, known as the "Father of American Tae Kwon Do," went on to become one of the most important leaders in American karate.

In 1955 Tsutomu Ohshima, a graduate of Waseda University in Japan, organized a small karate class at the Konko Shinto Church in Los Angeles. A disciple of Gichin Funakoshi's Shotokan style, Ohshima was the first instructor in the U.S. to teach a typically Japanese karate system, and was the first resident karate teacher on the West Coast. In 1956 he opened the first public dojo in Los Angeles. He also founded the Shotokan Karate of America.

The First Karate Tournament
Robert Trias in 1955 conducted the first known karate tournament in America, the 1st Arizona Karate Championships. Held at the Butler Boys Club in Phoenix, participants were chiefly members of the Arizona Highway Patrol, Trias' own students.

Karate Comes to Hollywood By 1956 Ed Parker had moved to California where his growing student list began to include such Hollywood names as Darren McGavin, author Joe Hyams, television executive Tom Tannenbaum, producer Blake Edwards, and the late film stars Nick Adams, Frank Lovejoy, and Audie Murphy. Both Hyams and Tannenbaum later achieved black belts under different instructors. Each made substantial contributions to karate, Tannenbaum in television and Hyams in print Through Parker's influence, Blake Edwards directed his writers to add karate scenes to the screenplays for such 1960s hits as A Shot in the Dark and The Pink Panther. In those days, filmmakers were intrigued primarily by the more spectacular aspects of the martial arts, such as board and brick breaking.

Eventually Parker taught many more celebrities, including Elvis Presley, and appeared in motion pictures and television shows. It is difficult to determine whether Bruce Tegner or Parker was the first karate expert to work in films. It is a matter of record, however, that Tegner attracted attention to the martial arts early by setting up fight scenes for the 1950s TV series "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," and "The Detectives," starring Robert Taylor. He also wrote a large number of books which had a great influence on the number of Americans that got involved in karate. As early as 1956 Stirling Silliphant had begun writing martial arts into many of his films requiring combat action. He first did this in Five Against the House in which Brian Keith portrayed a Korean war veteran and karate expert. Later he wrote martial arts roles in TV series like "Naked City" and "Route 66." Silliphant later became largely instrumental in the rise of Bruce Lee, with whom he studied for 3 years.

Karate Pioneers
In the years 1956 through 1960 the core of an American establishment came into being. A nucleus of first-rate instructors-immigrants from the Far East and returning U.S.servicemen-opened the first schools in assorted styles, in their respective regions. In 1957 Don Nagle returned from Okinawa, where he studied isshin-ryu under Tatsuo Shimabuku. He opened a dojo in Jacksonville and trained such well-known black belts as Ed McGrath, Harold Long, Gary Alexander, Ron Duncan, Donald Bohan, James Chapman, Lou Lizzotte, Ralph Chirico, and Joe Bucholtz. Nagle became one of the instructors chiefly responsible for the profileration of karate throughout the Eastern Seaboard.

Louis Kowlowski, an early USKA member, opened the first karate school in the midwest in 1957, in St. Louis, Mo. He was also one of the first to introduce Okinawan shorin-ryu (Matsubayashi) into the U.S.

In 1957 Cecil Patterson, a wado-ryu black belt, opened a private club in Sevierville, Tenn. And in 1962 he opened his first commercial school in Nashville, which, by the mid-1970s, expanded to as many as 17 dojo across Tennessee. Patterson also began the Eastern U.S. Wado-Kai Federation.

Okinawa kempo master Zempo (atsu) Shimabuku founded the first known karate dojo in Philadelphia in 1957.

In 1958, Roger Warren, who studied in the Orient, started leaching karate in Chicago and Peoria. Charles Gruzanski (d.1973) also opened a martial arts school in Chicago in the same year. Gruzanski, who spent many years in Japan, was a black belt in a number of different arts and was one of the few Caucasian experts in masakiryu-manriki-gusari, a viscous chain and sickle weapon.

In the mid-1950s Ed Kaloudis traveled to Japan to improve his judo knowledge. While there he studied koei-kan karate from Eizo Onishl. In 1958 Kaloudis moved to New York where he began to teach at NYU and also to members of the New York City Police Department. He later moved to New Jersey and opened up schools in Clifton and Caldwell. Today he oversees a large number of affiliated schools.

Robert Fusaro, who trained under Nishiyama in Japan, was the first man to teach karate in Minnesota. He began teaching his shotokan style in 1958 in Minneapolis and founded the Midwest Karate Association. Today he runs a number of schools in Minnesota.

In 1958 George Mattson was discharged from the U.S. Army. He returned home to Boston where he became the first Uechi-ryu instructor in America, as well as the first karate pioneer in the New England region. Mattson became a leader of karate on the Eastern Seaboard sponsoring the first karate tournament in New England in 1961. Mattson also wrote one of the first books on karate, The Way of Karate, published in 1963.

In 1958 in Portland, Oregon, Moon Yo Woo began teaching kong su an obscure Korean style of karate.

In 1958-59 Harry Smith, a student of Don Nagle, opened the first-known karate school in western Pennsylvania. He trained several students including Joe Penneywell, Harry Ackland and James Morabeto.

Around this time Walter Mazak and Joe Hedderman opened a dojo in Pittsburgh, Hedderman was a student of Chito-stylist William Dometrich.

In 1959 Philip Koeppel was discharged from the Navy. He had studied karate in Japan with Richard Kim and Kajukenbo with Adriano Emperado in Hawaii. In 1960 he joined the USKA and studied under Robert Trias. In 1963 he promoted the 1st World Karate Championships in Chicago and has since built a strong chain of karate studios throughout the midwest.

In 1959 Natamoro Naikima opened a school in Philadelphia teaching shorin-ryu.

Peter Urban, one of the founders of karate on the East Coast, opened his first goju-ryu karate school in Union City, New Jersey, in Sept.1959. Urban had studied in Japan with Richard Kim and later became a top student of Gogen "The Cat" Yamaguchi.

In 1960, Urban moved to New York City and taught karate at the Judo Twins (Bernie and Bob Lepkofker) and later established his own dojo, the famous "Chinatown Dojo." He also broke away from the goju-kai organization and formed his own, which he called USA Goju. Urban probably trained more top black belts than anyone on the East Coast; among them were: Chuck Merriman, Al Gotay, William Louie, Frank Ruiz, John Kubl, Lou Angel, Thomas Boddie, Joe Lopez, Joe Hess, Bill Liquori, Aaron Banks, Ron Van Clief, Susan Murdock, Owen Watson, and Rick Pascetta.

Ralph Lindquist, an isshin-ryu stylist, opened a school in 1960 in New Cumberland, Pa.

In Michigan, AI Horton began teaching hisuechi-ryu in Kalamazoo in 1960. Other early pioneers included J. Kim in Lansing; Ernest Lieb in Muskegon; David Praim in Mt. Clemens (1962), who taught fighters Everett Eddy and Johnny Lee; and Paul and Larry Malo from Detroit who taught Shito-ryu and operated a number of multimillion-dollar karate centers.

As the decade closed, karate was gaining appeal. While no single member of the 1950-60 group of pioneers appears to have been greatly successful, the fact that so many individuals were operating schools, whose enrollments were increasing steadily, proved this new form ofself-defense was attractive to the general public. ln this decade the foundation was laid for the circulation of styles, instructors, and masters that would in the 1960s see the art of karate surpass judo in numbers of active practitioners.

The early 1960s also marked the beginning of an extensive immigration of Korean tae kwon do instructors. After Jhoon Rhee, who introduced tee kwon do in the U.S. in 1956, the first wave included: S. Henry Cho, Richard Chun, and Duk Sung Son in New York; D.S. Kim in Georgia; J.Kim and Sang Kyu Shim in Michigan; Mahn Suh Park in Pennsylvania; Haeng Ung Lee in Omaha; Ki Whang Kim in Maryland; and Jack Hwang in Oklahoma. In all, it is estimated that more than 25 masters during the early and mid-1960s settled in the U.S.

The Vietnam War gave this native Korean art visibility.Pictures of Korean instructors training American GI's in hand-to-hand combat appeared in Time and Newsweek.

While these legitimate instructors were encouraged to emigrate to the U.S., the teaching credential itself was to create an intense controversy in American karate. As more and more Korean tae kwon do instructors and masters arrived in the U.S., it was clearly unlikely that all of them could have taught American military personnel. Yet this claim, coupled with insupportable claims to unreasonably advanced degrees of black belt rank-usually no less than 7th dan-first caused suspicion, then rebellion by American karatemen. More often than not a third claim, that of being an "All Korean Champion," was another of the tee kwon do credentials. It is improbable that there were more than a few dozen All Korean Champions, since tae kwon do embraced no organized competitions until the 1960s-when more than 800 master instructors were teaching tae kwon do in the U.S. The degree and intensity of business competition was undoubtedly the motive for these exorbitant claims. At any rate, potential martial arts students now had a choice of where and with whom to study. By the early 1970s more than 1,200 tae kwon do instructors were reportedly teaching in the U.S.

