The Martial Edge forum has been buzzing since the interview with GKR Karate leader’s interview was published a few weeks ago. So Lesley Jackson took some of the questions raised in the forum and presented them to Robert Sullivan.

The response to the recent interview Martial Edge did with GKR Karate Chief Instructor Kancho Robert Sullivan has had a phenomenal response on the forum so with these questions in mind, Robert and Martial Edge continued their discussion. With some of the forum responses being quite vehement, Martial Edge forwarded some of the questions that were posed by members of the forum and Robert was quite happy to respond to them.

One of the first things that Robert wanted to address was his standing in Japan and how GKR is regarded in the motherland of karate. He also addressed the issue of language and the origins of the GKR name.

“Something we in GKR don't go out of our way to talk about, because it is 'par for the course', we have great credibility in Japan. We train with some of Japans most respected Masters (Tasaki, Fujiwara and Ishihara amongst others) who hold us in high-esteem. They love our karate and attitude. There are many external examples of masters, clubs, highly regarded people who totally accept GKR Karate and in fact endorse us as having a high standard.”

“I speak a little Japanese and in Japan that helps but some of the Japanese we work with speak English too so we manage to communicate quite well. I wanted to create a name that reflected my philosophy. I went to a Japanese friend of mine in 1984 and got help with the language. We put lots of syllables together and I put much thought into this over some time; for example, kan, sho, do, shin, ju, kyu, go, budo, wa, ryu and more. I came up with following; Go means 'hard' which reflected the kime, Kan can mean different things, but he told me it can mean 'total or complete' and that meant something to me. I always believed in aiming for as perfect technique as possible. And Ryu means school. So Go-Kan-Ryu made total sense to me.”

“Funny story though, in 1986 I was in Japan in an elevator wearing my gi and some people laughed, pointing to my badge and said ‘rape school’. I found that Gokan meant rape but separated with a hyphen it was simply two words so on returning to Sydney I promptly got all our badges changed to include the hyphen, go-kan. Some people have pointed out to me that somewhere on an anti GKR website there is genuine criticism about the 'rape school' thing as if it is something negative toward myself or GKR. To me it's a funny story and I've never tried to hide it.”

Karate Background and Training

Robert also explained in detail his karate background before he founded GKR karate, his instructor’s background and his current training.

“I began GoJu Kai in Sydney in 1964 and got to 5th kyu after 5 years. I trained with the Budokan, Karate Association of Malaysia, from about 1969-70 and I got Shodan. I joined Takasaka from Kei Shin Kan and lived in Japan for about 4 months at the Honbu and got Nidan in 1971. Takasaka was a Senior Instructor in Kei Shin Kan teaching that style to Budokan students in Kuala Lumpur. I helped him legally in immigrating to Australia to set up Kei Shin Kan. Merv Oakley graded me in GoJu Kai. Tony Chew graded me in Budokan, and Takasaka in Kei Shin Kan.”

“Yes I still train about 4 times a week. Many times at home, others when I teach, and at seminars. I will as much as possible 'do the class' too so I get my own training in. Home training consists of about 250 hits on the makiwara, 10-20 Kata and about 150-200 kicks, obviously all of that is in logical sequences.”

Instructors and Instructing

One of the major concerns has been the standard of teaching within the GKR schools. With some forum members raising concerns about non-black belts teaching lessons and advertisements in British job centres for karate instructors with ‘no experience necessary’, Robert was keen to address this issue.

The ad that is being referred to is not for karate instructors, but for people to apply to become trained in all areas of management, administration and of course karate – including teaching. It does not mean that we put people through a (say) 3-month training program and have them teach classes for us. I’m assuming that is what the concerns are. We have a 2.5 - 3 year training program that can result in an applicant becoming a Regional Manager / Instructor. People with prior Martial Arts experience and who really apply themselves can achieve this level within the first few years, but people who may not have had any Martial Arts experience will obviously take a lot longer to develop the karate side. The ‘traineeship’ involves training with an experienced Regional Manager 3 times a week in a smaller more intensive class. The training is during the day. This ensures they are fast tracked – although it still takes over 2 years to reach the level of Black Belt in this program. By the way, the average time to get to black belt in GKR is 5 years. Some of the younger, more agile and fit students can do this in 4, while some of the more ‘senior’ students can take up to 6-7 years to reach this milestone in their training. It is not a race, and each person who reaches the level of Black Belt in GKR knows they have earned their grade.

