User:Tongsau/Shihan Gordon Doversola

Gordon Doversola, founder of Okinawa-te Karate Organization, was born and raised in Hawaii near Honolulu. As a young boy he was on the island during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Mr. Doversola began training in the martial art under Sigfried Kufferath who was a Dan Zan Ryu black belt under Henry (Seshiro) Okazaki. After training breifly in juijitsu he later began training with many of the teachers on the island. He spent most of his teen years under the tutelage of James Mitose black belt instructor Woodrow McCandles. During the time Mr. McCandles combined his school with the C.H.A. 3 Kempo group and later Adriano Emperado's Kajukembo, Mr. Doversola moved to Los Angeles. Originally working with Ed Parker and Dave German as an assistant instructor he later began formalizing and creating his own method, which he called Okinawa-te. It is likely that Mr. Doversola saw the change in technique from the origin "Kenpo Jiujitsu" to "Kenpo Karate" and decided to return to a method more similar to the art he learned from Mr. McCandles.

Over the years Mr. Dovrsola had many important names enter his dojo to train with him. Some ledgend, some true. Both Bob Wall and Jim Kelly from Enter the Dragon trained with him briefly. Some famous names such as Anne Francis and Kurt Russell among others. Mr. Doversola's Okinawa-te or often called simply "Te" would later influence some arts such as Tang Soo Do and Lima Lama.

Mr. Doversola began teaching what he called "Okinawa-te" in 1956 and became friends with famous Karateka, such as Tsutomu Oshima Sensei of Shotokan Karate.

Some of his earlier students went on to form their own organizations such as John Hanrehan's Wa Te Ryu Organization.

Though there are few schools recognized by Mr. Doversola himself as "Sanctioned" there are many schools of martial art that actually teach elements of Okinawa-te whether they know it or not simply due to the fact that Mr. Doversola was such a long time instructor. Any school that Joe Lewis influenced is likely to have some elements of Mr. Doversola's teaching as well.

Methods of Okinawa-te
Okinawa-te imploys nearly every aspect of the martial art including very unique empty hand, weapon and animal forms that have short and "very long" variations. Escape techniqes, Complex waza that uses striking and grappeling in each one, weapon defenses and apprehending techniques are also included in the training. When you consider groin kicks as a common practice of Okinawa-te, one could argue that Mr. Doversola was one of the first mixed martial art instructors in America.

Today Mr. Doversola's daughter Tahini is the most prominent figure teaching at his dojo. While in the past Mr. Doversola had nearly 20 or so instructors of varying skill level and length of time training and teaching under him, there are only 2 schools outside of his own dojo that he currently recognizes as part of the organization, including Lancaster, CA and New Zealand.