He came for six months. He stayed for twenty-seven years.
Avi Rokah arrived in Los Angeles in 1981, at twenty-one — already six years into his karate training — with a
plan: train under Hidetaka Nishiyama — the legendary co-founder of the Japan Karate Association and direct
student of Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan — for six months, then return home. The six months became
a year. The year became a decade. The decade became twenty-seven years of daily training, five to six hours a
day, until the Grand Master’s passing in 2008.
In that room, karate was not a sport or a workout. It was budo — a discipline for forging the whole human
being, where power comes from precision, and victory begins with mastery of oneself. Nishiyama came to regard
Avi as his prized student and heir apparent, entrusting him with the finest details of the system he had spent
a lifetime refining.
Along the way came the medals — the 1994 World Championship, five US national titles — but ask Sensei Avi and
he’ll tell you the competition record is a byproduct. The real work was, and remains, the daily polishing of
technique and character. Today he serves as president of the World Traditional Karate Federation, teaches
seminars across the world, has qualified more than one hundred black belts — and still teaches every adult
class at his own dojo personally, because that is what his teacher did.