NZKKA

A black belt is a white belt who never gave up
Slow to learn, slow to forget
The person who knows "how" will always be the student, but the person who knows "why" will continue to be the instructor
To hear is to doubt, to see is to be deceived, but to feel is to beleive
Train knowing that the right thoughts and the right efforts inevitably bring about the right results.
There are no pure styles of karate. Purity comes only when pure knuckles meet pure flesh
In every offense there is a defence, and in every defence there is an offense
Guts are the anaesthesia that deaden the pain of fear
Sophistication is no more that simplicity compounded
Fear no man, but respect all
Train hard, train regularly, train intelligently and make no excuses
He who hesitates, meditates in a horizontal position
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Someone who aims at nothing is sure to hit it.

Instructors » Grant Morrison - Senior Instructor

I have been interested in martial arts ever since watching "Grasshopper" in Kung Fu in the late '70's. I mustered up the courage to go along to a new start up club in Blenheim in 1985. Robert Gemmell was opening a new branch of his Kempo-Bushido-Ryu school. We learned three self defence moves that night (KBR had recently introduced about 30 Parker kenpo moves as its self defence syllabus) and I was hooked from then on.

In 1990 I shifted to Wellington as a 1st degree black belt and trained at KBR headquarters in Porirua. I trained here for another 5 years eventually reaching the rank of 3rd degree black belt and for one year was the full time branch instructor at HQ. I left KBR in 1995 as the school started to focus more on internal arts (tai chi, etc) and I wanted to focus on practical self defence training.

In 1997 I joined Shane Rongonui and Jim Oakley (now retired) to set up NZKKA teaching a full American Kenpo syllabus. Our goal was to ensure this devastating self defence art was available to others in NZ as at the time no other schools existed teaching the full syllabus (self defence, sets and forms).

We teach the syllabus as taught by Grandmaster Larry Tatum (10th degree black belt) but try and pick up instruction from most advanced teachers who visit NZ. I was ranked to 5th degree black belt by Mr Tatum in March 2009.