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SHIHAN LEN BARNES 20/09/1918 – 20/05/2003
Shihan Len Barnes arrived in South Africa in 1948 having served as a RSM in the Second World War during the Burma campaign. He was already an accomplished welterweight boxing champion, a self-defence and PT instructor in the army and learned knife fighting from the Indian partisan jungle irregulars.
In Cape Town he joined up with Judo Master Alex Butcher, achieving the rank of Nidan and introducing Kodokan Judo to South Africa. In 1954 he became interested in Kenpo Karate. Trawling Cape Town harbour, he met 1st officer Nagatani of the Japanese Expeditionary ship Soya Maru who in 1958 gave him Masutatsu Oyama’s book "What is Karate".
The very first Karate dojo in South Africa was started in Long Street in 1961. Previously karate was taught at the Cape Town Kodokan Judo Club. From this dojo sprung most of today’s household karate names, hence the title “Father of Karate” in South Africa was born.
In 1965 he was appointed Branch Chief by Masutatsu Oyama, only the third person outside Japan to be awarded Branch Chief status, forming a life long friendship with his friend Mas Oyama.
In 1968 he again teamed up with his old friend Alex Butcher at the Academy of Martial Arts incorporating Aikido, Kendo and his own self-defence technique Yukido. In 1971 the South African Kyokushin Honbu was born when he and Shihan Bas van Stenis opened the first official Kyokushin Dojo in South Africa. This dojo had a membership of over 200 by 1972, with branches in all provinces of South Africa and probably the strongest karate organisation in South Africa at the time.
In 1985 Shihan Barnes suffered a heart attack and as a result took a backstage, but remained head of The International Karate Organisation: Kyokushinkaikan Southern Africa. In 1995 he was honoured with his 8th Dan, the only non Japanese at the time to receive this high honour.
Shihan Len Barnes’ Katana which has been entrusted to Shihan Bas
Shihan Barnes took the death of his friend Sosai Mas Oyama in 1994 and the subsequent disarray in the Kyokushin Karate world badly. He was deeply disillusioned with the power play internationally and locally. Up to his death in 2003 he worked towards reconciliation of all the various Kyokushin groups, a dream that will probably never materialise. During the last years of his life he was actively involved in Shihan Bas’s Cape Town Dojo, still teaching up to the age of 80.
Shihan Bas van Stenis, as the longest serving student of Shihan Barnes received the menkyo kaiden; The legitimate successor of Shihan Len Barnes, the recognized “Father of Karate” in South Africa - and was presented by the Barnes family with Shihan Len Barnes’s katana, dogi, obi and many other valuable memento’s.
TO KNOW, TO WILL, TO DARE, TO BE SILENT:
SHIHAN LEN BARNES
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