Tak Kubota

Tak Kubota was a Japanese-born American karateka who created the Gosoku-ryu style and headed the International Karate Association. Born in Kumamoto in 1934, he began martial arts training at age four under his father, a jujitsu and jukendo master. As a teenager he taught baton and hand-to-hand combat to Tokyo police officers, and at 17 he opened his first dojo. Through the 1950s and early 1960s he instructed American military personnel in Japan in karate, judo, kendo, and other arts. After a 1964 tournament demonstration in Long Beach, he settled in the United States, where he taught self-protection skills at the Los Angeles Police Academy and developed the Gosoku-ryu system. He also invented the Kubotan key chain and the Kubotai weapon, and he was named Black Belt magazine's Weapons Instructor of the Year in 1990. His screen work included stunt and acting roles in more than 280 films and television shows and over 180 commercials. He died in 2024.