Taiwan:The Strongest Martial Art Challenge.

Asai Sensei was the first person to take Karate to Taiwan. Because the roots of Karate are firmly based in Chinese Kempo, at that time, Karate wasn't welcome in Taiwan. Asai Sensei constantly faced challenges from other martial artists, and they were very troublesome. The reason being that if he won, everyone would hate Karate. If he lost everyone would think Karate was weak. However, he couldn't lose on purpose. Therefore, if his challenger was determined to fight, Asai Sensei demonstrated his awesome ability, but he never caused any severe or permanent damage to his opponent. Therefore he was successfully walking the political tightrope. To further promote Karate in Taiwan, he often did Karate demonstrations on TV. At the time these demostrations were broadcasted, people would gather on the streets to watch them on whatever televisions were available either in shops or in restaurants..

One day Asai Sensei was invited to dinner by Mr. Lin, the most senior instructor of Crane Kung Fu in Taiwan. Mr. Lin's assistant was Asai Sensei's wife's brother. Mr Lin was a very warm, soft spoken polite man. During the party, and while sitting down at the table, over dinner, the most amazing phenomenon occured. Mr. Lin's eyes glittered with almost a "thirst-for-blood" look. At that moment Mr. Lin aggressively attacked Asai Sensei with his fists. Mr. Lin Kiai-ed a few times and his vains in his forehead became visible as a result of that situation. Asai Sensei deflected, and nutralized all of Mr. Lin's attacks. None of these attacks were ever successful in touching Asai Sensei's body. Throughout this whole event, Asai Sensei kept his calm, always smiling, with one hand in his pocket, while the other was doing all the blocking! Mr. Lin continued to test Asai Sensei's defenses, but eventually he realized it was futile and gave-up, immediately returning to his relaxed happy persona. Later, Mr. Lin explained that the reason why he went through this fist fight was to see if Asai Sensei was worthy to teach his Senior Crane Kung Fu students. who had now been studying with him for over 20 years, Karate.
If Asai Sensei was weak , Mr Lin had planned to destroy him. However, Mr Lin , who was 60 years old, said that had never met anyone who could deflect his attacks and he was surprised that such a young man (Asai sensei was 26 years old at that time) could have such power. After that, the party continued with a joyful time until the morning. Also Mr. Lin insisted that all his students must continue to study Karate at Asai Sensei's Dojo. This recommendation helped a lot. Challenges to Asai Sensei became less frequent and the Taiwanese Martial Art community opened up to him.


Building on this success Asai Sensei then moved to Hawaii , where he continued to teach Karate. He also travelled the world extensively , bringing his own brand of Karate to hundreds of thousands of people. Finally, he returned to Japan to become the technical director of the JKA.
In the year 2000 Asai Sensei created the Non-Profit Organization Japan Karate Shotokai, as a way to further the development of Karate. His focus is on spirit development and not just technique development. He strongly believes in developing one's spirits as a way to kindness and respect towards other people. In addition, he has created wheelchair Karate as method for entroducing Karate to all people regardless of any dissabilities they may have. He beleives through that this Community Service, Spirit-Development will the same for everyone and not only the physically tallented or physically fit.

And still, after 50 years of training, Asai sensei still strives for the perfection of his Karate. Every morning, 365 days a year, at 5am he follows a strict 2 1/2 hour training routine. "Maybe people think that this is hard work, but to me this is very natural. Self-Training is method of pushing myself to the limit and learning new things about my own Karate. The day when my Karate Spirit nad Technique stop growing is the day that I will pass on from this earth. It is for that reason that in ten years my Karate will be better than today. So every day I must continue to train as a student." After so long Asai Sensei sees this training as a natural part of life, again a quality that sets him apart from most. His Karate development rate is perhaps similar, if not faster, to that of a bullet train: always increasing in speed. Contiued training is of the utmost importance. he also said, "Equally as important is to create your own training method to match up to your own physical level. Over the course of 365 days, we must make today's techniques better than yesterday's, and tomorrow's better than today's." This is the true spirit of a Karate-Ka.


Hawaii Top Photo, From 1962. Asai sensei's technique had already become a little different due to the fact that he had already travelled to many countries learning many techniques which he developed to his body and style. Once they had become a part of his arsenal of techniques he introduced them into Karate as Asai style Karate.

Bottom Photo, Dubai seated with the Crowned Prince. Asai sensei makes an effort to travel to many countries.