Jinen Karate Jitsu

Congratulations to Dave Gooding, who runs a sister club to ours in Queensland, on achieving 5th Dan.

David Gooding – Karate Journey

David Gooding began his karate training in the early 1970s at “Rob Dobson Karate, Salisbury.” He trained alongside notable practitioners such as John Harman Stephan Jelinek, Brian Bellchambers, Max Bell and myself. Our training was full-contact and intense - six demanding years that shaped his character and martial discipline. Rob was a hard man, and so as students we became equally hardened. The foundation he laid proved invaluable.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s David had moved to Queensland and so explored various martial arts styles in an effort to find something that matched the intensity and authenticity of Rob Dobson’s training. It was a difficult task, as Rob had set the bar exceptionally high. David experimented with Aikido—where he was told to "empty the cup" before being asked to leave—and even trained with ninjas, which he found humorous but not serious. He then spent around four years training in an offshoot of the International Tae Kwon Do Federation called “Yun Jung Do,” reaching red belt (just one step from black) before leaving due to the dojo relocating the other side of Brisbane.
In the early 2000s, David joined a local karate club called Seiyushin, run by 9th Dan Shigeo Nagayama. Nagayama had trained in Kyokushin in Japan since the early 1970s, and Seiyushin retained those roots—its style almost identical to Kyokushin. David started over as a white belt and trained for seven years to achieve his 1st Dan. He continued for another five years, establishing and running several dojos for Nagayama. During this period, David earned his 2nd and 3rd Dan in Seiyushin.
One of David's most treasured milestones he tells me is when I visited on October 10, 2009, and arranged for Rob Dobson, our original mentor, to awarded him a 2nd Dan - co-signed by myself as the principle of Rob Dobson Karate since 1984. This remains David’s most prized karate possession, symbolizing a full-circle moment in his martial arts journey.
In 2013, David left Shigeo Nagayama’s organisation to found his own: Brisbane Jinen Karate (BJK). Since then, it has operated continuously in Brisbane and always with the Rob Dobson Karate principles at the fore, along with a renewed connection with the Szlagowski lineage.
Throughout the years, I have supported David and his club members and when in Brisbane for Peter Hills charity events, assisted in gradings etc., beyond what David could oversee by himself and to visit both formally and as a friend. The lineage of Rob Dobson continues to influence BJK and I’m proud to present to him (via his daughter) with Godan, achieved through his 53 years of continuous training.

Congratulations to Max Bell. He's also one of the quiet ones over 70yoa who's been with me since 1972 and after our karate years continued our journey in Jujutsu and to present day. Max is the second one in the video at Carisbrook Pk SA in 1974 doing his flying kicks on the bag with Rob Dobson, Brian Bellchambers, David Gooding, Jeff Dean and myself. His 5th Dan is well deserved after 53 years of training.

Congratulations to John Schuh on achieving his 2nd Dan with our club. John began martial arts in about 1990 when taking his daughter to train with GM Bill Vaughan. He joined and continued on and reached 2nd Dan there prior to Bills passing in 2004. With Brian Tiley and Paul Monopoly he continued teaching women and children karate for some time. When they asked me to re-open in Modbury Nth. in 2007 they joined and John has continued since then. Well over 70yoa (and all that it brings) John has turned up constantly to train and help others. Many have met him at the IBF Australia training days. As always our focus is on training and not the belts but you can see John has the typical Szlagowski/Rob Dobson nose.

I wish young Damian all the best as he finishes up to focus on school and his job commitments. He started in 2017 and has strong kicks and punches. It was unfortunate that Covid period stymied mis journey but I'm sure his training will help him with life skills as well.

