JKA-SKC Honbu Dojo training on Elwood Jetty, Melbourne

The JKA-SKC Australasia is an officially registered branch of the Japan Karate Association (日本空手協会; Nihon Karate Kyokai), and has been given permission by JKA Headquarters to be a representative group in Australasia.

The JKA-SKC is a healthy, thriving organisation. It has a large group of core members who have a long history with the Japan Karate Association and many of its karateka hold very senior ranks: three Nanadans, seven Rokudans and 21 Godans.

The goal of the JKA-SKC instructors is to educate, motivate, guide and inspire our students and help them achieve their personal goals. Our instructors desire to be the best we can be in the karate world. We challenge ourselves to maintain continuous improvement in the areas of teaching and training.
Many of our instructors enjoyed success on the international competition stage and they are now passing their experience onto their karateka.

JKA-SKC Dojo Heads

JKA-SKC Australasia registers every year as an organisation to JKA Japan as well as registering each of its students individually. There are many benefits to enjoy because of this affiliation:

- Permission to conduct Dan gradings
- Permission to conduct Licence “Instructor, Examiner and Judge” tests
- National seminars and JKA-SKC area seminars
- Visits by JKA Headquarters instructors, including Ueki Shuseki Shihan (Chief instructor of JKA)
- JKA-SKC members are also entitled to attend the Spring and Autumn seminars held by JKA headquarters in Japan
- Annual standardisation Dojo Head training
- JKA-SKC members are entitled to enter trials when an Australian JKA team is selected

Naka and Okuma Senseis - seminar in Melbourne

Okuma Sensei teaching Bassai-Sho in MelbourneText

The Head Instructor of JKA-SKC Australasia Keith Geyer, has a long history with the JKA and has had the privilege and honour of training with all three Chief Instructors of the Japan Karate Association. His first visit was in 1974 where he spent time in the JKA instructors class. This visit was the first of many.
 

Keith and Derrick Geyer training in the JKA Honbu Dojo Instructors
Class training - May 1974Text

Keith at the JKA Honbu Dojo 1977

Keith visiting Funakoshi Gichin's memorial stone at Engakuji temple, Kita, Kamakura in 1977

In 1977 he lived in Japan and trained both in the Honbu Dojo instructors class as well as at Hoitsugan, Nakayama Sensei’s private dojo. In 2000, he graded to Nanadan in Tokyo and in 2015 was invited to join the Shihankai. Keith had the perfect mentor and role model, who showed him the way, his Sensei of 50 years, Stan Schmidt Sensei.

Keith fighting Tanaka Sensei at his Sandan grading in 1977.
The referee was Mikio Yahara

1972 - Johannesburg City hall - Transvaal championships - Enoeda Sensei, Roy Braun (Keith's first instructor) Keith, Stan Schmidt Sensei

Keith at Honbu Dojo Tokyo, pointing at his name directly under Stan Sensei's name on the Dan grade board

Ogura Sensei and Keith training in Germany With Ochi Sensei in 1980

JKA Shihankai members - Keith standing 3rd from right in between Ogura and Yano Senseis

Stan Schmidt Sensei, up until his death in 2019, was the most recognised non- Japanese in the JKA association. He trained at the Yotsuya dojo in 1963, when, on honeymoon, he spent a few months living in Japan. He was the first non- Japanese to be awarded Nanadan and Hachidan and to be appointed to the Shihankai.

Many of our JKA-SKC Australasia dojo heads, Lutie van den Berg, Jeff Krug, Rob Sachs, Karin Prinsloo, Graz Prinsloo spent years training with Stan Sensei who had a profound influence on all their karate lives. Read more about the late Stan Schmidt Shihan here.

Rob Sachs, Keith Geyer, Stan Schmidt Sensei, Jeff Krug, Lutie van den Berg