Such phenomenal growth placed increasing demands on the tae kwon do community as a whole, and the need for a central organization quickly became apparent. In the U.S., as in Korea, the cause of organization was initially obstructed by affiliations of master instructors to parent schools and associations in Korea.

Meanwhile, within the Japanese karate community, Tsutomu Ohshima, who was still traveling, arranged in 1961 for Hidetaka Nishiyama to come to California to preside over his Los Angeles headquarters. Nishiyama arrived in July and within four months struck out on his own to form the All America Karate Federation (AAKF), a branch of the powerful Japan Karate Association (JKA). Today, the AAKF is one of the largest karate organizations in the U.S. This development spawned a bitter political rivalry between Ohshima and Nishiyama, which continues under the surface of the international amateur karate movement. Both pioneers, however, are consummate karate masters. Each is responsible for having firmly planted Shotokan karate in the U.S., and for having trained numerous disciples of high technical skill.

Richard Kim, sensei to such American karate pioneers as Peter Urban, Phil Koeppel, and Canada's Benny Allen, came to America from Japan in 1961 and began teaching at the Chinese YMCA in San Francisco, Calif. Later Kim became the foremost karate historian residing in the U.S.

Top JKA instructor Teruyuki Okazaki arrived in the U.S. in May 1961 and began teaching Shotokan karate in west Philadelphia. In Sept.1962 he formed the East Coast Karate Association, a branch of the AAKF. Today he oversees the 50,000-member International Shotokan Karate Federation.

Also in Philadelphia that year, Mahn Suh Park established his first tae kwon do dojang, which, like Okazaki's dojo, is still in operation today.

It was around 1961 that John Keehan, alias "Count Dante," began teaching karate in the midwest from his base dojo in Chicago, III. Keehan joined the USKA in 1961, at age 22, and was instrumental in helping Trias firmly entrench the USKA in the midwest, the association's strongest territory. He taught numerous students all the way to black belt, who opened their own schools and turned out respected students.

On the night of April 23, 1970, he took part in the infamous "dojo war" that ended in the brutal stabbing death of his friend and student, Jim Koncevic, at the Green Dragon's Black Cobra training hall in Chicago. The tragedy left a profound mark on Keehan until his death from bleeding ulcers in 1975.

An early pioneer of karate in the South was John Pachivas, who became the first karate instructor in the Miami Beach area in 1961. Pachivas reportedly has been active in the martial arts since the mid-1940s, and holds degrees in judo, jujutsu, and godu-ryu karate.
In Jan. 1961 George Pesare introduced kenpo karate to Rhode Island in Providence. Preceded only by Ted Olsen, Pesare would in time become the foremost instructor in his state and an influential leader in the northeastern U.S.

One of the first New York instructors to be affiliated with Mas Oyama was Augustin DeMello, who opened the New York Kyokushinkai karate club in Greenwich Village in 1961. He later broke away from Oyama and quit teaching.

Daeshik Kim, a judo and tae kwon do instructor, came to Atlanta, Ga., in 1961 where he began teaching tae kwon do in the physical education department of Georgia State College.

Among Kim's students were Joe Corley, Chris McLoughlin, "Atlas" Jesse King, Larry McClure, and Dick Lane. In 1966, Kim sold his Institute of Self-Defense, a non-campus club, to McLoughlin and Corley.

Corley and McLoughlin established several branch schools over the years, all in and around Atlanta, and they jointly produced the first Battle of Atlanta in 1970. Later, the tournament would become one of the most prestigious in American sport karate.

Individually, Corley would become one of the most influential voices in Southern karate by spearheading the formation of the Southesat Karate Association (SEKA). In the 1970s, he would invest most of his time and money in the full-contact karate movement.

McLoughlin would make his mark as one of the first professional martial arts journalists who also was a black belt.

In Los Angeles, Mito Uyehara, an aikido practitioner, and his brother, Jim, published the inaugural issue of Black Belt Magazine in 1961. The first issue was in digest form, with articles on judo, karate, aikido, and kendo. Though it suffered lean years, the publication became one of the most successful in its field. In the late 1960s, the brothers dissolved their partnership, Jim taking with him the merchandise trade-which later developed into Martial Arts Supplies-and Mito retaining ownership of the magazine. The publication struggled until Mito launched a line of paper back text books, which eventually brought large profits. This, coupled with shrewd capitalization on the martial arts movie trend of the early 1970s, made Mito Uyehara one of the few millionaires in the martial arts business.

Out of the Uyehara publishing empire have come some 60 textbooks, the monthly, Karate Illustrated (since 1969), and the monthly Fighting Stars (since 1973).

In 1961 New York's John Kuhl wrote, edited, posed for, and published a karate manual/magazine called Combat Karate. Kuhl started his karate training in Montreal in 1957 under Ari Anastasiatis. After moving to New York City in 1970, he continued his training with Peter Urban and Gosei Yamaguchi, son of Gogen, the goju-ryu teacher. Two of Kuhl's early students were Aaron Banks and Al Weiss. Kuhl and Weiss co-produced in 1962 a manual entitled Karate, the most popular instruction book at its price. Its success prompted the 1968 publishing of Official/Karate Magazine, a bi-monthly. It soon became a monthly, with international distribution. The magazine's outlook is radical compared to the conservative Black Belt. It was an animated voice in the movement toward an Americanized form of karate. And Weiss, its editor, has been recognized for writing the most potent monthly editorials in his field.

Bob Yarnall, a shorin-ryu instructor, opened his first dojo in 1962 in St. Louis, Mo., where he has remained to this day. A student of James Wax, Yarnall has instructed such pioneers as Jim Harrison, Parker Shelton, and Bill Marsh, who was a successful competitor in the European karate circuit. Yarnall is probably the best-known exponent of Matsubayashi-ryu in the U.S. and has been a long time member of Trias' USKA. His wife, Joyce, assists her husband in the operation of his schools, and is a photographer whose collection includes many historic pictures of the sport and its early champions.

Jhoon Rhee opened his first school in Washington, D.C., in 1962, and within three months had amassed more than 100 students. This, then, became the basis of the Jhoon Rhee empire, which later blossomed into one of the largest privately-owned martial arts enterprises in the world today.

The Jhoon Rhee Institutes have developed many of the most accomplished karate competitors in American karate. Some notable students are: Larry Carnahan, Michael Coles, Gordon Franks, Jeff Smith, Jose Jones, Wayne Van Buren, John and Pat Worley, Otis Hooper, John Chung and Rodney Batiste.

Rhee would also begin teaching tee kwon do to distinguished members of the U.S. government hierarchy, senators and congressmen among them. Through his endeavors, Rhee would become a genuine celebrity to the D.C. general public.

Allen Steen, Rhee's student, established the first school of his eventual empire in 1962 in Dallas, Tex. Only Johnny Nash preceded him by a few months. No one, however, would dominate the Southwest territory as would Steen. Like Rhee, Steen trained many of America's top karatemen, among them Mike Anderson, Skipper Mullins, Pat Burleson, Fred Wren, Roy Kurban, and Jim and Jenice Miller.

In 1962 after a visit to Pittsburgh by Master Tatsuo Shimabuku, at the invitation of James Morabeto and Harry Smith, disharmony once again set in among the city's isshinryu principals. Morabeto opened several dojo of his own, while Harry Ackland and Joe Penneywell established the Academy of Isshinryu Karate in downtown Pittsburgh. William Duessel and William Wallace, students of Shimabuko, assumed ownership in the late 1960s.

At this time, Nick Long began teaching Okinawan kempo in Greensburg, Pa., where he built a large following of college students.

In Denver, Robert Thompson and Fran Heitmann jointly opened a tang soo do school in 1962. That same year, Chuck Serett, a black belt student of Heitmann's, established his first school and brought in Korean instructor Moon Ku Back to teach there. Sereff and one of his black belts, Ralph Krause, opened another Denver karate school, but later the two went separate ways. Today, Sereff has one of the largest operations in Colorado.

Frank Ruiz earned a chestful of medals including the Purple Heart, Silver Star, and Bronze Star during the Korean War. Upon his release, he became one of Peter Urban's first students in 1960. In 1962, he launched his own teaching career in New York City, and produced two nationally recognized fighters, Louis Delgado and Herbie Thompson (of Florida), and East Coast karate champions Ron Van Clief, Owen Watson, and the late Malachi Lee. Ruiz later broke away from Urban to form his own Nisei Goju organization. In 1970 Ruiz cheated death after being struck by a car traveling 80 m.p.h., managing four years later to walk normally and even practice karate.
The Birth of Franchised Karate

In 1963 two brothers, Jim and Al Tracy, founded their first kenpo karate school in San Francisco; both-had been students of Ed Parker. After spending large sums in development costs, the brothers launched what became the largest chain of karate schools in the world, under the trade name "Tracy's Karate." The Tracy brothers brought big business practices to karate. Their strategy included a proven sales system, adapted from commercial dance studios. At its peak, 1969-73, the Tracy organization was estimated to have 70 studios under its franchise banner. After hiring Joe Lewis, one of the port's brightest stars, as a figurehead for its franchise recruitment program, the organization attracted instructors who, using the knowledge gained in business indoctrination courses, were able to make careers in the martial arts. Among the early corps of Tracy's novitiates were Jay T. Will, Al Dacascos, Jerry Smith, Jerry Piddington, Dick Willett, Roger Greene, Steve LaBounty, and Ray Langenburg.

