Club History
The MIT Shotokan club was founded in 1974 by Sensei Kazumi Tabata. It was the second club of his New England Collegiate Karate Conference - NECKC, a large network of Shotokan clubs across many New Englands colleges. We are an Association of Student Activities Club Sport and have about twenty members, from undergraduates to faculty members. We welcome beginners as well as anyone with experience in other styles.
The MIT club has always benefited from very high-ranking and excellent instructors and continues do so at present. (It has also always suffered from MIT students being overworked!). The dedication of our instructors, and of Sensei Tabata in particular, in working with beginners is wonderful. The club is very active: Apart from the regular workouts for beginners and advanced students, MIT hosts frequent workshops and special instruction classes, as well as the NAKF summer training.
We hold for-credit PE classes at least once a year. The Fall 2002 semester PE class is during the First Quarter. They have proven to be extremely popular. Every term, we send Kata and Kumite teams to the NECKC/NAKF tournament.
The club actively engages the wider MIT Martial Arts community. We instigated the Open Workout series, a round of introductory seminars that gives each style the opportunity to showcase it self. We do invite practitioners from different styles to participate in our seminars and include them in our tournament delegations. Read the article from The Tech about Master Tabata's Shotokan Karate Workout from October 2000.
One of our biggest assets is the memberhsip in the NECKC. This provides us with direct instructor exchange with other schools, access to seminars and tournaments in the Boston area, and with the opportunity to mix with students of all levels and different teaching styles. Our primary competition is in the annual NECKC tournament, which focuses on college age competitors and features school from as far away as Bermuda.
Our per term instructor's and administrative fee is $30.
NECKC Members: MIT, Tufts, Boston College, Boston University, UMass Lowell, Northeastern University, UMass Bridgewater, UMass Dartmouth, Fitchburg State, South-Eastern Massachusetts University.