For those of you who don't know of Avi Rokah Sensei, he was the uchideshi (inside/personal student) of the late JKA Shotokan legend, Hidetaka Nishiyama Sensei. Rokah Sensei is literally keeping the unique karate (ITKF-Style) of Nishiyama Sensei alive, and therefore is an important figure in the Shotokan world, and the Traditional Karate-Do world in general.________
Master Nishiyama's Shotokan is very special, and if anyone is interested in 
its more intimate skills, I'd strongly recommend looking up Rokah Sensei for obvious reasons. His use of stance, stance form and tanden is of particular interest. Asai Sensei described several things relating to these points (when explaining the karate of `Nishiyama Senpai'). Here is a link to his karate-do blog: http://avirokahkarate.blogspot.com/ Rokah Sensei's knowledge of Nishiyama style karate is second to none, something which I can imagine many senior Japanese karateka, who started their karate journey's under the tutelage of Nishiyama Sensei, could probably never acknowledge!
its more intimate skills, I'd strongly recommend looking up Rokah Sensei for obvious reasons. His use of stance, stance form and tanden is of particular interest. Asai Sensei described several things relating to these points (when explaining the karate of `Nishiyama Senpai'). Here is a link to his karate-do blog: http://avirokahkarate.blogspot.com/ Rokah Sensei's knowledge of Nishiyama style karate is second to none, something which I can imagine many senior Japanese karateka, who started their karate journey's under the tutelage of Nishiyama Sensei, could probably never acknowledge!_________
What is so wonderful about Nishiyama style Shotokan is that its core principles are very often opposite to that of the Asai karate, nevertheless, and needless to say, it works! As a lover of diversity, this really enthrals me. Avi Rokah Sensei is a wonderful representative of Nishiyama Sensei, and is doing a superb job keeping his teachers karate alive, for future generations.
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© André Bertel, New Zealand 2011.