At the same time, throughout the mid- and late 1960s, other instructors and organizations were developing sales systems and business practices particularly suited to the martial arts. Jhoon Rhee, Allen Steen, Chuck Norris, and Ed Parker soon expanded into franchising. Bob Wall of Los Angeles is credited with having helped many martial artists adopt sound business practices in their schools, among them Norris, Rhee, and Colorado's Jim Harkins. An astute businessman, Wall developed and manualized a sales system still in use in many professional karate studios across the nation.

In 1963 Chuck Norris, who would become one of the most respected karate fighters in the world, established his first school in Torrance south of Los Angeles. In 1968 he and Bob Wall bought out Joe Lewis' interest in the Sherman Oaks Karate Studio. From there he launched a chain of seven studios until 1975, when he gave up the operation to concentrate fully on a motion picture career.

Norris is now responsible for guiding more than 2000 students to black-belt rank and dozens to competitive championship prominence. Among them are: Bob Wall, Jerry Taylor, Pat Johnson, John Natividad, Howard Jackson, Ralph Alegria, Darnell Garcia, and Bob Burbidge, Chip Wright, Danny Lane, among many, many others.

In April 1963 Master Duk Sung Son, president of the World Tae Kwon Do Association, immigrated to the U.S. and began teaching in and around New York City. Within a few years, Son was teaching his art at Princeton, N.Y., Brown and Fordham Universities, and later at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Francisco Conde in 1963 initiated classes exclusively for females at the Women's Karate Club of Fort Meade, Maryland. There his wife, Kathleen, received some of her early training before going on to become one of the premier black belt competitors in her region. Known for his tournament promotions, as early as 1963 Conde became a driving force behind many of the regional activities of the Mid-Atlantic states.

Roger Carpenter, a black belt student of George Pesare, came to Wichita, Kans., in Sept. 1963. Carpenter taught karate for two years at churches, YMCAs, and a National Guard Armory. In the spring of 1965, he opened the first commercial karate school in Wichita. By 1964, Jim Harrison had also established a school in Kansas City.

In Denver, Shotokan stylist Joe Costello(d.1973), from Hawaii, opened a dojo downtown. That same year, Ralph Krause opened the first of an eventual chain of karate schools in Colorado.

Ki Whang Kim, a highly respected tae kwon do master, organized a YMCA class in Washington, D.C., in 1963. This class produced some outstanding D.C. martial artists including John Camance Albert Cheeks, Phil Cunningham, Mike Warren, Furman Marshall, and John Mickens. During the 1970s Mike Warren was widely considered to be America's best tournament fighter and, indisputably, one of the best technicians in the sport.

Lou Angel, Jack Hwang, and Bill Brisco, all of Oklahoma City, are the recognized pioneers of karate in Oklahoma. Angel, a former U.S. Marine and student of Peter Urban, arrived in Oklahoma at an unspecified date in the early 1960s. He is best known for having produced the Tulsa Southwest Karate Championships in 1963 where Mike Stone would launch his impressive fighting career. Stone, then still a brown belt, became an overnight sensation by winning first place in the sparring division and soon rose to prominence as the sport's first superstar.

Jack Hwang, a pioneer of tee kwon do, immigrated to the U.S. in 1960. He taught quietly until opening his first school in Oklahoma City in 1964. In 1965, Hwang produced his inaugural All American Open Karate Championships, which is a highlight of the southwestern karate circuit.

Marine sergeant Sam Pearson, a disciple of Master Eizo Shimabuku, founded a shorin-ryu karate club in 1963 at Camp LeJeune, N.C. His most famous student is the aforementioned Glenn Premru of Pittsburgh, who would become one of the sport's first corps of great kata champions and flamboyant performers.

Tournaments
The early 1960s brought the first American karate tournaments. Until 1963 several local and at best, regional competitions were organized in different parts of the U.S Principal among these early events were the All America Karate

Championships and the North American Karate Championships

The former was held in Los Angeles in Dec.1961 by Hidetaka Nishiyama, concurrent with his formulation of the All America Karate Federation. Nishiyama chose as the tournament site the Olympic Auditorium, the West Coast boxing center. The tournament was produced as a fund-raiser for the March for Muscular Dystrophy. Participants were chiefly members of the Shotokan style of karate, but some came from as far as Canada and Hawaii.

The North American Karate Championships, conducted on Nov. 24,1962, was the first karate tournament held at Madison Square Garden, and the first open karate competition in America. Here, Mas Oyama appeared for the second time in his illustrious career, and this time the appearance was not for the purpose of demonstrating karate's superiority to professional boxing and wrestling. Preceding the finals, Oyama presented one of his impressive breaking routines, crushing rocks, bricks, and boards with his bare hands, feats even at that time considered phenomenal by the American public. Gary Alexander, one of the early wave of "fighting" instructors, won the black belt sparring championship. In 1963 he established his first school in New Jersey and began promoting notable karate tournaments himself.

On July 28,1963, Robert Trias and John Keehan jointly hosted the 1st World Karate Tournament at the University of Chicago Fieldhouse, gathering contestants and officials from around the country. This was the first truly national American karate tournament and the forerunner of the many subsequent tournaments using and abusing the title of "World Championship." To date, this misnomer has been attached by various promoters to more than 20 North American karate tournaments. Clearly, it is an inexact title, since the participants do not come from all over the world.

Tournament titles were not an issue, however, during the embryonic stage. What is important is that Trias' event attracted most of the prominent American karateka. What took place in Chicago set a precedent for the emergence of large-scale, national-caliber competitions. This particular event was retitled the USKA Nationals in 1966, and in 1968 adopted its present title, the USKA Grand Nationals. It is one of the longest-running annual karate tournaments in America.

Also in 1963, Texan Allen Steen inaugurated his Dallas Southwest Karate Championships, in which Mike Stone, still a brown belt, won the black belt fighting division. Steen's tournament was retitled in 1965 the U.S. Karate Championships. David Moon, one of the few Asian instructors competing in open sparring divisions, won the first of three consecutive grand championships there. The tournament maintained its national prestige until the mid-1970s.

During this period many judo and jujutsu black belts had begun studying karate; their styles were often unrefined. Some were the recipients of "cross-over" ranks, i.e., because of their proficiency in one art they might receive den rank in karate.

As each generation of American karate black belts became progressively more polished, fluid, and performance-conscious, the old ex-judo/ jujutsu converts appeared out of touch with new developments in the art. Despite criticism, many of these same figures were responsible for introducing the martial arts to individuals who would later make contributions to the growth of American karate. One of these, Jerry Durant, trained tap fighter Artis Simmons as well as Art Sykes, William Cavalier and Vince Christeano.

In 1964 Trias again staged his World Championships in Chicago, but this year two new tournaments shared the spotlight. The first was Ed Parker's International Karate Championships in Long Beach, Calif. Parker's tournament, like Trias 'the year before, attracted the biggest names in American karate.

Mike Stone became the event's first grand champion, an accomplishment overshadowed historically by the results of a demonstration presented there by an unknown Chinese stylist named Bruce Lee.

Lee was a sensation. Demonstrating his skills, he sent partners reeling backward with his 1 -inch punch, a technique that became a personal trademark. Lee's performance left a lasting impression on many practitioners and non-martial-artist spectators.

Parker's Internationals grew in size and prestige until about 1976, reaching its zenith in 1974, when Parker drew a record-setting 6,000 contestants. In 1975 Parker awarded prize money totaling $16,250 the largest yet at an American Pro/Am tournament.

The second prominent event of 1964 was Jhoon Rhee's U.S. National Karate Championships, held in Washington, D.C. Pat Burleson of Texas, winner of the black belt grand championship, joined Al Gene Caraulia in becoming the first recognized national champion of the new sport. Today Burleson is looked upon as the "granddaddy" of tournament fighters and the first genuine star in the sport.

In late 1964 Mahn Suh Park produced the first open tournament in Philadelphia, the Globe Tae Gyun Championships; it became an annual promotion enjoying steady growth.

Jhoon Rhee pulled off a coup in 1965: he persuaded Wide World of Sports to film and subsequently broadcast segments of his U.S. National Karate Championships. His was the first American karate tournament to receive television coverage from a network sports program. However, a heated match for the grand championship between Stone and Walt Worthy, in which there was bloodshed and heavy contact, earned the displeasure of the show's producers. Select excerpts only were broadcast. And the program ignored the sport for the next nine years.

