I was very sad to hear that Fumio Demura Sensei had died. I was sad that I couldn’t train with him. A great teacher, writer, and stuntman. Rest in peace Sensei #KarateKid #RealMiyagi
Fumio Demura is a famous Japanese karate and Kobudo master. He did Pat Morita’s martial arts moves in the first, third, and fourth movies of The Karate Kid. He was also the model for ‘Mr Miyagi’. Demura ranks 9th in Shitō-ryū Karate.
Demura was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 15, 1938. At age 9, in 1947 or 1948, he started learning karate and kendo from a teacher named Asano. Ryusho Sakagami taught him Itosu-kai karate when he was 12 years old, in 1950 or 1951. Demura won the East Japan Championships in 1957 after getting his first black belt in 1956. In 1959, he started learning Okinawan-style weapons training called Kobudo from Taira Shinken. In 1963, he met Koga ryu ninjutsu soke Seiko Fujita, who was the 14th generation of Koga ryu ninja, he said, calling himself Fumio Demura. Demura met martial arts expert Donn Draeger, who put him in touch with Dan Ivan. Ivan finally hired Demura as a karate teacher in the United States.
Demura went to the United States in 1965 as a representative of the Japanese Karate Ito Club. He is known for his karate and Kobudo skills in Southern California, where he lives. He was given the rank of 5th dan in 1971, and he kept it until at least 1982. [6] Demura wrote several books about martial arts in the 1970s and 1980s, including Karate Shito-ryu (1971), Advanced Nunchaku (co-written in 1976), Tonfa: Karate Weapons of Self-Defense” (1982), Nunchaku: Weapons of Karate Self-Defense (1986), Bo: Weapons of Karate Self-Defense (1987), and Sai: Weapons of Karate Self-Defense (1987).
Decun was given the seventh dan in Sidouliu Karate in 1986. He was kicked out of the Ito Sukai in 2001 and started working as a head for the Shidoryu Karate Genbukai. He moved up to the ninth dan in 2005. He lives in Santa Ana, California, right now.
Demura appeared at the American Martial Arts Festival in October 2010 at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Centre in Redondo Beach, CA. The festival was put on by the Koyamada International Foundation (KIF).
