Dear Branch Chiefs and Contacts

I would like to start my greeting with thanking you all for your hard work. I am always grateful to you.

Here in Japan, we started the new year by visiting Sosai’s grave at the Gokokuji Temple on January 11th. It was a very cold day with a clear blue sky, and all Japanese Branch Chiefs joined a training session in the garden of the temple - our Kiai could be heard anywhere on the premises. It was nice to be training so close to Sosai, and I believe that we all completely focused on each one of the punches and kicks. As always, at this first training (Kagami Biraki) of the year, one of the Japanese Branch Chiefs makes a demonstration, this has now become a tradition, and this year it was Shihan Kobayashi who performed the Kata Tensho. He made a great performance, and everybody who watched was impressed. Thank you very much, Kobayashi-shihan! After the training, we gathered in a silent prayer in front of Sosai’s grave stone, and on behalf of you all, we prayed for a successful Karate World Cup in Russia. I hope that at the Kagami Biraki next year, we will be able to tell Sosai about the great success of the World Cup. It is up to us, so let’s do whatever we can to make this tournament successful. The Russian Branch Chiefs must be occupied with the event now, and I hope that you all will cooperate with each other.

As I always say to you, the WKO is OUR organization, not anybody else’s. Our organization doesn’t only belong to us, Branch Chiefs, but also to all of our students. WKO should be an organization in which we can concentrate on our training, and, through our training, we should better ourselves. Moreover, we should make our students feel their life has become richer by training Kyoushin Karate in the WKO. It is up to us whether we can fulfill our goals, it is up to us whether our organization will become what we want or not. If we work close together, I am convinced that we can make our organization the biggest and strongest Budo Organization in the world. We can do it if we continue to be loyal to Sosai Oyama and his will.

We have new Branch Chiefs in Yemen and New Zealand, and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to our organization! We are all looking forward to working together with you.

Lastly, these days we hear a lot about the financial crises in the world and we cannot see any visible signs of recovery. Regardless of your position in society, I hope that you are all living to the full and, whatever difficulties you are facing, never give up. You can get through anything with yourstrong mind. We were all fortunate enough to start training Kyokushin Karate, and our hard training has given us a strong spirit which will lead us through any kind of hardness.

Osu!

Kenji Midori

WKO President