It is important to recall here the nature of competition in this period. It was a time of bloodshed and brutality. Historians have called it-suitably-the "blood and guts era" of American sport karate, a period spanning from 1963, when the major open tournaments began, to roughly 1970, when the sport temporarily graduated to its first kick-boxing phase. During this time tournaments were an arena for only the most courageous karate fighters, with a high tolerance for absorbing punishment. The type of sparring then popular is called "non contact" or "light contact." Rules stipulated closely pulled blows to the face and only light body contact. Excessive contact was grounds for disqualification. Despite this general rule, heavy contact to both the face and body was so common that competitors and officials alike appeared to accept it. The techniques, crude and calamitous by today's standards, were as unrefined as the rules governing the infant sport. A fighter might break an opponent's bones or knock him into the grandstand and not be disqualified. If he was a true fighter, the opponent was expected to come back and dish out the same punishment he had received.

The Second Generation
In karate instruction a virtual explosion took place from 1964 onward, not only in the U.S., but in Canada, South America, Europe, and Asia. Ex-military personnel, having studied the martial arts in the Orient, returned home en masse to open karate schools. Augmenting this rapid growth were the second generation, students of the original pioneers, who concurrently established studios of their own.

In Sept.1964 the Institute of Technology in Pasadena adopted a regular course of karate instruction supervised by Tsutomu Ohshima. This is the first known karate program to have been accepted as an accredited course by an American college.

The move to establish karate as part of the educational curriculum had enjoyed widespread success in Japan. Thus, the early Japanese stylists in the U.S. concentrated on this aim. Later, the Korean tae kwon do instructors, perhaps even more meticulously organized, likewise made significant progress toward gaining acceptance for the martial arts in American institutions of higher learning.

In Beaver Falls, PA, Willie Wetzel, a master of pukulan, was one of the first instructors of an Indonesian discipline to surface in the U.S. one of his students, Barbara Niggel, in the mid-1970s distinguished herself as a national kata champion.

Pauline Short should probably be called the "mother of American karate." Short opened in 1965 the first karate school exclusively catering to a female clientele, in Portland, Oreg. In 1975 she became one of the nation's top 10 female fighters.

Also in 1964, Bill Readers emerged in Erie, Pa. He trained Art Sykes.
In 1965 Glenn Premru returned to Pittsburgh, having trained with Shorin-ryu instructor Sam Pearson. He opened a dojo in the North Hills section of town.

Mike Stone became the first superstar of the sport. He had dominated competition since 1963, and by the time of his retirement had been active for only eighteen months. Although he competed in a total of nine tournaments, all of them were large-scale events featuring highly rated fighters. Stone won in 1965 what could be considered Karate's Triple Crown: the Internationals in Long Beach, U.S. Nationals in Washington, D.C., and World Championships in Chicago. Although Stone claims to have won 89 consecutive black belt matches, the record shows that he lost a grand championship match in the middle of his run, at the 1964 Western U.S. Karate Championships in Salt Lake City. (Stone won the heavyweight title, but was defeated by Dave Johnson in the grand championship play-off.)

The first genuine martial arts craze in America began in 1966, when Bruce Lee made his acting debut as Kato in the Green Hornet TV series. From Sept. 9, the weekly series remained on the air until Mar. 17,1967. There were 26 half-hour episodes, and reruns began in 1968. Although this series was short-lived, Lee's provocative kung-fu action in the show's numerous fight scenes stirred the public's imagination. Thousands of new students became involved in the martial arts. This development seemed to prove that the popularity and acceptance of the Asian martial arts was directly related to the degree of its exposure in the visual media.

The year 1966 marked the competitive debut of Joe Lewis, who had distinguished himself quickly, earning his black belt in Okinawa in a mere seven months. With just twenty-two months of training, Lewis entered his first tournament in 1966, Rhee's U.S. Nationals. He won the black belt championship, using one technique exclusively, the side kick Astonishingly, no opponent scored a single point against him. Demonstrating his versatility, Lewis also won the black belt kata championship.

During the late 1960s the number of karate tournaments swelled substantially on a state, regional, and especially, on the national level. Yet, as the sport grew, so did its problems. Promoters disagreed on rules and procedures; the sport suffered from a lack of unification and standardization, a problem that continues to plague it today.

These difficulties did not impede two rising tournament stars, both of whom became recognized world champions: Chuck Norris and Skipper Mullins.

After losing the 1966 Internationals grand championship to Allen Steen, Norris came back to win the grand title two years running, 1967 and 1968. He also won the grand title of the 1967 and 1968 Al1 American Karate Championships, produced by S Henry Cho in New York.

Norris was an innovator in combination techniques; until his arrival fighters usually delivered only one technique to score a point. After his victories combinations became standard in the sport.

Skipper Mullins, 6 feet, 150 Ibs., was heralded as the fastest kicker in karate. Many of his victories were the result of whiplike kicks, at a time when punchers dominated the tournament circuit. Mullins rose to prominence on lightweight and middleweight victories in the Al1 American Karate Championships, produced by Jack Hwang in Oklahoma City, and the Top 10 Championships. In one weekend in Feb 1967 Mullins fought in New York City on Friday, Dallas on Saturday, and Los Angeles on Sunday.

Norris and Mullins, with Mike Stone and Joe Lewis,the great karate champions of the 1960s-only Lewis continued competing into the 1970s

Team Competition
In 1967, in New York City, team competition was introduced. The concept was originated by Aaron Banks, who became karate's most prolific promoter. Banks started the team competition format, producing the first team event of national caliber in 1968, the East Coast vs. West Coast Team Championships. The victorious West Coast contingent was represented by Joe Lewis, Steve Sanders, Chuck Norris, and Jerry Taylor. Representatives for the East Coast were Thomas LaPuppet, Joe Hayes, Kazuyoshi Tanaka, and Louis Delgado.

Team competition was soon adopted by karate promoters throughout the country. Banks also deserves credit for keeping sport karate flourishing in New York when others could not: from 1967 to 1975 his over 100 flamboyant productions gave regional exposure to aspiring East Coast competitors.

The Sport Turns Professional For five years, from 1963-68, sport karate had grown strictly on an amateur basis. In 1968 several promoters endeavored independently to add a professional dimension, offering prize money to victorious fighters and meeting the expenses of star names participating in the events.

In Feb. 1968 Jim Harrison staged the 1st World Professional Karate Championships (WPKC), the first of a string of tournaments to use this popular title. In principle, at least, this was the first professional tournament in the history of American karate. Harrison conducted the event in his Kansas City dojo, two days after Allen Steen's U.S. Championships in Dallas. Many top fighters were invited, but in view of Harrison's permissive rules, which endorsed heavy contact, only six fighters participated. They were: Joe Lewis, Bob Wall, Skipper Mullins, J. Pat Burleson, David Moon, and Fred Wren. Several fighters suffered broken ribs and noses and were forced to forfeit. Lewis won the title, becoming karate's first paid professional fighter when Harrison awarded him the token sum of one dollar.

In Aug.1968 Robert Trias and Atlee Chittim produced the World's Hemisphere Karate Championships in San Antonio, Tex. The second professional karate promotion held in the U.S., this was the first to be conducted as a genuine tournament. Victor Moore of Ohio won the grand championship in a spirited battle with Joe Lewis and took a purse of $500. (Lewis also took away $500, a contract guarantee.)

The most important professional karate event of the decade was Aaron Banks' World Professional Karate Championship, produced on Nov.24, 1968, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. This invitational established four fighters as recognized world champions. In contrast to Harrison's event, each champion was paid $600. And Banks paid all of his ringside personnel, from officials to the announcer.

The champions were heavyweight Joe Lewis (over Victor Moore); light-heavyweight Mike Stone over Bob Taiani middleweight Chuck Norris (over Louis Delgado); and lightweight Skipper Mullins (over Kazuyoshi Tanaka). There were subsequent protests disputing the event's status as a legitimate world championship, in the sense that the contestants were predominantly American, but no one disputed the world-class skill of the four winners. (Only Norris returned in 1969 to defend-successfully-his title.)

Another karate competitor who made his bid for national prominence at this time was Ron Marchini of Stockton, Calif. He won Henry Cho's Tournament of Champions in 1968 in New York City, and then went on to distinguish himself as one of the top competitors of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Challenges to authority and inconsistent tournament regulations became the rule rather than the exception, though tournament planning was steadily improving. The amount of promiscuous contact in tournaments became a destructive issue, and injuries increased dramatically, often because of inexperienced and intimidated officials. Some believed the sport should encourage contact; others wanted contact barred.

Commercial karate came of age in 1969. Women and children flocked to the schools, as more and more instructors expanded classes to accommodate them.

In 1968, two influential martial artists, Jay T. Will, and Al Gene Caraulia established schools in Ohio. Will, a student of Ed Parker and Scott Loring, had relocated from San Jose, Calif., to Columbus, opening the very first Tracy's karate franchise in the U.S. Caraulia, the winner of Robert Trias' 1963 World Championships, had relocated to Cleveland from Chicago.

