Instructor

Chicago-born Erik Matsunaga began his martial journey in the vein of many Midwestern American pre-teens, with folkstyle wrestling as a compulsory facet of public school physical education from grades 6 through 12. 

He began training in karate in 1989, during his freshman year of high school. Inspired by stage demonstrations he’d seen during Japanese American summer festivals throughout his youth, his primary motive for training was self-defense. For the next decade, while maintaining continuous karate training, he consumed everything he could on various other martial arts. 

Little Tokyo Dojo Yudanshakai (Black Belt Association) at the Terasaki Budokan in Los Angeles: (L-R) Prince Loeffler, Russell Kumagai, Erik Matsunaga, Walter Nishinaka, Art Ishii sensei, Randal Kumagai, Seiji Katsurayama, Francois Chau, Garrett Brown, Ako Castuera

In 1998, Matsunaga moved to Los Angeles for work and was introduced to the karate dojo of Art Ishii, which operated out of the social hall of a Japanese American church in Little Tokyo. It was here that he began his path of training in Okinawan Shorin-ryu under Ishii sensei, a longtime student of Eihachi Ota and Takayoshi Nagamine.

Upon returning to Chicago and settling into family and career, in 2012 Matsunaga founded Shobu Karatedo as a branch of the World Matsubayashi-ryu (Shorin-ryu) Karatedo Association, headquartered in Okinawa, Japan. It is a community-based group in conjunction with the space-sharing program at Ravenswood Fellowship United Methodist Church.

Visiting Pinewoods Okinawan Karate in Wooster, OH, under the leadership of Scott Schnell.

Founded in part by Japanese American WWII incarceration camp resettlers, from whom Matsunaga also descends, RFUMC graciously shares its facilities with many outside organizations, supporting both the Ravenswood neighborhood and community-at-large.

Over thirty years later Matsunaga continues to train for health; for wellness; for friendship; as a cultural outlet; and for ikigai–life purpose; self-defense has gone from first to last on the list. He maintains an unrelated day job and manages the dojo out of a passion for the art and as a means to build community through Japanese & Okinawan martial culture.