Save Shuyokan Dojo

How much is tradition worth?
Enduring service to a community?
A commitment to excellence and the unwavering desire to provide core values to youth?

We, the students of Shuyokan Dojo know the answers to those questions and are asking for your help for a very good cause.

Shuoykan Dojo, the martial arts school founded 45 years ago is in financial trouble because of the pandemic. Dye Sensei revealed this to a few of his yudansha (black belts) in a recent meeting. He gathered us to prepare the group for what might be an inevitability given the current lockdown situation. He asked for guidance as to how best to tell his students, his martial arts family, who is secondary only to his immediate family, that he may have to close the dojo.

Not that he was giving up; just that if this situation continued much longer he’d have to do the unthinkable - shutter a true institution.

We all simply could not conceive that impossibility.



Many of you reading this have trained there. Some have walked in with a new generation to experience the beauty and grace of the school. Others of you may have experienced Sensei Dye’s enduring commitment to the martial arts and its values outside of his school.

Sensei Dye didn’t want us to do this but for once we respectfully overruled him. We thought of several ways to help, this GoFundMe page being one of them.

There has never been and probably never will be a martial arts school more revered than Shuyokan. One that is dedicated to raising the level of the beauty and grace of martial arts as promoted by its founder. No one ties training in a deadly art to the responsibilities that that training brings more completely than Sensei Dye, a father and retired Costa Mesa policeman - the “Samurai Cop.” His commitment is nearly 60 years to the martial arts, his dojo magnificently reflecting 45+ of those years.


But Shuyokan Dojo is more than just a place to learn a craft. Shuyokan (House of Austere Training) is truly our home too. Many, no most of us feel that we are indeed a family. Shuyokan has been a rock, a refuge for us to gather, to laugh, to learn.

Some of us have grown older there; some of us have literally grown up on those hallowed mats under Sensei Dye’s gentle and persistent tutelage. We have all benefitted from the love and joy that starts with the kane bell’s resonant voice announcing class, and the proud declaration of respect to all who have come before us: “Shomeni Rei!”

With gratitude and humility, we’re asking you to help us keep Shuyokan afloat. Whatever you give, however much you can afford - anything is appreciated. All moneys donated will go directly to rent and the maintenance of the dojo to bolster and sustain its proud heritage.

If you have other ideas that dovetail into this GoFundMe page then please let us know in the comments and/or call the dojo to speak to Sensei Dye.

As we’ve expressed, how much is any of this worth? We think the answer is more than anyone can rightfully imagine: immeasurable.

Please help if you can to keep Shuyokan as a place to learn and grow for now and into the future.

Osu!
The Students of Shuyokan Ryu