In 1969, Sok Ho Kang, a Korean Tae Kwon Do and World Champion, made his way to Huntington, West Virginia where he opened his first studio. In early 1970 he meet Danny Lane, a highly decorated U.S.Marine who had justed returned from Vietnam. Danny became a police officer and went on to become Master Kang's most famous student. Within 5 years Danny become one of Tae Kwon Do's top competitiors winning the 1975,76,77, U.S. Open Tae Kwon Do Championships after competing for years and walking in the shadows Tae Kwon Do greats Joe Hayes, Mike Warren, Albert Cheeks, George Thanos, Gerald Robbins, John Critzos and many more. Master Kang took Danny to Korea in 1975 then only as a second degree black belt and put him up against the 6th and 7th degree masters in dozens of matches. Danny came out victorious in all the bouts which developed a stir and talk among the Tae Kwon Do community. Master Kang and Danny went on to open a sucessful chain of Tae Kwon Do Schools in the West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky area. Danny also turned to professional kickboxing where he was undefeated as a professional in the middleweight division and was rated in the top ten by PKA when he retired. Danny started working out with Chuck Norris and in 1980 became one of his black belts. Danny returned to the ring in the 80's to win (6) Chuck Norris National UFAF Championships and again in the 90's as he won the 1994 National Ju-Jitsu Masters Championships. He still runs the same school that Master Kang opened in Huntington in 1970.

Until 1965 the Japanese styles had the largest following in the U S, but by 1967 Okinawan karate was attracting more students. In 1969, with the great influx of Korean immigrants, tae kwon do suddenly outdrew the others. More than ever before, practitioners were changing from one style to another. Consequently, interest in organizations and unification dwindled.

The Birth of Full-Contact Karate
Joe Lewis objected to the unrealistic structure of noncontact karate, in which blows were to be pulled short of actual contact. Its nature was to score points without producing results-what Bruce Lee called "swimming on dry land." At the peak of Lewis' disenchantment, which had began as early as 1969, he started training with, and was influenced by, Bruce Lee and ranked heavyweight boxer Joey Orbill. He began training in various Los Angeles boxing gyms, with the intention of becoming a professional boxer.

In late 1969 Lewis was contacted by Los Angeles promoter Lee Faulkner, who was organizing a major noncontact team contest in which he wanted Lewis to participate. Lewis agreed on the condition that Faulkner permit him to fight also in a full-contact match. Faulkner agreed to promote the bout, but only if Lewis fought in the team event as well. Lewis searched frantically for a suitable opponent. After repeated rejections from top karate fighters, he found Greg Baines, a San Jose kenpo stylist, who agreed to meet Lewis under full-contact conditions

The bout, preceded by the U.S. Team Championship, took place on Jan. 17, 1970, at the Long Beach Sports Arena. Results of the contests were victories for Lewis, by a 2nd-round knockout, and for a West Coast team composed of Lewis, Mike Stone, Bob Wall, Chuck Norris, and Skipper Mullins. And, while the Lewis/Baines bout had been promoted as the "first full-contact" championship, during the fight itself the uninformed announcer inadvertently but repeatedly called it "American kick-boxing." The announcer's blunder caught on, and Lewis became known for having pioneered American kick-boxing. The term "full-contact karate" would not be used until several years later. In this its original form, full-contact karate survived for only a year; Lewis successfully defended his title during that year ten times, with no opponent lasting past the 2nd round. The Jan. 17 team bout also marked the last fight in Chuck Norris' brilliant competitive career.

Karate in the 1970s Pat Johnson of Sherman Oaks, Calif., a nationally respected tournament referee, originated the "penalty point" system for excessive contact in 1970. The "Johnson Ruling," as it was called by Karate Illustrated, essentially ended the uncontrolled "blood and guts era" of non-contact sport karate. Johnson's innovation, introduced at the National Black Belt Championships in Albuquerque, is used as a standard today in every U.S. karate tournament. Under this rule, competitors who make excessive contact forfeit one point; any degree of dangerous contact results in disqualification.

The year 1970 also marked the emergence of amateur sport karate on a truly international scale: 32 nations took part in the 1st WUKO World Karate Championships at Tokyo's Budokan. A conference held prior to the event had resulted in the name of World Union of Karate-do Organizations (WUKO). Qualification and participation rules, however, were ill-defined and the competition rules were those used by the Japanese. WUKO had no constitution or organizational rules covering the tournament. As such, Japan was permitted to have four teams competing and the U.S. three. Al1 other nations had one. The U.S. members had been selected by extensive negotiations among the principal U.S. Japanese karate stylists. The only nationally known U.S. member was Tonny Tulleners of Los Angeles; he won third place in individual fighting at the WUKO event.

The disorganization of the 1st WUKO World Championships was the chief reason for the eventual existence of two organizations governing international amateur karate: WUKO and the International Amateur Karate Federation (IAKF) with Los Angeles' Hidetaka Nishiyama the elected executive director as of 1974, when the association was formed. The struggle to organize international karate has engaged these two bodies since then. The goal is a worthy one: Olympic recognition and acceptance for the sport.

The AAKF resisted a move in 1973 by the AAU to relinquish its rights as the international karate representative of the U.S. in WUKO, and subsequently resigned its membership in the AAU. Afterwards, the AAU formed its own karate committee with Caylor Adkins, a student of Tsutomu Ohshima, named its first chairman. So bitter were the political conflicts that in 1976 Adkins dropped out of karate altogether and moved from Los Angeles to a farm in middle America.

In Thailand, its homeland, kick-boxing, or more properly, Muay Thai (Thai kick-boxing) was-and is-the national pastime. In America, however, it failed dismally. In 1971 American kick-boxing died almost as suddenly as it had begun. There was virtually no spectator support, and promoters were losing more money than ever before. Along with kick-boxing, professional karate, in its noncontact form, also died. Chuck Norris held perhaps the last important pro tournament of the initial era. His 2nd World Pro/Am Championships of 1971 attracted a large representation of top-rated fighters, but barely 1,000 spectators showed up at the spacious Los Angeles Sports Arena where it was staged.

In the 1970s, the ties between parent schools in Korea and tae kwon do instructors in the U.S. had been weakened by a decade of separation and"Americanization." Consequently, a number of regional tae kwon do associations were born. On the nation's college and university campuses the American Tae Kwon Do Coaches Association and the American Collegiate Tae Kwon Do Association were created in 1972. These organizations worked jointly to send a U.S. team to the inaugural World Tae Kwon Do Championships in 1973, at which the U.S. team placed second, and the 2nd World Championships in 1974, both held in Seoul, Korea.

The most significant development of 1971 was the advent of the "Longstreet" television series, co-starring Bruce Lee. Unlike productions that had preceded it, the one-hour season opener actually identified the art being shown and was the first to explain on screen the philosophy behind the Asian fighting arts. The program was a showcase for Lee's innovative teaching methods. Cast as a martial arts master, Lee taught the blind detective, Longstreet (James Franciscus), how to protect himself, through both the physical maneuvers of jeet kune do and Lee's personal philosophy. That particular show is now considered by many martial arts aficionados Bruce Lee's best work on film, and it has become a classic. The season opener was written by Stirling Silliphant, one of Lee's students.

This year marked the rise to stardom of Bill Wallace, who rocketed from virtual obscurity to America's number-1 -ranked karate fighter, a position he also held in 1972 and again in 1974. Wallace won Allen Steen's highly competitive U.S. Championships and the USKA Grand Nationals.

In 1972 an astonishing growth occurred in the martial arts. Much of it was directly attributable to the martial arts' sudden emergence as a bone fide entertainment vehicle. It began when filmmaker Tom Laughlin released Billy Jack in which he starred. Although the karate sequences in Billy Jack took but a few minutes of screen time, they were climactic. Filmed in slow motion, with hapkido master Bong Soo Han doubling for Laughlin, they demonstrated more than any previous motion picture the electrifying visual aspects of the martial arts.

Bruce Lee's Fists of Fury, released on the heels of Billy Jack, became one of the first Chinese films to be distributed to general movie theaters. In the Orient, it unexpectedly broke all box-office records, eventually surpassing the longstanding hit, The Sound of Music. Shortly afterward, Lee's second film venture with Raymond Chow, Fist of Fury (The Chinese Connection in the U.S.), eclipsed the success of its predecessor and catapulted Lee to stardom as the biggest box-office draw in the history of Asian cinema.

Back in the U.S., the mounting martial arts mania was accommodated by an influx of Hong Kong kung-fu films that virtually flooded the American market. Critics labeled them "Eastern Westerns" or "chop-sockeye." But the trend found its way into big-budget projects such as Red Sun, starring Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, and The Mechanic, again starring Bronson and featuring Hollywood karate master Tak Kubota.

Kung Fu, starring David Carradine, aired as an ABC-TV Movie of the Week on Aug. 8, 1972. This weekly series, which showcased martial arts philosophy as well as physical, had a positive effect on the trend, introducing martial arts on a regular basis directly to American living rooms.

