Back to Japan and Back on Top: 26 Years Later
Shihan Alonso Murayama won the World Shito-Ryu Championship in Tokyo in 2000. This September he won again in Yokohama, and came home an 8th Dan.
In the year 2000, a young man from Monterrey won the World Shito-Ryu Championship in Tokyo. Last month, that same man went back to Japan and won again, this time in Yokohama. His name is Shihan Alonso Murayama, and he is our teacher.
His father, Shihan Kunio Murayama, left Japan and became one of the pioneers of Shito-Ryu in Mexico. He coached the Mexican National Team in the 80s, served on the Panamerican referee committee for more than a decade, and was Vice President of the World Shito-Ryu Karate-Do Federation until he passed away in September of 2023. The karate taught at Nakata Dojo today started in his dojo in Monterrey.
Alonso grew up training in that dojo under his father. As a young man, he went to Japan and lived as an uchi-deshi, a live-in student, under Manzo Iwata until his passing, and under his son, Hanshi Genzo Iwata, training with them every day. He became the first person born outside of Japan to be selected for the Japan Karate Federation national team, and he competed for Japan in 1996 and 1997. He came home and won medals for Mexico at the Panamerican level, went on to direct the Mexican National Team, and today he leads the organization his father built.
His father brought this karate from Japan to Mexico. In 2000, the son took it back to Japan and won the world championship there.
This September, he did it again. The 11th Shitoryu Karatedo International Championships were held in Yokohama, the first time in six years the event returned to Japan, with karateka from about 50 countries. Shihan competed in Individual Kumite for men 50 to 59 and took first place. The official results list his full name, Murayama Toyonaga Alonso Tetsuo, at the top of his division. He also came home with a new rank. Our teacher is now 8th Dan. He received his 8th Dan certificate in Yokohama, during the same championship, from Hanshi Genzo Iwata, President of the World Shito-Ryu Karate-Do Federation. Promotion to 8th Dan in the federation is not given lightly. The standards are rigorous, and the candidate is tested in front of a panel.
He won in kumite, the fighting division. At 52 years old, he competed against opponents from all over the world. Not very many people attempt this. It says a lot about a person's commitment to maintain a standard, even at 52. It is truly inspiring, and a good reminder for every teacher that a high rank is never a reason to stop putting yourself to the test. That takes years of training that nobody sees, every day, long after most people would have stopped.
This is not a story about someone far away. Nakata Dojo is his dojo too. Shihan Alonso conducts every rank examination our students take, most of them virtually, and twice a year he comes to Urbandale in person, when the dojo hosts workshops so our students can train with him. The karate our students practice here is the same karate he learned from his father, and he has now taken it back to Japan and won with it twice.
Our students should know who they are learning from. They are part of a line that goes from his father, to him, to them. When they bow in at the start of class, this is part of what they are bowing to.
Shihan, congratulations on your 8th Dan and your world title, from every student and family at Nakata Dojo. Thank you for everything you have given this dojo.
Twenty-six years later, he went back to Japan, and he is back on top.
