Regarding the KIA and area coaches, I am limiting the names to those who are relevant to or have contact with myself, the Romsey club, or its instructors.

Bristol: Dennis Bentry was the primary instructor here, and other instructors who came out of this club were Martin Hardy and Diego Giardina (Ricki ). Bristol remained independent but withered over the years ( it became active again recently under Chris Freke ). Ricki went to Italy in the late 1970s, returning to the UK in 1997 to form new clubs in the Bristol area.

Initially, George Mayo kept the Karate areas separate and tried different things in the areas.

During the late 1970s, George brought the following Karate areas together to train and hold seminars.

London (Highgate): Paul Sockett was the area coach, and David Frost and John Lacey-Smith were other instructors who trained at this club. John Lacey-Smith formed a club nearby in Enfield.

Surrey (Banstead): Martin Hardy was the area coach. David Frost joined the Surrey club to assist Martin with instruction.

Southampton (Totton): Ray Wood was the area coach. Other instructors who trained at this club but then started their own clubs were Ron Hancock (Romsey), Bob Pape (Bournemouth), and Sam Simmons (Gang Warily).

Oxford: Derek Collins was the area coach, and Ray Woodhouse was the deputy. This area has many clubs and has produced many instructors, and this will be covered in a later post.

Update May 2025 – I am not going to attempt it as I don’t believe I can give a good account of it. It was always, and probably still is, the largest area.

Luton: Dennis Graves was the area coach.

[Geoff and Peter Berridge ran the Northampton club, but they emigrated to Australia in 1969, so they didn’t have much activity with the above areas]

Peter Berridge with Ricki Giardina (2023)

In my observations, all the areas do karate in slightly different ways, probably because George didn’t have a single vision but relied on experimentation and influencing various practitioners. I will be biased to how I was taught by Martin Hardy, who had ‘a way’ and my interpretation is going to be different due to the experiences I have had since then. I don’t claim to know the ‘Kyushindo Way’ , basically because it now means different things to different people.