Grandmaster Bobby Lowe

Grandmaster Bobby Lowe has lived and trained in Tokyo, Japan and is the only active Kyokushin Karate Instructor to be tutored by the late Sosai Mas Oyama over 45 years ago. In 1952, Mas Oyama gave his first demonstration in Hawaii. After the demonstration, Shihan Bobby Lowe met Mas Oyama and arranged to train with him. Bobby Lowe's father was an instructor of Kung Fu so he also had done much training in the Chinese Martial Arts. He had participated in any fighting Art he could- by the time he was 23 he had earned his 4th Dan in Judo, 2nd Dan in Kempo (from William K.S. Chow), and a Shodan in Aikido. Mas Oyama's powerful demonstration had stunned him.

Mas Oyama invited Bobby Lowe to Tokyo to train with him and Bobby Lowe did for over a year and a half. In this way Shihan Bobby Lowe became the first "uchi-deshi" of Kyokushin, a tradition that later grew to be known as the "Wakajishi" or Young Lions of Mas Oyama, where a select few are chosen each year to devote themselves to Karate for one thousand days. The first "School of Oyama" outside Japan was opened in 1957 by Shihan Bobby Lowe in Hawaii. He has traveled the world to officiate at tournaments and is the only instructor to have officiated in all Kyokushin World Tournaments. He conducts Kyokushin self-defense seminars throughout the world and has taught self-defense techniques to law enforcement officers in Honolulu, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Europe and the U.S. He has more than 50 years of combined martial arts experience and is referred to, in Kyokushin circles, as the instructor's instructor.