Where My Karate-doAll Began - Castle Hill Dojo

In 1976 Mr. Al Davis founded the Castle Hill Karate dojo, at the Castle Hill RSL Club, and established the Japan Karate Association in New South Wales. In 1978 the club was visited by Nakayama Shihan (head of JKA Japan) as a guest for the 1 st JKAA National Karate Championships that were hosted by Castle Hill Dojo, Sydney. Mr. Davis left in early 1981 and Mr. Jake Leslie (3 rd Dan) was asked to take on the position of instructor.

Jake Sensei was my original instructor, and when I was young I idolised this mans every movement. Jake Sensei was a very passionate and talented instructor, and his influence will always live in my karate. (Oss, thank you Jake Sensei)

I began my training with Castle Hill dojo in March 1989. When I started training karate-do, Castle Hill dojo was huge, the biggest JKA club in Australia and NZ. Jake Sensei had around 150 students from memory, but there may have been more. Training was held three times a week, at the Castle Hill R.S.L. The trainings were all general classes, so there would sometimes be over 100 students in the one class. It was really awesome; there were probably 30 or more black belts in every training, it was like being at a State or National seminar, but it was just our dojo. When I first started out I was just in awe of the black belts from our dojo, especially Peter Strauss, Mathew and Steven Kwong, Michael Armstrong, and Gavin Black who were all junior national champions at the time.

Jake Sensei retired from teaching in 1994 due to ill health, when I was about thirteen, and I stayed training with Castle Hill dojo, until I left in 1999 to open my own dojo.

INFLUENCES IN KARATE-DO