Our History

The clubs lineage and roots can be traced back to as the late 1940's early 1950's and the US Armed Forces. In 1948 the US Air Force arranged for a series of martial arts demonstrations at their installations overseas in Tachikawa, Kisarazu, Tokorozawa and Yokosuka military bases. Isao Obata and Masatoshi Nakayama conducted the karate demonstrations.

These demonstrations brought interest to many airman and soon karate and judo clubs were established on the installations. In 1951, Strategic Air Command (SAC) under the command of General Curtis P. LeMay hired Mel Bruno, a judo man to organize and direct a physical training program in martial arts for SAC personnel. One of the training instructors was Hidetaka Nishiyama who taught karate and self defense as combative measures to Air Force pilots and navigators.  This program was successful and by 1953 the Air Force decided to expand the concept and sponsor a six-month tour to selected installations in the U.S.

The tour included ten of the highest-ranking judo men and three premier karate men from the JKA to include, Isao Obata, Toshio Kamate and Hidetaka Nishiyama. This tour brought awareness to the American public as to the existence of karate and further  provided an opportunity  export Shotokan to the western hemisphere. In the early 1960s the JKA sent Hidetaka Nishiyama to the United States who settled in the west, Los Angeles California, Teruyuki Okazaki in the east, Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Takayuki Mikami in the South, first in Kansas City, and then in New Orleans Luisiana. These names are only but a few of some of the primier karateka who came and settled in the western hemisphere to promote the art of karate.

In 1957 and upon the passing away of Master Funakoshi, Masatoshi Nakayama was appointed chief intrusctor of the Japan Karate Association. One of Mr. Nakayama’s American students in the late 1950s was a young US Air Force airman named Peter Velez.  When Mr. Velez returned back to the United States from overseas, he continued his training and teaching under the guidance of Mr. Nishiyama. Mr. Velez, a pioneer in his own right, was instrumental to spreading karate in the Air Force and to the civilian populace.  In the early 70s, Mr. Velez relocated to San Antonio, Texas where he retired from the Air Force and continued to work as a civil service architectual designer.

Here, he established a club at Randolph AFB, Randolph JKA Karate Club under the Mr. Nishiyama's organiztion with lineage to the JKA.  In the early 90s,  the Air Force Base closed our training facility and we changed location to off base. Along with the new training dojo came the change from Randolph JKA Karate Club to JKA San Antonio Dojo-Sho.

Mr. Velez, a direct lineage within the early Armed Forces Karate Federation (AFKF) and founder of this club maintained allegiance and loyalty in support of Sensei Nishiyama.  This continued after Mr. Nakayama passed away and Mr. Nishiyama decided to go independent from JKA Japan.  However this changed with the passing away of Sensei Nishiyama as we opted to go back to the club’s roots and continue our allegiance to the JKA aligning with Master Mikami, JKAAF and  with JKA Japan Karate Association headquarters in Japan.

The style of traditional karate we practice at our dojo is referred to as JKA-Shotokan. The style has no name, Master Funakoshi just called it karate-do.  However, out of respect Master Funakoshi's students  started calling it "shoto" which was Master Funakoshi's pen name and around the year of 1936 several of Gichin Funakoshi’s students built a dojo in honor and respect to their teacher and named it "The Shotokan", the house of Gichin Funakoshi. 

Therefore, “Shotokan” can be interpeted to mean the house of Gichin Funakoshi.  This coupled with the explanation on the previous  paragraph is why the style of karate we practice at our dojo is referred to as JKA-Shotokan but it is simply karate-do or karate (the art of the empty hand).