Grandmaster Robert A. Trias

Grandmaster Robert A. Trias introduced karate to the United States back in 1945, and is sometimes considered the father of American karate (although Shihan Joseph Walker once said that when Grandmaster Trias heard that, he got irritated because he hated "American karate"). Robert Trias started his martial career in the Navy as a boxer, and while stationed in the Solomon Islands, he learned a Chinese art known as Tsing-Yi (Hsing-Yi, xingyi, etc.). That started him down the path of Asian martial arts, and he went on to practice Shuri-te, judo, and various other arts and eventually put the concepts he learned together into an art he called Shorei-Goju-Ryu. Eventually, groups broke off of this style, the most prominent being Shuri-Ryu. Robert Trias was granted the rank of judan (10th Degree Black Belt) by the Japanese government, but very seldom claimed the rank, choosing instead to retain his 9th degree status most of the time.

My style, the style taught at the Academy of Okinawan Karate by Shihan Joseph Walker, is Shuri-Ryu, and what we know and work hard to perfect has been passed to us from Grandmaster Trias, and in honor of him and his life (he passed away in 1989) the Academy of Okinawan Karate is holding a Memorial Workout tomorrow at 2pm Central Time at the Peoria Dojo. The Memorial Workout is a hardcore kata-centric workout held every year in his memory, and I would love to be there for it this year, but unfortunately, I am 1,600 miles away from the dojo back in Peoria, IL. Don't think for a second, though, that I will be skipping it! My judo class at Heart Judo ends at 12pm here in Phoenix, which is exactly when everyone back in Illinois will be bowing in for the Memorial Workout, and I will be running through every Shuri-Ryu kata I know right alongside everyone back in Illinois--I'll just be doing it from really far away!