The need for stuntmen familiar with the martial arts grew. Conventional Hollywood stuntmen were at the time inexperienced in the arts, and martial artists poured into Hollywood casting offices. Some of the more flamboyant and fortunate were catapulted to stardom. With the release of Melinda, Los Angeles' Jim Kelly, hired as a fight-scene choreographer, was made a co-star. Kelly went on to star in Enter the Dragon, Black Belt Jones, The Golden Needles,

Also in 1972 Emil Farkas founded Creative Action Associates, the first martial arts company to cater to the motion picture and television industries. His company set up action sequences for shows such as "The FB.I.," "Mannix," "Mod Squad," "Mission Impossible," "Spiderman," and many others.

Hungarian-born Farkas came to the U.S. in 1965 with black belts in judo and karate. He began giving private lessons to some of Hollywood's top celebrities, among them Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, Herb Alpert, Jimmy Caan, Dennis Hopper, Fred Williamson, etc. Through his students Farkas gained entrance to Hollywood's inner circle and soon was working regularly on T.V. shows and features as a fight choreographer and stuntman.

Joe Lewis unexpectedly announced his retirement in 1972. During his tenure as champion, Lewis amassed more than 30 major titles. He was the only four-time grand champion of the U.S. National Karate Championships (1966-69) and the only three-time grand champion of the International Karate Championships (1969-71).

Coincidental with the entertainment craze, tournament karate was thriving as never before. In 1972 Mike Stone, now a promoter, conceived the first tournament franchise. Earlier, Stone, together with Chuck Norris and Bob Wall, had created the Four Seasons Karate Championships, a quarterly series of contests held in southern California. When the others lost interest, Stone maintained the tournaments. In 1972 he sold its name and concept to promoters in other parts of the country and created the Four Seasons Nationals in Las Vegas as the culminating event of the network.

Public interest in martial arts reached its zenith in 1973. Thousands of spectators who formerly had no interest in karate supported tournaments as never before. And theaters showcasing martial arts films were doing great box-office business.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee was working constantly. Following Way of the Dragon, his third hit, he immediately started production on Game ot Death. But the film was interrupted when Lee received a co-production offer from Warner Bros. to star in Enter the Dragon. Enter the Dragon was the first co-production between Chinese and Hollywood filmmakers. On July 20, 1973, shortly before the U.S. release of Enter the Dragon, the world was staggered by the unexpected death of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong.

Only 32, he allegedly died from acute brain swelling, the cause of which remains enigmatic. Lee's chief jeet kune do protg is Dan Inosanto.

Enter the Dragon became the king of martial arts movies, the unsurpassed classic of the genre. Today, this picture stands out as one of the most profitable in international cinema history. Though numerous imitators attempted to replace Lee, no one could duplicate his spectacular success. By 1974 the martial arts craze, commonly called the "Bruce Lee Era" began tapering off.

Professional Karate Revival
The comeback began in the summer of 1973, when Oklahoman Mike Anderson published his inaugural edition of Professional Karate Magazine. Anderson openly campaigned for the restoration of professional karate, backed by his quarterly publication and his compilation of national and regional ratings of karate players. Widespread acceptance of these ratings revolutionized the ratings polls, making Black Belt's annual Top 10 rating antiquated by comparison.

Shortly after the release of his inaugural issue, Anderson staged his Top 10 Nationals in St. Louis. Anderson offered a$1,000 grand championship purse, a precedent immediately adopted by other major promoters. The event was the first to make mandatory the use of Jhoon Rhee's newly created Sate-T Equipment in the black belt fighting divisions. This innovation launched a new form of karate fighting, which in 1974 was dubbed "semicontact" by martial arts journalist John Corcoran. The use of Safe-T Equipment, basically foam rubber hand and foot pads, added excitement to competition, safely permitting moderate contact to both the face and body.

At this event Los Angeles' Howard Jackson won the grand championship and prize money. At 5 feet 5 inches, 152 Ibs, Jackson became the first lightweight to dominate his sport and professional karate's biggest money winner of 1973.

Jackson had usurped Bill Wallace, at the time America's top tournament fighter. Wallace was a sport karate phenomenon in that he gained most of his victories by relying on one technique exclusively, a left-footed whip-like roundhouse kick. His kicks were clocked at an incredible delivery speed ot 60 m.p.h., and when he later became the premier star of full-contact karate, he was aptly nicknamed "Superfoot "

On June 4, 1973, John Corcoran was hired as book editor for Ohara Publications, the sister company of Rainbow Publications, publishers of Black Belt and Karate Illustrated. By the end of the year, he had begun to work on both magazines as assistant editor. Corcoran was the first karate black belt to become an editor of these publications, and he rose to prominence as one of the first genuine martial arts journalists in America. He was preceded as a black belt editor only by Official Karate's Al Weiss. Corcoran was a student of Glenn Premru.

Corcoran was hired the same week as Jerry Smith, a commercial artist, who was also a black belt and a disciple of Joe Lewis. The pair formed an intimate friendship and Corcoran continued his martial arts studies with Smith, who was to become recognized as one of the first full-contact karate coaches in the U.S.

In Aug.1973 Ed Parker offered a winner-take-all purse of $2,500 for the grand champion of his International Karate Championships in Long Beach. In a spectacular 25-point overtime match, John Natividad, a student of Chuck Norris and Jerry Taylor, defeated Benny Urquidez,13-12. Even today, spectators debate the outcome of this classic contest; some believe Urquidez, a regional favorite, scored an overtime point against the favored Natividad before the latter landed his conclusive point. Historians call it one of the greatest bouts of the light-contact era.

The continuing martial arts mania kept business flourishing through 1974. Aaron Banks' Oriental World of Self-Defense, an annual production of martial arts demonstrations, set a gate record in its field. The promotion, held at Madison Square Garden, attracted 19,564 spectators,according to Banks. The paid live gate reportedly reached $100,000. The event was aired on ABC's "Wide World of Sports."

Ken Min, of the University of California at Berkeley, conducted the first collegiate survey in 1974 to determine how many schools offered karate, tae kwon do, and kung-fu classes on campus.

Judo, which preceded other arts in its American migration, outranked all of them Of 596 colleges responding to the survey, 278 offered some type of judo program. At the same time, there was equal interest in karate, tee kwon do, and kung-fu. Of 448 colleges reporting, 228 offered some type of program in one of these three disciplines.

Joe Lewis and Tom Tannenbaum decided to resurrect full-contact karate. They planned to promote the World Professional Karate Championships. Lewis brought Mike Anderson into the deal and Anderson spent most of 1974 preparing for what was to become the most extraordinary promotion in American karate history. He spent months finding and establishing European and Asian representatives. German karate entrepreneur George Bruckner, Anderson's friend and business associate, conducted an elimination contest to determine European full-contact representatives. Three of the four American representatives were selected on the basis of their divisional supremacy in Professional Karate's ratings: they were lightweight Howard Jackson of Los Angeles, middleweight Bill Wallace of Memphis, and light heavyweight Jeff Smith of Washington, D.C. Joe Lewis, originally scheduled to co-host the event, chose to come out of retirement and fight as the heavyweight representative. Lewis was the only karate fighter with full-contact experience.

Jeff Smith, during this year, had surpassed Jackson to become America's foremost tournament fighter. He was, in fact, named the 1974 "Fighter of the Year" by Professional Karate Magazine. A product of the rugged Texas school of karate, Smith had moved to the nation's capital in the early 1970s to teach for Jhoon Rhee.

Two months before the event, in July 1974, Anderson relocated his operation to Los Angeles. In August he formed a promotion company with Beverly Hills business couple, Don and Judy Quine, who helped finalize negotiations with Universal Television. In late August, the Quines and Anderson formed the Professional Karate Association (PKA), the sport's first sanctioning body, to establish full-contact karate as a major professional sport with recognized champions, standardized rules, and network television coverage of its bouts. Anderson also persuaded Bob McLaughlin and John Corcoran, editors of Black Belt and Karate Illustrated, to work jointly as editors of Professional Karate. Instead of editing, however, the two worked feverishly on the fast approaching World Championships.

On the night of Sept.14, 1974, at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, 14 fighters from eight countries vied in a double elimination for the inaugural titles. Four emerged as world professional full-contact champions: heavyweight Joe Lewis, light heavyweight Jeff Smith, middleweight Bill Wallace, and lightweight Isaias Duenas of Mexico City. Among the American entrants, only Howard Jackson, suffering from a severe knee injury, lost his bid for the title. This extravaganza drew one of the largest live gates for competition karate, $50,000, and attracted more than 10,000 spectators. Anderson awarded an unprecedented $20,000 in total prize money Each champion earned $3,000, while runners-up received a smaller purse. All fourteen participants were given a guaranteed minimum. Much of this impressive news soured, however, when Anderson later reported a personal loss exceeding $60,000. Tom Tannenbaum sold the broadcast rights to ABC's "Wide World of Entertainment." The event aired twice as a 90-minute special, the first time acquiring the highest rating of a "Wide World" special for 1974.

