Tetsuhiko Asai Video Archive
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He wanted to be stronger

As a boy growing up, he wanted to be stronger than other people. What impressed Asai sensei to learn karate was at a time when the allied forces had just occupied Japan after the Second World War. He observed a fight between a boxer and a karate-ka. Asai sensei was impressed by the karate-ka’s kick which disabled the boxer. The incident was always in his mind. From there he knew karate was the path he wanted to follow. He wanted to be physically and mentally strong and decided to start training in karate. With great determination, Asai sensei studied hard until he gained entrance into Takushoku University. There were about one hundred and fifty students that started with Asai sensei training at the karate dojo, however, within a month there was only a handful. He overcame the hard training and eventually was allowed to live at the karate dormitory. For Asai sensei it was an honor to live there because all the renowned Shotokan masters attended and trained at Takushoku University. Those who knew Asai sensei said that, they were amazed by him and claimed that the only time he did not train was when he ate or slept.

The story of Asai's boyhood explains the motive behind everything he later taught: he did not start karate for sport or for show, but because he wanted to be stronger, physically and mentally. The fight he witnessed as a boy — a karate-ka disabling a boxer with a single kick — stayed in his mind, because it showed him a strength that did not depend on size. That same determination carried him into Takushoku University, where the training was so hard that of about 150 starters only a handful remained after a month, and where earning a place in the karate dormitory was an honour. The account ends with the detail that those who knew him said he trained all the time except when he ate or slept — a habit formed in youth that became the foundation of his teaching. For students, the message is that strength in karate is not a talent one is born with, but a decision followed by years of hard practice.

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Tetsuhiko Asai was born on June 7, 1935, in Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku in Japan.  He began studying karate at the age of twelve, training at a dojo near his home. At high school he also practised judo and earned a second dan grade, so his early years were shaped by two martial arts at once. The combination of judo's throwing and grappling with karate's striking gave his later karate an unusual range.   After school he moved to Tokyo and studied at Takushoku University, where he became one of the leading members of the university karate club. He was a flexible, fast-moving fighter, and he developed a distinctive counter of his own: diving low beneath an opponent's kick and striking back before the opponent could recover. He called this movement the "submarine," and it made his name known across the karate world. The video below shows Asai in a kumite demonstration from 1987. Source: the official biography of Tetsuhiko Asai, International J...
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Asai karate video collection

http://master-karate.ru/video.html This video is devoted to Asai karate video collection. This video is part of the Asai kata collection, an archive of seminar and training footage connected with Tetsuhiko Asai's school of karate. Asai-Ryu is rooted in Shotokan and enriched with principles of Chinese White Crane kung fu, and the material collected here shows how that approach is taught and practised in the dojo. The collection is updated every week with further kata and seminar recordings. This video belongs to the Asai karate video collection, an archive of seminar and training footage connected with Tetsuhiko Asai's school of karate. The recordings in this collection show the same principles across many settings: basics, kata, kumite, and teaching, all performed with the relaxed power and precise timing that characterised Asai's karate. Watch each recording more than once — the first viewing gives the shape of the performance, and later viewings reveal the details of foo...

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