TRIAS KARATE

Robert A. Trias (1923-1989), known by some as "the father of Karate in America". He developed Shuri-ryu karate with its roots in the Okinawan tradition.

While serving in the United States Navy during World War II, Robert Trias was stationed in the Solomon Islands. There he met Tong Gee Hsing, a Chinsese missionary of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, who offered to teach Trias some martial arts in exchange for lessons in American boxing. Trias, who was the Navy's middleweight boxing champion at the time, decided to fight Tong Gee Hsing but he was unable to land a single punch. Hsing became O'Sensei's teacher and taught him Hsing-I, as well as some Okinawan karate, which Hsing had learned from Choki Motobu in Okinawa.

O'Sensei held a 6th dan black belt in Kodokan Judo and studied under Yju Yamada.

When Robert Trias left the Navy, he bagan  

teaching martial arts in his backyard in Phoenix, Arizona. Later he opened his first karate school in Phoenix. Robert Trias served as an officer of the Arizona State Highway Patrol for a number of years utilizing his self-defense knowledge.

Grandmaster Trias died in 1989 of cancer leaving the Shuri-ryu system to his daughter Dr. Roberta Trias-Kelley, inheritor and Menkyo Kaiden.

Hanshi Roberta Trias began studying Karate at a young age with her father and Sensei, O’Sensei Robert A. Trias. She is known throughout the world as Hanshi and Menkyo Kaiden of Okinawan Shuri-ryu karate. She holds the rank of 10th Dan in Karate, is a Hanshi in Okinawan Kobudo and is certified as a Chief Instructor by her father O’Sensei Robert Trias, founder and Master of Shuri-ryu and inherited the system upon O’Sensei’s death.

She holds a Ph.D in Education. Trias Hanshi is currently working on a trilogy of books which focus on O’Sensei Robert A. Trias and his lifetime of Karate called, The Beginning of the End, Karatedo: The Way of the Modern Warrior.