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Chief Instructor T.J. Stiles, 5th Dan
The JKA of San Francisco Bay's instructor is T.J. Stiles, 5th Dan. Stiles Sensei has practiced Shotokan karate-do with the JKA since 1980. After starting in Minnesota, he moved to New York in 1986 to train with the legendary Mori Masataka, 9th Dan. (More about Mori Sensei below.) He studied under Mori Sensei at his dojo in Manhattan, the JKA of New York, for twenty years, and remained his student after moving to California in 2006. He opened the JKA of San Francisco Bay at Mori Sensei's request, and has been teaching in San Francisco and now Berkeley since 2011. He founded the JKA at Columbia University in 1986, where he taught for twenty years, and served as an assistant to Mori Sensei at the JKA of New York. T.J. Stiles graduated from the JKA SKDI's two-year instructor training courses, the intermediate (class B) and advanced (class A). After a written examination and physical skill tests, he has been licensed by JKA headquarters in Japan as a class B instructor, class B tournament judge, and class C rank examiner. A frequent, successful tournament competitor as both an individual and team captain in kata and kumite in the 1980s and 1990s, T.J. Stiles competed in the Shoto Cup world championship in Philadelphia in 1994, and was named Outstanding Male Competitor at his last tournament, the JKA SKDI championships in 1999. T.J. Stiles is also a biographer and historian. A past Guggenheim fellow, he is the recipient of the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History. He wrote an essay about the late Mori Sensei, "The Death of a Master," published in the Winter 2020 issue of the Sewanee Review. |
T.J. Stiles practicing the kata Sochin in 2010
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Mori Sensei in 2015
Mori Masataka, 9th Dan
1932–2018
Born in a mountain village in Kyushu, Mori Mastaka (following Japanese custom, his family name, Mori, comes before his given name) enrolled at Takushoku University in Tokyo in 1950, where he began training in karate-do. It was only a year after the founding of the Japan Karate Association. As one of its earliest members, he trained alongside the legends of the JKA, including Nakayama Masatoshi, Nishiyama Hidetaka, Kanazawa Hiroku, Enoeda Keinosuke, and many others. He became captain of the university karate team, one of the earliest instructors in the JKA, and eventually a legend himself.
Sent abroad as part of the global expansion of the JKA in the 1960s, he taught for a time in Hawai'i, then accepted a request to teach in New York in 1968, where he remained. His dojo on the Upper West Side, the Japan Karate Association of New York, served as the headquarters for a regional and ultimately international organization that he built up within the JKA umbrella: the JKA Shotokan Karate-Do International.
Mori Sensei became famous for his fiercely traditional teaching. No master was more demanding or exacting. "Karate-do is not just moving your arms and legs," he would say. The full meaning of that expression could only be discovered through ganbatta, or relentless effort. His students agree that training under him was a profound experience.
"We came to his dojo to change the answer to the question, What can I do?" writes T.J. Stiles. "He did that, yes, but as a means of changing the answer to a different question, Who am I?" Few other teachers have been so dedicated to the meaning of karate-do as a traditional martial art, a discipline for life. There was only one Mori Sensei, but at the JKA of San Francisco Bay we try to practice in his spirit.
Mori Sensei passed away in September 2018, and was honored with a formal memorial service at JKA headquarters in Japan. His successor as chief instructor of the JKA SKDI and JKA of New York, Takahashi Shu, 7th dan, trained with Mori Sensei for many decades, and founded the JKA of Brooklyn.
For more on Mori Sensei, see the short film, "Tokyo on the Hudson" by Crystal Sershen and "The Death of a Master", a personal essay by JKA of San Francisco Bay instructor T.J. Stiles, in the Sewanee Review. See also this video of Mori Sensei performing the kata Meikyo, accompanied by a classical Chinese poem, in 2000, and another showing Mori Sensei demonstrating in the 1970s. The last minute or so of the latter video particularly demonstrate his exceptional timing and accuracy.
1932–2018
Born in a mountain village in Kyushu, Mori Mastaka (following Japanese custom, his family name, Mori, comes before his given name) enrolled at Takushoku University in Tokyo in 1950, where he began training in karate-do. It was only a year after the founding of the Japan Karate Association. As one of its earliest members, he trained alongside the legends of the JKA, including Nakayama Masatoshi, Nishiyama Hidetaka, Kanazawa Hiroku, Enoeda Keinosuke, and many others. He became captain of the university karate team, one of the earliest instructors in the JKA, and eventually a legend himself.
Sent abroad as part of the global expansion of the JKA in the 1960s, he taught for a time in Hawai'i, then accepted a request to teach in New York in 1968, where he remained. His dojo on the Upper West Side, the Japan Karate Association of New York, served as the headquarters for a regional and ultimately international organization that he built up within the JKA umbrella: the JKA Shotokan Karate-Do International.
Mori Sensei became famous for his fiercely traditional teaching. No master was more demanding or exacting. "Karate-do is not just moving your arms and legs," he would say. The full meaning of that expression could only be discovered through ganbatta, or relentless effort. His students agree that training under him was a profound experience.
"We came to his dojo to change the answer to the question, What can I do?" writes T.J. Stiles. "He did that, yes, but as a means of changing the answer to a different question, Who am I?" Few other teachers have been so dedicated to the meaning of karate-do as a traditional martial art, a discipline for life. There was only one Mori Sensei, but at the JKA of San Francisco Bay we try to practice in his spirit.
Mori Sensei passed away in September 2018, and was honored with a formal memorial service at JKA headquarters in Japan. His successor as chief instructor of the JKA SKDI and JKA of New York, Takahashi Shu, 7th dan, trained with Mori Sensei for many decades, and founded the JKA of Brooklyn.
For more on Mori Sensei, see the short film, "Tokyo on the Hudson" by Crystal Sershen and "The Death of a Master", a personal essay by JKA of San Francisco Bay instructor T.J. Stiles, in the Sewanee Review. See also this video of Mori Sensei performing the kata Meikyo, accompanied by a classical Chinese poem, in 2000, and another showing Mori Sensei demonstrating in the 1970s. The last minute or so of the latter video particularly demonstrate his exceptional timing and accuracy.
Photo Credit: Shiroma Isami
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JKA of San Francisco Bay Instructors in 2017: from left, Juan Ruiz, 3rd Dan; T.J. Stiles, 5th Dan, Nikos Anerousis, 4th Dan
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T.J. Stiles, third from left, with some of the giants of the Japan Karate Association, 1991. Immediately to the right of Stiles is Enoeda Sensei; two more to the right in the front row, Mori Sensei; next, front row, Osaka Sensei.
T.J. Stiles, left, facing Nakano Seigo, Mori Sensei chief judge, JKA SKDI Championship match, 1998
JKA of New York, Dawn Winter Training, c. 1991; Mori Sensei standing at left
Shomin: the front of the Berkeley dojo
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Mori Sensei (left), JKA SKDI summer gasshuku, 2010
JKA at Columbia University, April 1990: Mori Sensei, front row third from right; T.J. Stiles, standing far right
T.J. Stiles training for 5th Dan examination, 2010, with Mori Sensei standing and holding shinai, looking away from the camera
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