Our Lineage: Kancho Dan Soller and Phoenix Karate

Kancho Dan Soller and Phoenix Karate

I began my formal training in Kyokushin karate under my mentor and friend, Kancho Dan Soller, 8th Dan, Phoenix Karate. Phoenix Karate is part of the Phoenix Karate-do Association, Kyokushinkai.

Kancho is a title commonly used for the head of a karate organization. One of our video captions sums up his teaching: “Like Kancho always says: Train hard and often.” It’s simple advice, and it’s the hardest kind to follow for years at a time.

The clip above is a good window into how Kancho talks about the art. Kyokushin, he explains, means extreme or ultimate, and karate-do “was founded as a do, which is a way.” The deeper meaning, in his words, is that “we should be able to look in the mirror and not lie to ourselves.” That’s how you get better. If you want the full breakdown of the name and the method, read what Kyokushin karate is.

The root: Mas Oyama’s Kyokushin

Kyokushin itself was founded by Mas Oyama. The name is commonly translated as “ultimate truth,” and the style is known for its full-contact knockdown format: bare knuckles and bare shins, with the fighting tested on a real body.

The method is kihon, kata and kumite: basics, forms and fighting. In Kyokushin, kumite sits close to the center. That is what makes the lineage matter. A style that tests everything in live contact can’t survive on technique that only looks good in the air, so what gets handed down has to work.

The teachers who shaped the rest

Over more than three decades, I’ve aligned myself with mentors and teachers in many styles. To name a few:

• Shigeru Oyama, out of New York City, specializing in full-contact Kyokushin karate. Not to be confused with Kyokushin’s founder, Mas Oyama.

• Bill Kipp, out of Colorado, specializing in reality-based self-defense training. Bill Kipp founded FAST Defense, which is the foundation of our FAST Defense Program. You can read what FAST Defense adrenal stress training is and why it works differently from a typical self-defense class.

• Renzo Gracie, New York and New Jersey, specializing in Jiu-Jitsu. Groundwork is a full part of our curriculum, and our Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu program complements the Kyokushin stand-up.

• Rodney King, from South Africa, specializing in boxing and the complete fight game.

Each of these teachers specialized in a different part of the fight. Kyokushin stayed the foundation. What I learned from the others is a big part of why our students train standing, in the clinch, on the ground, and under adrenaline.

What lineage looks like on the mat

My core teaching is grounded in the hard style of Kyokushin karate. I also believe in keeping with the times, using modern training methods so the program stays current and effective. That’s why I developed our training around a mixed martial arts platform: to reflect a more complete fighter and warrior.

On the site we put it this way: the old-school tenets of the martial arts with a new age twist. In practice, that means the stand-up is deeply rooted in traditional Kyokushin, the takedowns come from Judo, and the ground is Jiu-Jitsu based. We still count our drills in Japanese. We still fight bare-knuckle to the body. And we keep asking whether each thing we teach holds up.

A lineage only means something if it gets passed on intact. What I was given, I owe to the students in front of me, and they owe it to the ones who come after them.