United States
In 1963, the JKA sent Mikami to the United States. Initially, he taught at a dojo (training hall) in Kansas for 14 months, but then decided to start a new dojo in Louisiana: the Louisiana Karate Association (LKA) in New Orleans. In 1965, Mikami made the LKA the headquarters for the All South Karate Federation, which functioned under the International Shotokan Karate Federation (ISKF), a division of JKA. He has remained there as a teacher and regional director ever since. By 1967, Mikami had reached the rank of 5th dan and his wife was ranked 2nd dan. In 1984, he was promoted to the rank of 8th dan by the JKA.
In 1990, Mikami was named Instructor of the Year in American Karate by Black Belt magazine. In 2005, he was elected President of the Japanese Karate Masters' Association of North America. In 2007, after the ISKF split from JKA, Mikami decided to remain in association with the JKA. That same year, he was appointed to the JKA International Board of Directors. In March 2008, he was named as one of two Senior Technical Advisors to the JKA World Federation Headquarters, Tokyo, by the JKA Board of Directors. Mikami founded the JKA American Federation (JKA/AF) in 2008. Mikami was promoted to 9th dan on September 30, 2011, by JKA headquarters in Tokyo.
Read more about this topic: Takayuki Mikami
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“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
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