Great controversy ensued. The traditional karate community contended that full-contact degraded the art form and would have a negative influence on school enrollments. This faction felt the television coverage for the sport gave the impression that full-contact was taught in schools everywhere as a required course of learning and would therefore discourage parents from enrolling their children. Moreover, detractors protested the association of the word "karate" with full-contact and vocally sought a name change to "kick-boxing."

It wasn't to be. For one, the sport could only be sold to television because of the popularity of karate. It was a word and an activity with which television executives were familiar. Kick-boxing, on the other hand, was associated with the far more brutal sport popular in Thailand and Japan. When its promoters attempted to get it on American television, they failed. TV executives felt it was too violent. Consequently, the name "full-contact karate" was retained.

In Oct. 1974 tae kwon do was recognized as an amateur sport separate from karate by the AAU. This development was chiefly due to the efforts of Ken Min, tae kwon do coach of Berkeley University, with the support and aid of members of the AAU Judo Committee and a dozen tae kwon do masters. A number of important tournaments-starting with the 1st AAU Invitational Tae Kwon Do Championships in June 1974, held at Berkeley under Min's able direction, through the 1st National AAU Tae Kwon Do Championships, conducted at Yale university in Mar. 1975, and the Mar 1976 version held in Kansas City-promoted and publicized the sport aspect of this Korean art.

It was in Kansas City that a U.S. tae kwon do federation was conceived with the purpose of supporting the National AAU Tae Kwon Do Committee. Tae Kwon Do programs in American universities reached a new level of progress with the advent of the 1st National Collegiate Tae Kwon Do Championships, held at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La.

From 1975 onward, two activities dominated the martial arts: films and the sport. These continue to be the most active and visible aspects of the industry, based simply on mass exposure through the various media.

The year 1975 was one of economic disaster, signaling the beginning of the end of the martial arts movie boom. The industry suffered a double blow when it was victimized jointly by the depressed national economy and the pronounced tapering off of martial arts in the cinema. Some instructors blamed the new full-contact movement for deteriorating enrollments at the school level. Others felt it was not the sport itself, but poorly conditioned fighters and unprofessional promotions.

Following the inaugural world championships, a rash of full-contact promotions broke out in 1975, spreading to epidemic proportions. At one point in Los Angeles alone, hardly a week passed without a full-contact event. Within a year of its birth, no less than seven full-contact karate organizations sprang up. Their organizers were convinced that the infant sport and its potential sales appeal to television might be the financial salvation of the declining martial arts industry. It wasn't.

In all fairness, the army of inept promoters who tried to capitalize on the young sport were not totally at fault. Some blame has to be shared by the fighters themselves. Many entered the ring preposterously under conditioned, and none of them had any ring experience.

Those organizations that moved into the promotional end of the sport in 1975 were: Tommy Lee's World Series of Martial Arts; Jhoon Rhee's World Black Belt League (WBBL), a team concept; Joe Corley's South East Professional Karate Commission (SEPKC); Aaron Banks' World Professional Karate Organization (WPKO); and Larry Scott's and Valerie Williams' National Karate League (NKL), another team concept. Each association created its own rules, sanctioned its own promotions, and established its own champions. Each independently sought television exposure for its promotions. Of these early organizations only two remain: Banks' WPKO and Rhee's WBBL.

The Scott/Williams NKL featured Benny Urquidez as its premier star. Urquidez quickly accumulated the most impressive record in his sport by virtue of his consistent victories in 3- and 5-round NKL team bouts across the country. However, the NKL was under-financed and suffered major losses. It disbanded in 1976. Its principals left substantial debts in their wake, as well as a negative business reputation for karate in general.

In 1975, 50 million viewers saw full-contact karate when Jeff Smith defeated Karriem Allah. The closed-circuit broadcast was a preliminary card to the Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier "Thrilla in Manila" fight.

On May 3, 1975, the PKA, in conjunction with Joe Corley's Battle ot Atlanta in Georgia, produced a full-contact card whose main event the much-acclaimed bout between Corley himself and Bill Wallace. It marked the first title defense of the new sport and, as in Los Angeles, it attracted more than 10,000 spectators to the Omni Arena. Wallace retained his crown with a 9th-round TKO.

Notable at this event were two new concepts: the addition of professional kata competition to the regular competition, an innovation of Mike Anderson's at his Top 10 Nationals in St. Louis; and the introduction of martial ballet, created by Jhoon Rhee, in which a team of black belts perform a synchronized kata routine to classical music. This latter concept served as the prototype of the musical kata divisions gaining popularity in American karate tournaments today.

One week later, on May 10, Aaron Banks conducted a title defense held under the auspices of his WPKO. Presented at the Nassau Coliseum in New York, Banks' event later aired on ABC's "Wide World of Sports," a development creating a fierce dispute between Banks and the Quines, whose original PKA event had aired as an ABC network special. The PKA felt it was a conflict of interest on the part of ABC to air two different events that declared two different sets of "world champions." Banks' card crowned four divisional champions: heavyweight Joe Hess of New York (now of Florida), light heavyweight Fred Miller of New York, middleweight Kasim Dubar of NewYork, and lightweight Benny Urquidez of Los Angeles. By year's end, Urquidez was the leading money winner of his sport,having earned more than $30,000.

In June 1975, Mike Anderson resigned as an executive officer of the PKA to pursue the promotion of the sport on his own. The Quines assumed complete control of the PKA, while Anderson eventually formed the World All-Style Karate Organization (WAKO) with George Bruckner in West Berlin, Germany. At the same time, Anderson's Professional Karate magazine was suffering from poor sales. He decided to move His operation back to Oklahoma City. Bob McLaughlin entered the public relations business; John Corcoran joined author Bob Wall as editor of Wall's self-published book, Who's Who in the Martial Arts. By autumn, Corcoran launched a full-time career as a free-lance writer specializing in the martial arts.

Professional Karate, it must be emphasized, left a lasting mark in its field. No magazine before or after it had such a profound impact on all aspects of the sport, its participants, and its formation of a professional foundation. Through Professional Karate, careers were launched and professional karate athletes began to receive a degree of respect and admiration they had never before known. Most of these benefits can be directly attributed to the magazine's founder and publisher, Mike Anderson, who often put his money where his heart was to promote the sport.

The movies of 1975 included the Stirling Silliphant-scripted The Killer Elite, directed by Sam Peckinpah. The film featured a bevy of West Coast martial artists clad in ninja disguises engaging in poorly staged fight scenes having nothing to do with ninjutsu. The Killer Elite suffered from production disputes and inferior editing. It did average box-office business.

Bruce Lee: His Life and Legend, to which Warner Bros. devoted $200,000 in development costs, never advanced from preproduction. Warners launched a worldwide search for a candidate to play the lead role in this Bruce Lee bio, co-scripted by Linda Lee, Bruce's widow, and director Robert Clouse. Advertisements seeking the candidate were run in major newspapers across the U.S, and thousands of aspiring martial artists swarmed the Burbank studio appying for the role. Denver's Al Dacascos was given serious consideration. The producers eventually settled on Chinese-Canadian Alex Kwok of Vancouver. After changing his name to Alex Kwon, capping his teeth, and paying him a holding fee, the producers dropped the project and the film was never made.

The big disappointment of 1975 was the final retirement of superstar Joe Lewis following two back-to-back nontitle defeats. Remarkably, in the last of these bouts, Lewis dislocated his right shoulder after the 1st round and, despite excruciating pain, continued fighting for the duration of the contest. He lost a seven-round decision to Ross Scott because of penalties for insufficient kicks.

Ed Parker's Internationals in Aug.1975 awarded the largest sum of prize money ever for a Pro/Am karate tournament, a total of $16,250. Kata winners were awarded an overall $1,000 of that sum. The two figures stand as records to this day.

Along with Washington vs. Dominican Republic team matches on Sept.14, 1975, Jhoon Rhee presented a special politician's semicontact division pitting a trio of Democrats against a Republican threesome in whet was called the Capitol Hill Grudge Bout. Presented under the auspices of Rhee's World Black Belt League, the novel division featured Democrats Rep. Walter Fauntroy (D.C.), Rep. Tom Bevill (Ala.), and Sen. Quentin Burdick (N.D.) against Republicans Rep. Willis Grandison, Jr. (Ohio), Rep. Floyd Spence (S.C.), and Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska). The Congressmen appeared on behalf of the Freedom of the Press Foundation; they were members of Rhee's twice-weekly classes and have come to be known as the "Capitol Hill karate corps." (The match was drawn.)