I've reposted this as those who are not linked to Bruce Freeman wouldn't be able to see it.
Rob Dobson
One of the founding members of the Blacktown Karate Blacktown Dragons Karate Club
Thanks to Kym Reid for the Bio & photo contained in the album section.
Early Karate History
In the very early days Wally Szlagowski taught techniques he knew to his first student Peter Laszlo; Peter then optimised these techniques to suit his own unique physical attributes such as size, strength, speed and co-ordination as well as his psychological approach. In doing this Peter used all that Wally had taught him and then added new techniques or enhanced some of the original ones. Both Wally and Peter taught Rob Dobson who in turn optimised these techniques to suit his own unique physical attributes and psychological approach. To this mix were added techniques learnt from visiting students of other styles and from Japanese sailors etc.
There was a very rapid improvement in the standard of the Karate during the 1960's, not just at Blacktown, but over the whole of Australia and if you watched the newsreels of the era, the same applied to much of the western world. It is said by many ‘Old Hands’ that they consider the standard of Karate today is no better or in fact not as good as it was in the late 1960's and 70's (mainly because of the erosion of standards caused by ‘Political Correctness’ and threats of litigation).
Rob started learning Karate at Blacktown around 1963. Rob was a ‘natural’ at Karate and developed very quickly into a formidable fighter. In all of the interclub competitions held in those days, Rob never looked like losing a single spar, if you look at some of the videos from those days, you will see Rob’s lightning fast kicks, usually landing in some place other than where his opponent was blocking.
After a number of years of outstanding performance Wally called Rob aside and said that as the "Top Dog" (in Wally’s words) he should take the lead role in instructing the other students. Rob took on this lead instructor role in Blacktown until he completed his University studies in the end of 1969, when he had to move to Adelaide.
In his late teens and early twenties Rob could lift more than his own body weight above his head with one hand and was considered to be very strong by his contemporaries; this strength added a lot of authority to his techniques.
To help pay his way while he was undertaking a four year engineering degree at the University of NSW in the mid to late 1960’s, Rob taught at a number of other Karate clubs around Sydney and at one stage had six clubs under his instruction.
Move to SA
As a part of his Engineering Cadetship with WRE, Rob had to work at Salisbury, South Australia during the long Christmas vacation at the end of each year. This is where he met Moss Hollis senior student Graham Tuffee who was running the Karate Club at the Salisbury Youth Centre as it was called then. Once Rob moved permanently to Adelaide, Graham handed the club over to Rob to run in 1972.
In those days Karate in Adelaide was not up to the same standard as it was in Sydney and Rob’s contributions had a very beneficial effect on the standard of Karate in Adelaide.
Changes to the style
Rob soon began to apply the principles of Engineering and Physics to his Karate techniques, his University training also taught him to challenge the status quo and to examine each of the Karate techniques to see if they could be improved or optimised.
Some examples of changes he made are:
Many of the traditional Karate techniques had the upper body and the lower body effectively locked together, Rob changed his style so that the upper body and the lower body became far less inter-dependent, which allowed for a much larger range of combinations of hand and foot techniques.
Traditional punches started with the fist down near the hip, which didn’t make much sense as the force must react through the shoulder. Rob changed to hold his fist much higher at the start of the punch.
Some of the traditional stances had a body weight distribution that meant no kick could be executed without a major change in body position; this slowed down kicks to the point of being ineffective. Rob changed his stances to facilitate rapid kicking.
Small cylindrical shaped punching bags were introduced into all training. These could be struck on the front and the sides, thus allowing practice of a much larger range of techniques than a flat surface. Heavy punching bags were removed as they did not represent any realistic target.
Rob put a very strong emphasis on co-ordination and having the ability to out co-ordinate your opponent. Testing the opponents reactions to various techniques usually led to an opening that could be taken advantage of.
The AMAA
In 1981 several instructors, dissatisfied with SAKA heading to non-contact FAKO rules, came together to form an organisation for open contact competitions. The Australian Martial Arts Association was founded by Rob Dobson, Joe Lamarca, Bill Vaughan and Karol Stojko. The first tournament was held in 1983 with fighters of many styles and many coming from WA. It became incorporated in 1984 and continued until Bill's death in 2004. One of the major sponsors from 1984 to 1987 was Kym Reid's business, Commodore Pest Control.
Kym eventually became vice president but resigned and left the organization in March 2007 when it no longer served the original purpose of bringing together contact fighters and to help orphaned clubs. It was this legacy that gave Kym so many contacts who joined him at the IBF Australia soon afterwards.
Continuing on
Rob taught many gifted and talented students in S.A. of whom he is justifiably proud. Of these Kym Reid, Brian Bellchambers and Max bell have been carrying on the tradition / heritage in S.A. for many years (decades in fact) and more recently David Gooding who has been teaching in Brisbane.
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One of the things that concerns Rob is that the frequency and severity of violence today, largely fueled by drugs and alcohol, is far worse than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, yet the sparring in Karate clubs is not as realistic as it was back in those times. The logical conclusion in his opinion is that Karate students of today will be much less able to defend themselves. That was not a criticism of the Karate instructors, but of the legal system which has put barriers in the way of ‘realism’.

Happy New Year to all. The first night back for 2025 is January the 28th. See you there.

Great effort by Jessica. At the end of the comp she was asked if she would enter the knockdown section against a 3rd Dan Tae Kwondo woman. Young jess jumped in enthusiastically and made us proud. https://youtu.be/UAPUfg7BMeQ?si=knWPYjDdus3TGNtR