Professor Stephen Grayston

     Professor Stephen Grayston first started training in Karate in 1964 aged 8, his teacher, the late Tanaka Meiji-kyoshi 9 Dan was a Japanese by birth, yet had lived for over twenty three years on the island of Okinawa. He taught Kobayashi Shorinryu that he had learned from Choshin Chibana-sensei and had always felt that he was uchinan (a native) and that Okinawa was his real home.
     Grayston had travelled to Fulham in south London twice a week until Tanaka-kyoshi had to move to Belgium (Antwerp) because of a family problem concerning his brother. Tanaka-kyoshi passed away in 1997 in his eighties and will be sadly missed by the few students that he had in England and Belgium. When Tanaka moved to Belgium, Grayston studied Shotokan Karate with Hassard-sensei and also Wado-Ryu Karate with Shinohara Yoshi-sensei and a local Wado teacher. Although, neither of these ryu-ha were the same as the Kobayashi-shorinryu he had learned as a child and the Japanese teaching methods differed greatly from that of the Okinawan way. In 1984 Grayston decided that it would suit him to combine certain elements of Kobayashi Shorinryu, Shotokan, and Wado-Ryu - to which he did and started to train in this newly formed system. Others wished to participate and learn as they heard of its suitability for westerners and its Okinawan type teaching. For the first year the Ryu was known as Washindo-Ryu, but was soon to be called Shindo-Ryu because the 'reality' is what the style is really about.
     Today, Grayston plays a prominent part in Anglo-Japanese relations in the UK and regularly hosts international events with visiting Okinawan and Japanese senior ranked masters. He is an Ambassador for the martial arts in England, and is very proud of this role. The Grayston family name comes from York in England and is a cross mixture of 'Son of Reeve' and the Anglo Saxon Gerefa (Greeve) - the earliest recording of our family being 1379. The family motto is ''Hoc Securior' latin for 'Safer by this'. The family coat of arms tells us many things about our family's honour and martial background. The first of our family were rewarded by the Romans for being the first to breach the walls of a beseiged town or fortress - the sword of our arms indicate military honour as well as civic honour.
On the Natsu Kosu (Summer Course) 1996, Grayston was presented with his hanshi (example teacher) menkyo by Minami Hiroshi-sama (former Deputy Director Embassy of Japan) on behalf of Sekai Shindo-Ryu Karate-Do Renmei. This award makes him one of a small handful of England's most senior ranked masters of Karate.

Grayston-Hanshi 9th Dan
- Founder, President & Senior Master Shindo-Ryu Karate
- Member of 'Ashita Shakai'
- Life Chairman of Hanshi no Iinkai
- Honorary Member Tokushima Budo Council
- HeadFounder award 1999 World Martial Arts Hall of Fame
- President & Chairman of Essex Anglo-Japanese Society
- Senior Master (Europe) & Senior Technical Advisor:
- World Federation of Martial Artists
- Member of the Guild of Renmei Yudansha
- Technical Advisor/Standards Board: SKA
- National Award (Contribution & Development)
- British National Martial Arts Association