On Sept. 21, in conjunction with Georg Bruckner's All European Karate Championships, America's Gordon Franks met Mexico's Ramiro Guzman to decide who would emerge as the first world super lightweight champion of full-contact karate. Franks, then a Ramiro Guzman 20-year-old college student from Minneapolis, won the title in a unanimous 9-round decision. Promoted at the Deutschlandhalle Arena in West Berlin, it was the first full-contact world title fight to be staged in a foreign country. The promotional budget was reportedly $130,000, the single most expensive karate promotion up to that time. Franks, besides being the original champion in this 139-lb division, was also the first black fighter to become a full-contact world champion.

Also in 1975, the 3rd WUKO World Karate-do Championships were held, for the first time in the U.S., at the Long Beach Arena. It was an uneventful tournament for the U.S. amateur karate athletes. The British team emerged as the new world champions, and the Japanese fighters, as usual, dominated the individual competition.

In Black Belt's 1976 survey respondents in karate registered an 11 percent increase in students from 1975-76. Judo and tee kwon do registered no increase or decrease. Yet, many leaders in karate stated that a decline took place. One answer may be that the decline was registered in 1974-75 and that interest had picked up in this year. A statistic of interest was that 18 percent of all students in both 1975 and 1976 were female. Approximately 31 percent of all students were children,14 or younger. However, it was not clear from the survey that girls age 14 or younger were not also included in the female as well as the children's statistics.

In 1976 the full-contact karate movement continued to be the pacesetter for the industry. By now, most of the smaller promoters found the expense prohibitive, and the more distinguished entrepreneurs took command of the sport. Most of the lavish events were filmed for television and appeared on sports shows such as "The Champions," "CBS Sports Spectacular," and the PKA's 90-minute "Sports Special of the Month."

The year kicked off with champion Bill Wallace becoming the first karate athlete ever to participate in ABC's "Superstars" competition. Wallace appeared in the third set of eliminations on Jan. 31, which was broadcast nationwide on Feb. 7. Wallace placed in two events, but finished only tenth out ot 11 entrants in his elimination series, besting Lynn Swann of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Despite a disappointing finish, it was an extraordinary endorsement tor the sport of karate.

Prior to Wallace's appearance, Don Quine, who now managed the champion, originated the nickname "Superfoot," a nickname attributed to Wallace's uncanny kicking ability.

A PKA event held at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Oct. 1, 1976, marked the beginning of the association's contractual arrangement with CBS Sports, as well as a merger attempt with promoter Howard Hanson ot Westminster, Calit. The CBS deal eventually accounted for tour network broadcasts per year ot PKA sanctioned world title tights. Critics accused the PKA of conflict ot interest. The organization was operating both as a sanctioning body and, through Sport Karate, Inc., a sister corporation, as a promotional body. The PKA principals, Don and Judy Quine, countered by claiming the sport's survival depended on their synthesis ot its various activities. The PKA sanctioned a total of 19 events in 1976.

After his merger attempt with the PKA soured, Howard Hanson formed the World Karate Association (WKA), a full-contact sanctioning body that became the PKA's strongest competitor. As its president, Hanson survived by arranging promotions in Japan, pitting Japanese kick-boxers against American full-contact karate fighters, using a combination ot the two sports' rules. After the PKA stripped Benny Urquidez ot his lightweight title in 1977, the champion fought predominantly in the WKA and quickly established himself as a superstar in Asia, where he defeated every kick-boxing challenger and champion he fought.

The most bitter conflict between the PKA and the WKA is a dispute over rules. The WKA advocates the use of leg kicks, while the PKA rigidly opposes them. The issue is one of potential injury to the athletes. The PKA maintains that these techniques are dangerous to the fighter's physical safety and his career longevity. Hanson parries this charge by pointing tothe Orient, where some kick-boxing champions remain active after more than 50 fights where leg kicks, at their most vicious, are employed.

In Sept. 1976 California passed a law placing full-contact karate under the jurisdiction of the State Athletic Commission (SAC), which regulates professional and amateur boxing and wrestling. It marked the first time that any form of American karate was regulated by a government body, even though many martial artists had been attempting tor years to bring traditional karate under government supervision tor licensing ot instructors. The California commission sanctioned the organization of the volunteer group called the Full Contact Karate Advisory Board to assist in the formation of standard rules and practices tor the sport.

The state athletic commissions, which regulate professional and amateur boxing and wrestling have gradually begun regulating full-contact karate since 1976.

In California, the SAC generally recognized the PKA's rules and policies as standards tor the sport, with the exception of the controversial leg kicks. In July 1978 the North American Boxing Federation, to which all SACs belong, approved a motion to officially recognize the PKA as the international governing body of professional full-contact karate.

Finally in 1976, amateur karate, under the WUKO, was accepted for membership in the General Assembly of International Sports Federations (GAIF), bringing it one step closer to the Olympics. In the following year, however, the General Assembly ot the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued a directive specitying that the two world karate bodies, the WUKO and the IAKF, had to unity before Olympic recognition ot karate would be granted. As a result, that recognition was postponed indefinitely.

1976 WORLD TITLE FIGHTS
Date: 2/8; Site: Atlanta, Gal; Sanction: SEPKA; Division: Lt. Hvywt.; Winner: Jeff Smith; Loser: Wally Slocki; Promoter: Joe Corley; Television: "The Champions" (Syndication).
Date: 3/13; Site: Las Vegas, Nev.; Sanction: PKA; Division: Midwt.; Winner: Bill,,Wallace; Loser: Jem Echollas; Promoter: SKI; Television: "Sports Special of the Month" (90-minute syndication).

Date: 5/29; Site: Toronto, Can.; Sanction: PKA; Division: Midwt.; Winner: Bill Wallace; Loser: Daniel Richer; Promoter: Jong Soo Park; Television: Filmed by ABC "Wide World of Sports" but not aired.

Date: 8/28; Site: Honolulu, Hawaii; Sanction: PKA; Division: Hvywt.; Winner: Teddy Limoz; Loser: Mike Arroyo; Division: Ltwt.; Winner: Benny Urquidez; Loser: Earnest Hart, Jr.; Promoter: SKI/Hanson.

Date: 10/1; Site: Los Angeles, Calif.; Sanction: PKA; Division: Mdwt.; Winner: Bill Wallace; Loser: Gary Edens; Division: Ltwt.; Winner: BennyUrquidez;Loser: EddieAndujar; Promoter: SKI/Hanson; Television: "CBS Sports Spectacular."

Activities in the sport and movies continued to remain at the forefront of the martial arts for 1977. The big news was the starring debut of Chuck Norris, the first karate champion turned actor. Norris was best known to film peers for his performance against Bruce Lee in the climactic fight scene of Return of the Dragon. His first starring role came in Breaker, Breaker, a low-budget exploitation film that attempted to capitalize on Norris' karate name and expertise and the CB radio trend. Filmed for under $250,000, Breaker, Breaker, according to director Don Hulette, grossed $10 million.

Before the release of Breaker, Breaker, Norris signed a three-picture deal with a new production company called American Cinema and began filming Good Guys Wear Black. By the time it had run its course, Good Guys had grossed $20 million.

The ramifications of this film are extraordinary. Norris had singlehandedly restored interest in the martial arts genre at a time when Hollywood refused to make such films.

Other film making efforts featuring the martial arts this year included Revenge of the Pink Panther, starring Peter Sellers with Ed Parker as a hired karate assassin. A Fistfull of Yen, starring Bong Soo Han of Billy Jack fame, was one of three vignettes composing the satirical Kentucky Fried Movie. Yen is actually a parody of Enter the Dragon and is perhaps the first American made comedy related to the martial arts genre. It has become a cult classic.

With two national television broadcasts and a total of ten sanctioned events in 1977, the PKA remained at the forefront of contact karate. The April 23 "Triple Crown" championship from the Las Vegas Hilton was broadcast live by "CBS Sports Spectacular," marking the first live broadcast of karate in any form in U.S. history. But the PKA principals, Don and Judy Quine, were also pressing its world champions to sign exclusive contracts with them. Refusal on the part of several led to the Quines stripping them of their titles. One of these stripped champions was Benny "The Jet" Urquidez.

Howard Hanson, who had just formed his World Karate Association quickly recruited Urquidez to fight in the Orient under the WKA banner. Urquidez went to Japan and became the first American fighter ever to beat the Japanese kick-boxers at their own genie. Urquidez scored a knockout over champion Katsuyuki Suzuki on Aug. 2 before a national television audience in Japan. His victory amounted to a national insult to the Japanese, who take their sport very seriously. Following his win, retired and undefeated champion Kunimatsu Okao publicly challenged Urquidez to a bout for which he would come out of retirement. Urquidez accepted. On Nov. 14, at the prestigious Budokan in Tokyo, the two met in a vicious showdown resulting in an Urquidez victory. Bloody and battered, Okao was knocked out cold in the 4th round and had to be helped from the ring. The bout was carried over Japanese national television and drew an unprecedented $500,000 live gate, the largest on record for professional karate.

The victory brought Urquidez' record to 40-0 with 38 knockouts, the best in his sport, and made him an international celebrity. In Japan, he became a cult hero and the central figure of a series of comic books entitled Ben