“We source our prospective full time instructors many ways, our sensei base, our adult student base, newspaper ads, job centres, friends and referrals. In ads we will use words like, 'career opportunity to be trained to teach karate, no experience necessary.' Those, or similar words have sent some of GKRs critics into a spin, ‘How dare they think that someone can teach karate without experience’ and I'd agree of course. Yet anyone with half a brain will realize that we don't recruit someone to teach karate who's never worn a gi or stepped into a dojo.”

“What we do is take an applicant and teach them GKR karate and at some point in time in the future they would start to teach, and eventually be trained up to be a regional instructor. From day one these people are taught how to present GKR to a prospective new member and walk them through what the club is all about. If that person wants to join, the Self Defence Consultant (SDC) will give them a timetable of classes, and join them up as a member. This way the SDC can make a full time living from day by sort of 'serving an apprenticeship’ by joining up students whilst being trained to one day run their own region.”

“If I graded someone to Shodan in 6 months, no matter how natural they were and how often and hard they trained, I'd be laughed out of town and if I got a 5th kyu student and set him up teaching at a branch and he never once had a visit from a senior instructor to check on him that would rightfully be regarded as not good. We break our branches in GKR into regions, run by a regional sensei and in one region we might have about 25-50 classes, run by branch instructors, and at each class the sensei will have the assistance of a sempai. They don't have to be black belts, although many are, and of course all will be eventually. Whilst the technical skill of a sempai and particularly a sensei has to a reasonable standard, an important factor is leadership skill, communication skills, attention to detail, personality and student rapport. Obviously the sensei is more skilled than the students and they attend a special instructor’s class once a week which accelerates their skill relatively speaking faster than the students they teach.”

“In GKR there is a strict teaching format the sensei teaches to keep them on track plus they have class oversight regularly from their regional sensei. I'm fully aware that this area of sometimes having non black belts teaching classes upsets some people, but I think most of those critics have never seen a GKR class. I'm the first to agree that if you could have a warm, charismatic 5th Dan teach each class that would be ideal but the class oversight of our 'lower grade sensei’s' and tight supervisory system which starts with me and works down ensures that quality rises to the surface and this is evident in our students.”

Recruiting and Retaining.

Another of the forum’s concerns was some of the methods employed by GKR Karate in recruiting their members. Rather than waiting for members to turn up to class, GKR will go out to actively gain new members by going door to door. Robert explains the thinking behind that.

“Unrelated to karate and before GKR I had two businesses where direct to consumer marketing was the norm. So it felt natural to recruit new members that way. In the beginning we used other various recruiting methods like leaflet drops, small local advertisements, and even school and public demonstrations, which all worked well. But once we embarked on the idea of speaking to people at their home it was something that did prove to be a way of promoting the concept of martial arts in a way that made people feel at ease with the idea of training in karate.

“We train our SDC’s carefully to be respectful and non-pushy. The fact is that when an SDC is warm and friendly and passionate about their karate, they promote the karate from the heart and recruit new members with no friction. When an SDC is a bit abrasive and pushy they not only get low results but it gives us a bad name because they represent GKR. Once again they are in the minority, and when we find out about these 'loose cannons' we sort them out. I can’t begin to tell you the countless students, some of them black belts, who come up to me at seminars I do all around the world and thank me, sometimes with tears in their eyes, that GKR is up front enough and had knocked on their door because it has changed their life, in some cases saved their life. Pretty powerful stuff eh? ”

“I'll tell you something that shows unbelievable hypocrisy. As we grew from Adelaide to every city in Australia (from 1993 to 1988) the martial arts community in Australia heard of our canvassing for students at houses. Many top instructors in Australian Martial Arts magazines criticised us for 'denigrating' martial arts. As we marched on with our recruitment success, we found that some of those same Instructors at some time tried to copy our canvassing methods, when they weren't successful they stopped, but many of them tried it. There is a spirit within GKR, which seems to make it special. I think it’s just because we are unpretentious, honest and simply teach good karate.”

