An interviewed article by
JKFan Vol.15 2004 Tokyo Japan
Edited & translated by SSU-USA

Shukokai produces referees
I heard that there are many SSU instructors who are acquiring certified referee's licenses, such as official A-class referee's licenses when compared to other organizations.

I have suggested to all SSU instructors that they take the referee's licenses as much as they can, such as JKF supreme referee, which is top of the list. It has been an issue whether karate could be one of the official Olympics for a long time. Judging from the current trend, it is likely to be happened in the near future. When this happens, it would be difficult to produce many competitors who have met the international standard without having the referees who have a good knowledge of rules and their guidance. In this respect, I put the referee's training on the top of our priority list. Because the competitions rules are frequently changing, one has to be flexible to cope with new rules, even one who has received a referee's certification. Therefore, we are always having many seminars and referee's classes at the honbu dojo or the other dojos to maintain our skills.

Unlike other athletic pursuits, karate still seems to have some issues of concern such as its rules. Each ryu-ha (styles or sects) establishes its own rules and manners and those rules have not yet become uniform.

Yes, indeed. Baseball or soccer has no ryu-ha, and there are little differences between professional rules and high school ones, for example. This may be one of the reasons why they are widely spread; they have developed so much in terms of their technical side and are producing many potential players who are able to perform in the international arena. When it comes to karate, however, it seems that it has just started consideration of uniform rules. Since such problems still remain to be worked out, what we really need at the moment is to train referees who are familiar with JKF rules. This would provide a criteria or standard for karate and would also provide referees who are able to make definite and fair judgments.

As being one of the organizations' proponents, what is your stance for the Shitei-kata (appointed kata)?

One should not confine the players within the limit of certain guidance by following only our own style or theories. Rather, I would propose that we give the students the best opportunity to learn the basic skills to make them feel confident and willing to go for the games. Since we practice Shito-ryu, there are some differences from the JKF Shitei-katas. Even so, there is no point arguing those differences, we need to work with an understanding of the differences and should still give the best guidance to the students that we can. As long as one still has in mind the importance of going back to the basics, the students could always be reassured of the quality of those techniques and skills taught at our dojos, couldn't they?

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