For more than 35 years, Southland karate sensei has shared self-defense techniques, traditions

Sensei Ed Wojciechowski started his journey in karate nearly four decades ago not as a calling so much as a backup plan.

“I was in bad shape,” Wojciechowski said. “I smoked. I drank a lot of coffee. I needed some exercise.”

He tried running, weight training and tennis but something was missing. In 1983, when Wojciechowski was 35, a neighbor suggested karate classes through the Oak Lawn Park District. The sensei watched Wojciechowski and called him a natural. Just three years later, Wojciechowski was teaching karate at the park district in a special recreation program. He continues to teach with the park district and at dojos across the Southland.

But karate still did not have a grip on Wojciechowski. He left for roughly six months to train in tai chi, attracted to the smooth and flowing techniques as well as its nonaggressive approach. But the class near his house did not cover what the techniques can mean in real-life self-defense situations.

A taekwondo school opened near him, and Wojciechowski found the self-defense applications he sought. He continued to study the martial art and returned to karate. In 1989, he hit a milestone in both.

“I got my black belt in taekwondo the very day after I got my black belt in karate,” Wojciechowski said.

Eventually, Wojciechowski’s teacher at the park district retired, and the student became the sensei. Wojciechowski also began to teach karate classes at Daley College and at the Palos Heights Parks & Recreation Department.

“Between the three of them, I had 80 students,” Wojciechowski said.

Then, Fumio Toyoda, an aikido shihan (master instructor), opened the Japanese Culture Center in Burbank. Wojciechowski taught there for years. Aikido Sensei Roberto Garza started his own dojo in Palos Hills called A Center For the Martial Arts, where Wojciechowski still has a part-time place.

He uses padded shields, focus mitts and kicking paddles to develop power and accuracy. He teaches body hardening, foot-sweeping techniques, board breaking and controlled sparring. Though, “katas,” or forms, in which participants simulate choreographed defense scenarios alone, have taken on a bigger role.

“I’m realizing these katas contain a lot of really good techniques … to really defend yourself really well,” Wojciechowski said. “We don’t do a lot of sparring.”

He has become known as “Wojo Sensei,” and the characters on one of his belts even spells out the four-letter nickname (he said he was not about to have Wojciechowski cluttering a belt). Now an eighth-degree black belt with the title of “shihan,” or master instructor, Wojciechowski teaches self-defense techniques, board breaking and takedowns.

He said has no ambitions of achieving the 10th degree, the highest possible. Instead, he expects he will retire from his park district work when he hits 40 years of karate. A student who is very good in both iaido and karate is likely to pick up the mantle, though Wojo Sensei plans to continue his work in Palos Hills.

“I’ll be here as long as I can at the regular dojo to help Sensei Garza,” Wojciechowski said.

Finding something ‘pure’

Karate has been in the United States since right after World War II, and its American origins are tied directly to that conflict. Members of the military stationed in Okinawa, a prefecture of Japan and the birthplace of karate, studied the martial art.

“When they got out of the military, a lot of them thought to open schools,” Wojciechowski said.

But even in the late 1940s, there were theories that some things were omitted or intentionally taught wrong to Americans because they were an enemy. The Okinawans wanted to maintain a competitive advantage.

“This was all secret,” Wojciechowski said of karate. “It was handed down from father to son. … A lot of what was brought back, while it was new to everybody, it was a little bit here, a little bit there.”

Complicating matters, Gichin Funakoshi, known as the father of modern karate, was invited in the early 1920s to mainland Japan for demonstrations and stayed to teach, founding what is known as the Shotokan system of karate.

“But it’s Japanese karate,” Wojciechowski said. “There’s a difference between Okinawan karate and Japanese karate.”

Okinawan karate is heavily influenced by China. Chinese families had settled on the island and taught some of their styles and techniques, which became foundations for the “empty hand way” when weapons were banned in the once-independent Okinawa under Japanese rule.

At a certain point, Wojciechowski got the inkling to find a form of karate that was “more pure.” His own sensei’s first love was judo, but a friend of the instructor did a style called Shorin Ryu, learned from an Okinawan master. He introduced Wojciechowski to the style, and Wojo Sensei has been doing it ever since.

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Wojciechowski also is a fifth-degree black belt in iaido, a Japanese swordsmanship martial art that focuses on quickly drawing and using a katana.

His journey in iaido started 20 years ago, when a military service member introduced him to it. He started training in a style known as Mugai Ryu, getting his first black belt from the head of that style. He has since gone on to become certified as a fifth-degree black belt and has taught iaido at the Oak Lawn Park District for 12 years.

In 2019, Wojciechowski finally visited Okinawa. There, he trained with 10th-degree iaido black belt Hisao Hamamoto. He saw the Fukushuen Garden, where shrines commemorate the friendship between the Okinawan and Chinese people, and explored the Okinawa karate archives. He also visited the birthplace of the Shorin Ryu style.

“I’m so glad I got to see Shuri Castle, because six months later it burned to the ground,” Wojciechowski said.

Passing on a tradition

Wojciechowski still teaches classes for the Oak Lawn Park District as well as the dojo on Roberts Road. He preaches the well-rounded benefits of the martial arts, from improved muscle tone, stamina and coordination to increased self-confidence. Wojciechowski’s classes include the culture.

“I think the culture is so fascinating,” Wojciechowski said.

Wojciechowski said he has not seen a lot of interest in karate over the past several years. He no longer has a steady stream of student promotions. The martial arts have been passed on from generation to generation, but youths today have many ways to stay in shape and interact with others.

But Wojciechowski said no one else he knows in the area teaches the Matsumura Shorin Ryu style, which traces back to a bodyguard of the king of Okinawa.

“A lot of the Okinawan masters are not here anymore,” he said. “I want to pass this on.”

Wojciechowski grew up in Chicago before his family moved to Oak Lawn. He ended up staying there for more than 40 years before moving to Oak Forest in 2004. He retired from a 30-year career with the Environmental Protection Agency, following a post-graduation stint with Cook County Environmental Control.

“I liked the environmental stuff,” Wojciechowski said. “I felt some level of importance when I went to the EPA. When I first started, we could find violations any day of the week, any place we went. By the time I left 30 years later, it was very tough to find violations — very tough. We had to really dig.”

Wojciechowski said he was proud of his EPA work, and that same feeling drives much of his work in karate.

“To me, it’s a matter of pride — pride when somebody walks through this front door and knows nothing about self-defense and five years later I award them a black belt,” he said. “It’s pride for me, and it was pride when I retired from the EPA. We did a great job.”

Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.