Sakagami-Kuniaki 7th Dan Honbucho
SAKAGAMI-KUNIAKI
Sakagami-Kuniaki started training in Wado-ryu in 1959 when he was a teenager. He originally wanted to train in boxing but found that the nearest boxing gym was thirty miles away; in those days this was a great distance to travel.
A friend then told Sakagami-Kuniaki he could easily find a karate dojo so Sakagami-Kuniaki decided to do that instead. The dojo happened to be one of Suzuki-Tatsuo's, a very famous instructor with a good reputation. At this time Sakagami-Kuniaki did not know anything about styles, it by chance happened to be a Wado Ryu dojo.
The training was a little different then in those days you would do jogging in bare feet and the discipline was military style, you never said "no" in the dojo, only "yes", "hai", you were allowed to question if you were not sure of something but you could not question the teachings.
Sakagami-Kuniaki won the Middle Japan Kumite two years running and then went on to take a British Wado team to Japan to participate in the World Wado Karate Cup. This was a proud moment for Sakagami-Kuniaki, as he had always wanted to take an English team to Japan.