History of Shotokan Karate Do International, United States Federation

In 1983, Kanazawa Soke was invited to USA to conduct a seminar. Four dojos, three in California and one in NY, along with a few individuals joined together with Soke to establish SKIF in the United States. All of the original Dojos and individual people who initially joined Soke, along with Jonathan Kwok Sensei, made up the original Board of Directors.

In 2000, Soke officially gave us the name Shotokan Karate-Do International United States Federation (SKI-USF), thus SKI-USF was born.

Currently, the SKI-USF Board consists of six members. Jonathan Kwok Sensei, SKI-USF Chief Instructor, joined SKIF around 1977-1978 when SKIF was established in Hong Kong. Dennis Livotto Sensei, Board member, joined SKIF in ‘78 as a member of the Australian affiliated dojos. Jonathan Kwok Sensei and Dennis Livotto Sensei are the longest standing members of SKIF in our organization. Bijan Soleimani Sensei, Board Chairman, joined as an individual in 1983. Jay Castellano Sensei, General Secretary and Senior Board Member, was a member of Satsuma dojo under the leadership of Isao Wada Sensei, Wada Sensei’s dojo was one of four original dojos that joined newly formed SKIF in United States. Steven Wong Sensei, Board member, was a member of the Way of Japan Dojo in Fresno California under the late Robert Halliburton Sensei. Halliburton Sensei’s dojo was also one of the original four dojos that joined with Soke in 1983. Paul Walker Sensei, Board member, trained at the SKIF Honbu dojo under Soke Kanazawa and other General Headquarters (GHQ) instructors from 1996 through 1999.

Our organization is managed by Board of Directors, including our Chief Instructor who oversees technical and instructional components for our organization. We have a very selective group of current dojo members and will be selective with potential dojos that may want to join the SKI-USF organization. Our member dojos strictly practice the SKIF syllabus, which was created by Kanazawa Soke, as the required core karate-do instruction. However, member dojos are free to teach additional material and arts as they choose, but the core karate curriculum must be the SKIF syllabus.

The original people who joined SKIF have had invited instructors from GHQ for seminars, every year for the last 39 years.
SKI-USF, since its inception, continues to bring instructors from Japan’s Honbu dojo twice a year to teach high quality seminars and to conduct black belt testing.