Kimo Wall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William James "Kimo" Wall was born in Hawaii in 1943. ("Kimo" is the Hawaiian equivalent of "Jim".) At the age of six he began training in Goju-ryu karate under teachers who had studied with Miyagi Chojun during his three-year stay in Hawaii. In 1961 he joined the US Marine Corps and was stationed in Okinawa, where he trained Goju-ryu karate in the dojo of Higa Seiko. Matayoshi Shinho taught kobudo (ancient weapons) in the same building, and Kimo studied under him as well. He became a friend of both families, and through them he met and trained with other karate masters who had been students of Miyagi, such as Kina Seiko and Shoshin Nagamine.
In 1970, after several years in Vietnam, Kimo Wall founded his own organization, which he named Kodokan in honor of Master Matayoshi's school. He traveled a great deal and he and his students founded schools in Puerto Rico, Guatemala, New York, and California. In 1981 he began teaching for the Physical Education department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Today Kimo Wall lives in Panajachel, Guatemala, where he continues to teach karate and kobudo. He also runs a massage therapy practice, using the principles of Thai massage, which he studied under Dr. Chongkol Setthakorn at the Northern Medicine Hospital in Chiangmai, Thailand.
