We would like to welcome Richard Yamamoto Sensei to the SMAA! Yamamoto Sensei has been practicing classic Kodokan judo since he was a teenager. At over 90 years of age, Yamamoto Sensei is still a very active senior citizen and a seventh dan with the Kodokan Judo Insitute in Tokyo. One of the pioneers of judo in the Northwestern part of the US, Yamamoto Sensei was the chief instructor of Seikikan Judojo for many years. Seikikan was established in the 1930s, and we'll have a biography of Yamamoto Sensei in an upcoming issue of the SMAA Journal.
The Shudokan Martial Arts Association (SMAA) is an international coalition of enthusiasts dedicated to promoting traditional Japanese budo and koryu bujutsu. The SMAA, a nonprofit corporation, is headed by an elite group of high-ranking Japanese and Western instructors whose backgrounds encompass many decades of studying and teaching the traditional martial arts and ways of Japan. To find out more about the SMAA, visit www.smaa-hq.com.