Sensei Shirai 9th Dan

Below is a interview taken with Shihan Hiroshi Shirai.

Shihan Hiroshi Shirai is without any doubt one of the living legends in the world of Shotokan-Karate. At present Shihan Shirai is head of World Shotokan Institute. He lives in Milan and conducts seminars in different countries on a regular basis. Shihan Shirai is renowned as one of the best instructors of the JKA. In the last few years he developed a new standard of bunkai for all shotokan-kata. Shihan Shirai is not only a very good karateka, he is a very good karate-instructor as well. Just some of his students include: Carlo Fugazza, Dario Marccini, Alexandro Cardinale, DeMichelis, Capuana...

Interviewer: Sensei Shirai, when and where were you born?
Shirai:I was born on 31st July 1937. I will be 66 years of age this year.
Interviewer: Did anyone else in your family do any kind of martial arts?
Shirai: Yes, one of my uncles was a master of kendo.
Interviewer: Sensei Shirai, where did you first got in touch with Karate?
Shirai: I saw an infofilm of the JKA at the university. The film was from 1953. Sensei Nakayama, Nishiyama, Kase and others were demonstrating kata in that film. I started then karate at Komazawa Univerity in 1956.
Interviewer: Who were you teachers at Komazawa University at that time?
Shirai: Sensei Nishiyama, sensei Tsujima, he is now president of Aomori-prefecture.
Interviewer: When did you receive your Shodan?
Shirai: I passed Shodan in 1957 together with Yamamoto, Kano, Tozawa und Soejima. We were that time the first batch who took the grading after only one year of training. Normal you have to practice karate for two to three years until your were able to go for Shodan-Grading methods.
Interviewer:Sensei Shirai, was it difficult for you to transfer 1965 from Japan to Europe, to Italy?
Shirai:Sensei Kase, Enoeda and I came 1965 to Europe, and I had actually not much cultural problems, because I had interest in the european culture. But I think in that time I got many enemies, because my behaviour towards students was not very good. But I think today it is much better. You see I was only 28 years of age, coming from Japan where we had a very hirachical system. I think I had not enough experience to deal with the new situation. But as I said, now I think I am better.
Interviewer: Many good instructors came from that time. Sensei do you think it is possible to apply the training style from that time to present time?
Shirai: I think yes. But in the past we made a lot of mistakes. I think with different training methods we could reach the same result as well. I think hard training is good, but too much contact is not so good for the body. The energy, the shock has to go somewhere. But I think if somebody has a good technique, than he is able to control his technique.