■ Harley F. Palangchao
A master and his student who would later become icons of Japan Karate Association in Northern Luzon will gather fellow practitioners for the 1st Bontoc Open JKA Karatedo seminar in Mountain Province on Nov. 25.
Leading the seminar is Shihan Edgar Kapawen, Sr., who is the long-time chief instructor of JKA Northern Luzon chapter based at the YMCA building in Baguio City.
Kapawen has been in command of the JKA-NL headquarters founded by the great JKA instructor, the late Shihan Kunio Sasaki, who was sent to the Philippines in the 1960s to propagate the shotokan (knife-hand) style of martial art developed by Okinawan Shihan Gichin Funakoshi.
Kapawen is cre-dited for producing world-class karate practitioners, who trace their roots to the highlands of the Cordillera.
Joining him is one of his best students, Sensei Julian Chees, a long-time JKA instructor in Germany.
A sixth-dan blackbelt, Chees is a three-time world and six-time European karate champion, and was once the only non-German member of the national karate squad of Germany.
His dozens of awards was topped by his winning the kata (form) event in the 1993 World Shotokan Championships in Saarbrucken, Germany.
The karate seminar in the capital town of Bontoc backed by Shoshin Wurzburg Alternberg will be held at the Mountain Province Multipurpose Hall from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Ticket price is set at P600 and it will also be available at the venue entrance for walk-in participants.
For more details, interested participants may contact Sensei Kevin Roy Kapawen at 0946-256-0739 or Sensie Hans Kapawen at 0945-761-5115.
