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Someone said: “Repay an injury with kindness.” 

The master said: “If you repay injury with kindness, with what, 

then will you reward kindness. 

You should repay injury with justice and kindness with kindness”.

2024

The legacy of Jan Kallenbach, a Taikiken Kyoshi who trained with legendary martial artists like Kenichi Sawai. Learn about his journey from Judo to Karate and Yiquan.

Jan Kallenbach started with Judo in 1956. Later in 1958, he became a student of Judo and Karate instructor Jon Bluming who was the representative of Kyokushinkai Karate for Europe. 

Kallenbach continued with Judo and Jujitsu and started to train Kyokushinkai Karate. Some years later, he became Europe Karate champion for the first time. He became seventh Dan in karate (the second highest graduation in the Netherlands). 

In 1967-68, he studied Kyokushin karate at Mas. Oyama Honbu dojo in Tokyo. During this stay in Japan he met prominent martial artists like: Donn F. Draeger in Judo, Kuroda in Iai-do, Shimizu in Jodo. But his stay was marked by meeting and learning from the legendary Kenichi Sawai, founder of Taikiken. In 1974, he received at his home in Amsterdam the 3 next Kyoshi (the most high graduation in Taikiken): Sato Yoshimichi (master Sawai's son in law), Sawai Akio and Iwama Norimasa. In 1976, he got the grade of Renshi from master Sawai and this of Kyoshi in 1987. Later he met different Yiquan masters in Europe and in China. 

He did choose to follow the teachings of master Li Yuan Ju. In 1999, master Li Yuan Ju gave him a license to teach Yiquan.

Jan Kallenbach was teaching Taikiken at the Shin bu ken dojo.