Jigenkai did not begin in a large dojo.
Katsumi Nagatomo built a prefabricated hut on the rooftop of the kindergarten he ran, and used it as a training hall ── that was the founding of Jigenkai. In it lived Nagatomo's strong conviction: to preserve the traditional karate of Shotokan Okano-ha while proving that its techniques could hold up in real combat.
One of the early disciples who studied under Nagatomo from those founding days was Makoto Nozaki. Nozaki was a student from the era when Jigenkai still trained in the rooftop prefab hut, a man who learned Nagatomo's karate up close. He was not a disciple who joined in later years, but one who knew the air of Jigenkai from its very earliest period.
To the fourth-floor ring ── the challenge of real combat.
About two years after Jigenkai was founded, the dojo reached a major turning point. A ring was installed on the fourth floor of the kindergarten, and a full-scale entry into the world of professional kickboxing was prepared.
This was not merely a matter of taking up kickboxing. For Nagatomo, it was a challenge to prove that the traditional karate of Shotokan Okano-ha could hold up in the ring ── the arena of real combat.
The Jigenkai of that time drew fighters who aimed to win in the professional kickboxing ring. Many of them prized the technique, stamina, distance, striking, and tactics needed to win matches. As a result, those who held strongly to the forms of traditional karate were not necessarily many.
Makoto Nozaki ── the one who bridged form and combat.
Yet among them, Makoto Nozaki was different. While experiencing the real combat of kickboxing, and even competing in the All-Japan tournament of Kyokushin karate, he continued to study the forms of Shotokan Okano-ha traditional karate as his foundation. He did not merely fight in the ring; he cherished the forms, the body mechanics, the distance, and the spirit of the karate Nagatomo had inherited.
In other words, Makoto Nozaki was not simply a fighter in real combat. Under Nagatomo, he learned the traditional karate of Shotokan Okano-ha, preserved its forms, and at the same time placed himself in the world of real combat.
A fighter in real combat, who nonetheless learned, preserved, and transmitted the traditional karate of Shotokan Okano-ha that Nagatomo had inherited.
An era of mutual refinement ── the bond with Katsuyuki Suzuki.
In speaking of Jigenkai's real-combat karate, the presence of Katsuyuki Suzuki ── later Katsuyuki Sasaki ── cannot be omitted. Known as Katsuyuki Suzuki during the Jigenkai years, he later took the Sasaki surname, and by the time he founded Seitokukai he was active as Katsuyuki Sasaki.
Suzuki, later Sasaki, was Nozaki's senior. Devoted to the study of technique, he would think up new techniques and test them on Nozaki. Between the two there was an era of mutual refinement ── a senior-junior relationship in which they honed each other's skills.
This relationship shows that Jigenkai was not merely a place to raise professional kickboxers, but a dojo that researched technique within real combat and sought to apply karate's body mechanics to the world of the ring.
Those who supported Sagami Gym.
The Sagami Gym current also included Japan-ranked fighters such as Shinobu Onuki and Akira Koike. Onuki later founded Sagami-Minami Gym, and Koike too left a record of achievement in the professional ring. Each, in his own position, took on the world of professional kickboxing and showed Jigenkai's real-combat character to the outside world.
Yasuo Tabata, who remained involved with combat sports as a working professional, is another important figure. Tabata later played an active role as an advisor and referee at the founding of K-1, showing his presence not only as a competitor but as a supporting pillar of the combat-sports world.
Jigenkai had Tabata, Onuki, and Koike, who faced combat sports while working as members of society, and on the other hand Sasaki and Nozaki, who placed themselves in the professional world from their student days. Each engaged with combat sports from a different position, and together they shaped Jigenkai's real-combat karate.
As the one and only head instructor.
Many of them placed winning in the professional ring at the center. Honing the technique, distance, striking, stamina, and tactics needed to win matches was their main focus; deeply inheriting the forms of traditional karate themselves was not their first priority.
Among them, Makoto Nozaki was a fighter in real combat who nonetheless learned, preserved, and transmitted the traditional karate of Shotokan Okano-ha that Nagatomo had inherited. That is why Nozaki was not merely a professional combat-sports fighter. He learned under Nagatomo from Jigenkai's founding days, and embodied both traditional karate and real-combat karate. And later, he was recognized by Nagatomo as the one and only head instructor (shuseki shihan).
Jigenkai began in a prefab dojo built on a kindergarten rooftop. A man who was at Nagatomo's side from those founding days. And a man who inherited both the forms of traditional karate and real combat ── that is Makoto Nozaki.