| Kancho Hirokazu Kanazawa |
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Kancho Kanazawa was born 1931, Iwatem Japan.  He is one of few that had privilege studied from Gishin Funakoshi. After year and a half of hard training and steel discipline Kanazawa achieved 1 Dan, and after three years 2 Dan, being ahead of those who begun trainings long time before he did. After gratuated in 1956 Kanazawa joined JKA (Japan Karate Association). The same year he achieved 3 Dan, and also he passed exam to be an instructor.  In 1957 there was a first general Japanese karate tournament. Kanazawa in that time had a broken right arm and he wasn’t going to competing. However his mother came to him in this tournament and he didn’t want to disappoint her he decided to start in one kumite. The doctor was upon him to make sure that his health isn’t going worse after each fight.  By blocking and frighting with his left arm and saving his right one for precise hits he was winning fights one after another (he won all of them by ippon) to become an invincible in Grand Champion (winners of all weight categories were fighting for be the best among them).
 In 1957 he won 1st place in kumite, and in 1958 on another tournament he won 1st place in kumite and kata. Hirokazu Kanazawa till now is the only karateka who won general Japanese tournament three times in a raw. Last years his oldest son Nobuaki confirmed the reputation of family by winning Grand Champion on SKIF Championship.  He begun his long story as an instructor in 1960. Since then Kanazawa received opinion that he’s one of the best and most popular karateka in the world. In 1963 achieved 5 dan and in 1966 6 dan. On December 1977 he left JKA and founded SKIF ( Shotokan karate-do International Federation). Since then he travels the world giving his highest quality knowledge about karate as well as values and message that comes along. Except for his great knowledge about karate-do Kanazawa also has a wide knowledge on traditional weapons and Chinese Tai-Chi which he was studying for thirty years with professor Wong.  Present, Shihan Kanazawa is the president and master instructor world’s biggest karate organization SKIF, accumulating two and a half of million karate students all over the world in one hundred and eighteen countries. On April 2000 during 7th SKIF World’s Championship in Bali Shihan Kanazawa was promoted to 10th Dan. In spite of great popularity and status of legend Shihan Kanazawa is also man of big charisma but also accessible and open. The interest of his trainings is growing and his schedule is very tight.  In 2006 kancho Kanazawa had his 50th anniversary of his activity during 9th SKIF World’s Championships in Tokio. There were many men of karate and officials.
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