Sensei Masaru Shintani
The Supreme Instructor of Wado Kai Karate in Canada was Sensei Masaru Shintani, 9th Dan (Kudan); at the time of his death he was the highest ranking Sensei outside of Japan. A direct student of Shihan Otsuka, the founder of Wado Kai, Sensei Shintani devoted over 50 years to the study of Karate. He also held ranks in Judo (Sandan), Aikido (Shodan), and Kendo (Shodan). Sensei Shintani was born in Vancouver, B.C. in 1927, the child of Japanese immigrants. His mother was a member of the respected Matsumoto samurai clan whose history goes back hundreds of years, while his father, a salmon fisherman, drowned before the War. Like virtually all West Coast Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War, his family was uprooted and moved to the rugged interior of British Columbia. The Shintani family of mother and six children was interned in New Denver, BC an abandoned mining town that was used to house hundreds of Japanese-Canadians.
While growing up in the camp, he learned the ways of two cultures: on school mornings, he attended Canadian classes in English, history, and mathematics like thousands of other youths, while in the afternoon, he studied Japanese language and heritage, along with Kendo and Judo, the standard physical education for all Japanese students.
One day in 1940-41, while looking for frozen ponds by the river to play hockey, a group of youths including Sensei Shintani came across an older man standing barefoot in the snow punching a tree and shouting. This was his initial contact with the first person that would direct his life into karate. After repeated contacts, some of the boys were eventually invited to train with the man - he was named Akira Kitigawa and a practitioner of Shorin-ryu, one of the older Okinawan karate styles. Sensei Kitagawa himself had trained in Shuri-te style karate under Sokun Matsumura and Anko Itosu. However, Sensei Kitigawa simply referred to his teachings as kumite (fighting) and soon the eager young men were beating the bark off of trees with punches, blocks, and kicks. Sensei Shintani recalls training barefoot on the ice rink and sparring bouts that he describes thus, "Every time you got on the floor, it was life or death." Overall, Sensei Kitigawa's methods would be considered excessive or brutal by today's standards, but as Sensei Shintani reflects, "I believe it hurt our minds more than it helped our bodies."
In 1947 Sensei Shintani's family had moved to Beamsville, near Hamilton, Ontario. Here he played semi-pro baseball for a farm team for the Cleveland Indians and tended the family farm and greenhouse to support his family. In the early 1950s, he established his first dojo in an Ontario garage, using mattresses to cover the concrete floor. He also began teaching karate and judo to interested local people at the Japanese Cultural Centre in Hamilton during this time.
Sensei Shintani was graded to 6th Dan when Kitigawa returned to Japan, where he died in 1956. Sensei Shintani himself began to travel to Japan to train in karate and visit his mother's family. He met Sensei Ohtsuka in 1956 at karate seminars. Over the next few years, Sensei Shintani competed in and eventually won the championship in the large Japan Karate Federation tournaments. In 1958, Sensei Ohtsuka approached Sensei Shintani with an invitation to join his organization, Wado Kai. Impressed with the character and integrity of Ohtsuka, Sensei Shintani respectfully accepted the invitation.
In 1966, Shintani Sensei met Takeshi Ishiguro, Sandan in Wado-Ryu, who taught Master Shintani the Wado curriculum. Sensei Ishiguro lived in Ontario and remained a friend to Sensei Shintani. Eventually, Sensei Ishiguro was promoted to 7th Dan in Sensei Shintani's organization. In 1968, Sensei Ohtsuka appointed Sensei Shintani the Supreme Instructor of Wado Kai in North America, and honoured him with a 7th Dan.
In 1979, Sensei Ohtsuka graded Sensei Shintani to hachidan (8th Dan), but at the same time he presented him with a kudan (9th dan) certificate to be revealed by Shintani after a suitable period of time had passed; he declared his kudan rank in 1995. Also during this time Sensei Shintani travelled to Japan several times to train with Sensei Ohtsuka. Sensei Ohtsuka also honoured his Canadian disciple by visiting Ontario on a few occasions to visit and teach, the last time being in 1980, just two years prior to his passing.
Sensei Shintani's devotion to, and mastery of, karate was remarkable. He refused to allow the vital and dynamic nature of karate to become stagnant and ritualized until it is no longer a 'real' martial art, but a stylized dance of impractical technique. He said, "There are no symbolic moves in kata: every technique must be performed as if real."
As well, he is the originator of a short staff (92 cm/36 inches) system of martial art called the Shindo (Way of Shintani). Virtually all techniques with the Shindo are parallels of the timing and body movements used in karate. Shindo has been well received by law enforcement agencies in many parts of Canada as well as in Singapore and Europe.
Sensei Shintani spent much of his time developing his karate and Shindo concepts and travelling to various regions of North America and overseas to conduct seminars in Wado Kai and Shindo for his students. As the leader of a strikingly large martial arts organization in North America, he could have been a very wealthy man. Instead, he lived a humble life of quiet modesty, practicing what he preached: humility, integrity, and honour.
