Thank you for the vote of confidence!
Itosu-Kai Denmark has now safely returned to Denmark and want to express our gratitude that the Directors meeting voted for the next Championship to be held in Denmark.
Much more so, as we were in excellent competition with other great nations.
We can assure, that we will do our very best to live up to your trust.
In this first bulletin, we want to present ourselves to you.
The Itosu-Kai style was introduced in Denmark in 1976 through our late sensei Leif Lynggaard Nielsen – when he returned from Japan, where he had been training Itosu-Kai for 5 years.
His dojo, Bosatsu, is still our Honbu Dojo and is today lead by Sensei Michael Andersen, who was a student of Leif Lynggaard Nielsen.
Since then Itosu-Kai Denmark has grown to include 2 more dojos – Itosu-Kai Dragør and Kaizen Karate Do – with totally 500+ members almost equally distributed over the 3 dojos.
Bosatsu (honbu dojo) is located in Copenhagen in a suburb called Valby. With a view to both traditional as well as sports-karate (WKF) Bosatsu has created quite a number of Danish and Nordic champions and a large number of members on the national team – including sensei Michael, who is a valued coach for all our national team members during participation in European and World championships.
Today 8 blackbelts are responsible for the daily training and karate-development in Bosatsu. Itosu-Kai Denmark has a total of 45 active blackbelts.
Itosu-Kai Dragør, was established in 1991 and lead by sensei Tejs Damkjær. Today Itosu- Kai Dragør is possibly the strongest dojo in Denmark when it comes to kata and the athletes from Itosu-Kai Dragør are benefitting from a chief instructor that is also the head coach of the Danish National team. Itosu-Kai Dragør has won countless medals in Kata, with a habit of being the most winning kata-dojo at the Danish Nationals, contributing to the most winning Nation at the Nordics and also taking home medals at European Championships.
Kaizen Karate Do is the youngest member of the group, established in 2011 and lead by sensei Henrik Katborg. In line with the other 2 dojos, Kaizen Karate is practicing traditional karate alongside sports karate, both Kata and kumite. Even with the young age, Kaizen Karate has also had members on the national team and Danish champions and winning Danish championship medals in both kata and kumite.
As opposed to the above dojos located on Zeeland, the location of Kaizen Karate is in Jutland, Kolding – which is also where Itosu-Kai Denmark will be hosting the Championships.
View of the old Royal Castle in Kolding (not our venue )
The people behind and contact information in relation to Itosu-Kai Championships 2021:
Michael Andersen, Country leader, Chief instructor Bosatsu, 5th Dan – Bosatsu@hotmail.dk
Merete Katborg, event organizer – Merete@Katborg.net
Tejs Damkjær, Chief instructor Itosu-Kai Dragoer, 5th Dan – tejsdamkjaer@gmail.com
Anders Uhrenfeldt, Instructor Bosatsu, 5th Dan
Peter Heneberg, Instructor Itosu-Kai Dragoer, 4th Dan
Henrik Katborg, Chief Instructor Kaizen Karate Do, 3rd Dan