1. Sensei Isaka, could you please tell us about your karate career?
- I started karate at Ajia University under Sugiura Motokuni Sensei In 1961 and graduated in 1965. For the later years I refer to the first issue of the JKA magazine.

2. As a training methodology, you place a lot of emphasis on moving very slowly in training. How did you come to develop this idea?
- This idea did not originate with me. I was taught its principle 10 years ago by somebody with no relation to karate technique at all. Up to this day I try to incorporate this idea into training.
The importance of this training lies in the fact that firstly the various stages in body movement (realization, familiarizing, learning, movement, use, and coping) can be attained more effectively and that concomitantly one can create the feeling of a very high level of control of body movement.
This method of using the body slowly is a training method that can be used irrespective of age by old people, adults or young people to study the above mentioned steps in technical progress.
The second reason for slow training is that one can analyze one's movements and concentrate on those aspects that need strengthening and thus increase one's striking power.

3. What was your impression of the technical level of the participants in  the course?
- Of course it is impossible to have analyzed the techniques of the people that participated in the short two days of the training camp. But what I did notice, also in connection to the dan-test held, is that, and let me stress that this is the same in Japan, the control people have over their bodies is clearly insufficient. There is an obvious need for the will-power and also the realization to develop bodily control, and people must strive to develop the right feeling when moving.
Especially the top-level competitors active in the various fields in the world of sports train dailly to take a fraction of a second of their time or to increase a distance by just a fraction of an inch. We should not see this simply as the breaking of a record, but as the personal battle between extreme control and ones body.
In the techniques typical of the karate of the Japan Karate Association there is the concept of 'kime.' This refers not simply to the control of the largest hitting power, it refers to the high level control of the complete body movement, including such pairs of opposites as contraction/expansion, slow/fast, and tension/relaxation. It thus is an essential element of high level basics.
I feel that especially the training in which one tries to slowly move the body is one of the most adequate ways of training to develop these technical aspects.

4. Do you think the level of karate is deteriorating and if so, why does this happen?
- I think you are right in presupposing that especially the old styles of karate have become rather bad. The JKA is not an exception. As for the most obvious reason for this development, I think it is justified to point to competition. The standard for superiority in competition, that is for winning and losing, has taken a form very different from the particular (stylistic) technique (attained through proper basics). Especially the fact that from a certain point people start competing without waiting for  their techniques to sufficiently mature is a mixed blessing.
The present state of the karate world is such that both the organizers of    competitions and the participants seem not to even notice this anymore. Further, in recent years the number of competitions including international  ones has risen quickly. That many people participate in these many tournaments is l also a reason the level of karate is steadily deteriorating.
Due to this over-participation there is no time left to work on the development of the stylistic particulars. Because this has been continuing for some time instructors and competitors have even come to lose the knowledge of what are the stylistic particulars of their style.
Of course competitions are necessary. The truth is that with the advent of    competition karate the total karate population has also increased. But I am of the opinion that in order to compete one should first give priority to waiting for and    attaining stylistically pure techniques.
A competitor who enters into competition without waiting to reach an acceptable level of stylistic technicality loses his qualification to do so. Also unless on the basis of superiority or inferiority of stylistic techniques, winning or losing of a group or style has no meaning whatsoever.

5. You still participate in the All Japan Championships. Why do you do this?
- Especially in my own case it is not good just to participate in a tournament.
    (1) The whole year one should train to develop one's basic strength.
    (2) The whole year one should train to develop one's techniques.
    (3) Competition then becomes the ultimate test which one expresses the excellence of one's techniques and puts them to the test.
Based on these three points and while still able to fulfill all of them, I will also in the future continue to participate in tournaments.
In the world of sports or at the world of arts, really in any field where people through everyday practice and exertion create beautiful or good technique, these people have the obligation I think to create a place where to express these techniques and show them to other people. An artist will display the objects of his creativity at an exhibition. For me this is once a year at the All Japan Championships. Of course this is as long as I can fulfill the previously mentioned three points.

5. Could you please tell us about the highlight in your karate career?
- Well, I cannot specifically name anything more than that, I feel that the present is my high point and that I should strive within the present to increase my level of competence as to move that high point into the future. Also, I am always completely absorbed in the transmittance of my techniques to other people whether just one, or many does not matter, but that gives me enough satification in the present not to think about the past.

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