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There
is a saying, that if you come from Liverpool, you are either a
comedian or a fighter.Truth or not, one can hardly deny that great
Northwest city has produced a plethora of both. Along the lines
of those fine Liverpol traditions comes 7th Dan Tony Christian,
the BKA's ( British Karate Association) Chief Instructor for Goju-ryu
Karate.
Tony, originally from Liverpool, now lives in Wigan
in Lancashire where he is a full time professional karate instructor
with more than 27 years experience under his belt in martial
arts. His schools is called the "Academy of Karate-do".
Tony Christian, almost from birth,
was totally immersed in the fight scene owing to his father
being a boxing promoter, and was the man who made Hogan "Kid"
Bassey to eventually take a world boxing crown.
As a youth Tony boxed, and by
all accounts was very good, perhaps at one stage he could have
been groomed for greater things. But that all changed after
seeing Sensei's Kanazawa and Enoda give a Karate demonstration
in Liverpool.
Tony takes up the story. "When
I saw Sensei Kanazawa and Enoda in St George's Hall, giving
a karate demo many years ago, it struck me that karate was the
dignified side of fighting to the rough and tumble of boxing.
It was this that fascinated me . this is not to denigrate western
boxing in any way just to perhaps emphasise that eastern martial
arts have an underlying philosophy that I was to find out much
later on in life eventually transcends the combat aspects of
karate.
"I originally joined a small
Wado ryu Karate Club that had just been set up in Liverpool
by Danny Connor, but Danny was away in japan extending his knowledge
in karate as Waseda University and we were left to our own devices.
It was pretty much a case of the blind leading the blind. Remember
this was late sixties, early seventies and karate in the UK
was almost none existent. Some time later Terry O'Neil had brought
Gary Spiers over from Japan to live and train in Liverpool.
"
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