Dear IKO Kyokushinkaikan members and friends,

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you, Shihan Bobby Lowe passed away on Wednesday, 9:18pm on 14^th September in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Shihan Bobby Lowe, IKO Kyokushinkaikan International Committee Chairman, North & Central American Chairman and US Branch Chief for Hawaii, has served our organization since its inception.

 

Shihan Bobby Lowe was the son of a Kung Fu master, held Black Belts in Judo, Kenpo and Aikido and was a powerful welterweight boxer.  Incredibly impressed by a karate demonstration performed by Sosai Masutatsu Oyama in Hawaii, Shihan Bobby straightaway entreated Sosai Oyama to work with him as teacher.  They quickly became lifelong friends and Shihan Bobby ventured to Japan to join Sosai Oyama at his Tokyo dojo, becoming the first Kyokushin "Uchi Deshi" (apprentice student) and then, the first person to open a Kyokushin school outside of Japan, currently the oldest continuously operating international Branch of the Kyokushinkaikan.

 

Shihan Lowe served Sosai Oyama from the outset of the International Karate Organization, from promoting Kyokushin in the United States, Canada and around the world, to hosting the first international Kyokushin match outside of Japan, to serving the IKO tournament circuit around the globe as Chief Referee, serving as contributor to the current IKO Technical Syllabus and IKO Bylaws for the Kyokushinkaikan, to writing three renowned books on the Kyokushin system and never neglecting teaching daily Kyokushin classes in his native Hawaii.  

 

Personally, Shihan Lowe has been my greatest mentor in the Kyokushinkaikan since Sosai Oyama.  He has generously shared his wealth of knowledge with me, shared his philosophy of patience and peacekeeping and shown me the strength, wisdom and perseverance earned over a lifetime of Kyokushin training.  He was an exemplary student and supreme master of the martial arts, a great friend and a trusted advisor, and with his dynamic personality, easy temperament and lust for life, a shining example to us all. 

 

I wish his wife, Betty, and his children, Barbara and Michael, my heartfelt condolences in this difficult time, and offer them, on behalf of the entire worldwide Kyokushin community, my most sincere thanks for selflessly sharing with us these many years, their most loving husband and excellent father.

 

OSU!

We remember...

Shihan Bobby Lowe, 8^th Dan

August 23, 1929 ~ September 14, 2011

 

Shokei Matsui

IKO Kyokushinkaikan