April 19-23rd, 2006
Written by Emily Busch
Enshin Karate, headquartered in Denver has branch dojos all over Japan, indeed all over the world. Founder and Chief Instructor Joko Ninomiya Kancho and Nippon Kan Kancho Gaku Homma are good friends. Homma Kancho first met Ninomiya Kancho early one Sunday morning in a local park in Denver many years ago. Homma Kancho was in the park practicing bokken and jo, (mainly because he did not have a large enough dojo space for weapons practice at the time) when he spotted a very athletic black haired oriental martial artist practicing kicks and punches with tremendous concentration on a punching bag he had hanging from a tree. It was a few more years before Homma Kancho was to discover that that oriental martial artist had been Joko Ninomiya Kancho. It was soon after that that the two became friends. Both Ninomiya Kancho and Homma Kancho came to Denver as young men to follow their own path in the world of Japanese martial arts.
At the Enshin Kaikan (headquarter) dojo, the front altar is made from the same tree as the front altar at the Nippon Kan dojo. The tree was a gift to Ninomiya Kancho by Homma Kancho when Nippon Kan was building its current permanent dojo on Osage Street.
For the past eleven years, Nippon Kan and Enshin Karate have joined together to celebrate Ninomiya Kancho’s birthday with a “fiercely” competitive bowling tournament! It is tradition for the uchideshi students of the losing dojo team to be doused with gallons of ice water at the end of the day. For decades, Homma Kancho has known and supported many uchideshi students of Enshin Karate during their training here in Denver. Many of these Enshin Karate uchideshi have since returned to Japan to become instructors themselves with branch dojos of their own.
Every year many of these original uchideshi return to Denver to participate in Enshin Karate’s annual Sabaki Challenge Tournament. When they return, they come to visit Homma Kancho at Nippon Kan. This April, four former uchideshi with four of their best fighting protégé came to Denver for the Sabaki Challenge Tournament and with the permission of Ninomiya Kancho all eight stayed in Nippon Kan’s uchideshi quarters. True to the training they all received from Ninomiya Kancho they all were wonderfully mannered guest to have and we enjoyed their stay with us at Nippon Kan.