By Jokokan Denmark

It was a cold autumn day in 1995. Skælskør Karate Club held a crisis meeting. We had approx. 10 members. Out of the 10 members, 4 of us were 1st kyu., the rest were beginners with a maximum of 1 year of training behind them. We had had a 1st dan in the club, but he had retired, so now we were teaching each other, the best we had learned. Our future prospects were not immediately visible. After all, the four of us wanted to wear a black belt, and we had no affiliation with a master. The Gensei-ryu style that we trained was quite spread out in Denmark at the time, with several different masters. As karate-kas are usually a little proud of their style, we didn't throw ourselves at just anyone.

In the dawn of time when Skælskør Karate Klub started, we were a subdivision of Slagelse Karate Klub. Some of their instructors had trained under a grandmaster from Japan named Yukio Tonegawa Sensei. However, we no longer had any contact with Slagelse Karate Klub, but we knew that their head coach Jan Wismann was 2nd dan (1994, currently 3rd dan) in Gensei-ryu, so he had to be able to graduate us.

We contacted him and he agreed to come and teach us. After a few times we were invited to Slagelse to participate in their training. We were two instructors from Skælskør who accepted this offer. They were quite skilled – the ones from Slagelse, we had a lot to learn. Slagelse Karate Klub was a member of Jokokan Denmark, a relatively new organization which was led by Kimu Bjarkmann 6th dan (1996, currently 7th dan). He was taught directly by our former grandmaster, Soke Tonegawa Sensei, so there was real meat to this.

We trained for a few months in Slagelse, after which we were invited to Jokokan's annual summer camp in 1996. I was the only one from Skælskør who took part. It was a fantastic experience, I got a really good feeling that this was where I belonged. Fortunately, they also liked me, and an agreement was reached regarding trial membership of Jokokan Denmark. This was then made official at a ceremony in Skælskør in the autumn of 1996. At the same time I was appointed head instructor for Skælskør Karate Club.

After approx. half a year's trial membership, we were accepted as full members of Jokokan Denmark. Unfortunately, we lost a number of our members, including some of the old ones, in this new phase of change. But we continued because in Jokokan there was really a lot to learn, even if it sometimes felt like starting over. For me, the first few years were one long tough training. I had to learn new curriculum, new principles and training methods that I could pass on to my students.

On the outside it looked like what I already knew, but the more I trained, the more it dawned on me that everything behind it hadn't followed. It was four years from the day I attended the first training camp until I got my black belt. And I who thought I was ready then! From that day on, it was as if a lot of pieces fell into place.

Suddenly we got many members in Skælskør. We had a system and an association behind us that backed us up, offered teaching, coaching and sparring as well as a lot of good colleagues from other clubs. Last but not least, we had an influence on all decisions in the association. Now we were no longer the small isolated club down in the corner of Zealand, we had grown not only in size, but also our knowledge had grown. We now had a lot to pass on to our students. Today we are around 70 members and we are not done growing. Our next big goal is to get our own premises, and we should probably succeed.

Chief Instructor & Shihan
Per Nygaard Kristensen
Jokokan Skælskör Karate School