Loose Cannons and the McDojo

GKR is a huge martial arts organisation and Robert freely admits that not all its exponents can meet his own personal high standards. Much like any other large company that has a global span, Robert cannot account for every single person involved but he is proud of GKR global uniformity.

“We are a very big club, and there will always be 'loose cannons' within GKR who we will endeavour to pull into line. In the early days when I knew every student, things were under my control literally and that was good. I knew that as GKR grew to the point that I trusted other people there would be some things that would fall through the cracks. I guess like 'Chinese whispers', at the end it may be a little different than at the start. We accept that as a fact of life.”

Robert Sullivan founder of GKR Karate In the Martial Edge forums the debate rages about GKR Karate. As our role in the martial arts community is to provide a non political platform so everyone has a voice - Lesley Jackson heard the call for an interview with someone from GKR karate and obeyed, so she managed to get in touch with the founding father of this popular style of karate and asked him a few questions.

“I imagine that there may be some GKR instructors out of many thousands and some GKR classes out of thousands that would disappoint me but I do know they are in the minority. I would be dishonest to pretend GKR was ‘perfect’. It may well be that when one of our critics pops up in cyberspace, that they will have a legitimate complaint and for that I'm sorry and accept responsibility. However, every big organisation has good and bad that expand as the organisation gets bigger. I bet Toyota motor company have made a lemon occasionally, that doesn’t mean that Toyota should close shop or in principle is not a good car maker.”

“Actually it's only recently that I've heard the term McDojo. I guess it's meant to be derogatory. Although I suppose it could be a compliment because McDonalds is an incredibly successful business. I eat there from time to time. Have you tried their recent healthy choice menu, not bad eh?”

“I’m actually not sure what the issue is regarding this; I would assume it is because of the large organisation just as McDonalds is very big in the food business. The first time I heard this was only recently, but one of my guys told me he has heard the term used for years. I guess one could say with my tongue in cheek that any publicity is better than no publicity. We are obviously doing something right otherwise we wouldn’t be making our critics feel so insecure.”

"It is fascinating how people criticize with out knowing the facts, or they take one small legitimate complaint and take the big picture out of context, looking at the whole thing negatively. I am by nature open minded and not critical of other martial arts clubs. But to my discredit many years back I too had my criticisms of other clubs with minimal or no direct knowledge of the facts. I must say it was only a few times, but what cured me was when I met the people who without knowing them I criticized. I was disappointed in myself and don't do that now. I know without a shadow of a doubt the great majority of GKR’s critics would feel embarrassed and apologetic if they actually spent time with me and my top guys and trained with us and got to know us. Their opinions would turn 180 degrees. Why I know is because that has happened many times and with many top instructors."

“At the end of all this, I know that we have a good system of recruiting, teaching and developing good attitudes and good students. We have great people who are responsible for the running of the operational and administrative side of GKR and if anyone could meet and spend time with these people they’d surely have a different point of view of GKR. You should not be quick to judge anything these days without knowing much about the person or organisation that you’re judging. It says more about you than it does about them. People should spend more time working on their own growth and development – both in and out of the dojo. In essence, that is what karate-do should be about.’

To find out more about GKR Karate, you can visit their website.

Author Profile: Lesley Jackson

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Lesley Jackson, black belt and Taekwondo teacher is deputy Editor of Martial Edge.

Also by Lesley Jackson:

• The Beginner’s Guide to Darkness
• Ruth Chare British Taekwondo Champion
• Sneaking under the Wire

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Keywords : GKR, Karate, Robert Sullivan, martial arts

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