By the age of 17, Michael Clarke, Kyoshi 8th dan was behind bars, a veteran street fighter serving a two-year sentence for occasioning grievous bodily harm.Turning 18 behind the walls of one of England's most notorious prisons 'Strangeways', was a wake up call that began his climb off the bottom.
Released back into society on parole in December 1973, he began training in karate in January 1974.
After ten years of training in the Japanese system of Tani-ha Shito-ryu, he travelled to Okinawa for the first time in 1984, in search of the more traditional training methods. There he was accepted into the dojo of the famed Morio Higaonna sensei. In 1992 he entered the Jundokan dojo of Eiichi Miyazato sensei, the dojo where Higaonna sensei himself had learnt karate, and became a student of the man who had received his instruction directly from the founder of goju-ryu: Chojun Miyagi. Six weeks before he passed away, in 1999, Miyazato sensei promoted Michael to 6th dan.
