Steve Arneil
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Hanshi Steve Arneil (born in Krugersdorp, Transvaal, South Africa, on 29 August 1934) is the President and founder of the International Federation of Karate.
At the age of 10, his family moved to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), and there he began training in Judo. At the age of seventeen he became a black belt in Judo, and also practiced both Kenpo and Karate.[1] Around the age of 25, Arneil moved to Durban, South Africa, to complete his education in mechanical engineering. He found a local Judo dojo in Durban that also offered karate. In 1962 he travelled to Japan to study karate under Mas Oyama. When he left Japan in 1965, he had achieved the rank of 3rd dan and had been the first person to complete the 100 man kumite after Mas Oyama.[2] Steve Arneil was "adopted" by Mas Oyama, in order to allow Arneil to marry a Japanese woman.[3]
After his marriage, Steve Arneil travelled with his new wife to Great Britain.[4] In the same year, he and Bob Boulton founded the British Karate Kyokushinkai (BKK) organisation. The first full time dojo was located in Stratford, in East London. The number of clubs expanded such that today there are between 65 and 70 throughout Great Britain.
During the period spanning 1968 and 1976, Arneil was the team manager and coach for the All Styles English and British Karate team which became the first non-Japanese team to win the World Karate Championship in 1976. In 1975 the French Karate Federation awarded him the title of the 'World's Best Coach'.[5]
In 1991, Arneil and the BKK resigned their 25 year long membership with the Japan based International Karate Organisation (IKO) and founded the International Federation of Karate (IFK) which currently has a membership of over 100,000 in up to 19 different countries. He currently is the President of the BKK and head of the IFK.[6]
His 8th dan was awarded to him by the British karate community for his services to karate in Great Britain. On May 26, 2001 Arneil was awarded his 9th dan by the IFK country representatives at their meeting in Berlin.[7]
