Ryukoku Seidokan

Sensei Shigemitsu Tamae was born in 1950 in the Okinawan city of Nakagamigun, a place now known as Uruma. He started learning Seidokan Karate at the age of 13 and has been Sensei’s Shian Toma student since 1963. Attending college in Kumamoto Ken, Japan from 1969-1971, he studied electronics but also continued to train and maintain his Seidokan Karate skills.

One of Sensei Tamae’s favorite karate events was a full contact tournament in 1977 at Kadena Air Base. As Okinawa’s reining Grand Champion he had nothing to gain from entering the tournament and Sensei Toma discouraged him from participation. But fellow students Allen Tackett and Jackie (nicknamed for Jackie Chan), along with another student remembered as “Mr. Brown,” wanted to see Tamae in action and asked that he enter the tournament anyway. He did enter and won the tournament. As a result of seeing the quality and power of Seidokan Karate, many U.S. military personnel attending the tournament that day made the decision to switch to Seidokan Karate.

Sensei Tamae has two dojos on Okinawa.  The Nakanomachi Tamae Dojo is located on top of his auto repair shop just outside of Gate 2 at Kadena Air Base and the Yomitan Tamae Dojo is located behind his house in Yomitan village. Sensei Tamae’s son, Kenta, is a talented Yon-Dan who trains daily in Seidokan Karate.

Sensei Tamae sees the Ryukoku Seidokan Karate Kubudo Renmei (RSKKR) as being instrumental in bringing together Seidokan Karate practitioners from around the world. He admonishes us to “keep up the training” and pledges his support to the RSKKR in any way needed. Sensei Tamae is a Senior Technical Advisor to Sensei Ron Nix, President of RSKKR.