About

About Methuen Karate

"We started with five students from Everett in this little room in my in-law's apartment, moved to St. Lucy's, but they asked us to set up tables and chairs for bingo, so we moved to my father-in-law's old cow barn. We started with one part, we kept expanding and built a legitimate dojo in the middle of this neighborhood. We've been able to keep the same concept for over 55 years. I enjoy working with the kids, I enjoy passing on my knowledge and teaching the next generation"

-Kancho Larry Giordano

Kancho

Larry F. Gagnon grew up in a foster home for the first 17 years of his life. In 1963, at the age of 17, Larry Gagnon left his foster home, joined the US Air Force and was stationed in Germany. After spending 4 years in the Air Force Larry Gagnon was given an honorable discharge. […]

MKA History

Donald “Buck” Irving Lindsey Don Buck was both kind and powerful. He spent his life helping others and teaching the martial arts. His close friend and teacher, Mas Oyama gave Don Buck the title “Fierce Tiger”. As a child, Don and a few other children stayed at a daycare center supervised by an Indian Yogi. […]

MKA 2024 Board

Over the years, the Methuen Karate Association has sought to develop a strong and lasting spirit in the dojo and in each person’s everyday life. The development of self-discipline in your life creates an atmosphere of love, respect, and obedience which has fostered your growth of strong moral character which I, as Kancho, have strived […]

About Kyokushin

“Karate is the most Zen-like of all the Martial Arts.  It has abandoned the sword.  This means that it transcends the idea of winning and losing to become a way of thinking and living for the sake of other people in accordance with the way of Heaven.  Its meanings, therefore, reach the profoundest levels of human thought.

For a long time, I have emphasized that karate is Budō, and if the Budō is removed from karate, it is nothing more than sport karate, show karate or even fashion karate – the idea of training merely to be fashionable.

Karate that has discarded Budō has no substance.  It is nothing more than a barbaric method of fighting or a promotional tool for the purpose of profit.  No matter how popular it becomes, it is meaningless.”

-Mas Oyama

History of Karate

Bodhidharma to Okinawa Most Western students of Asian martial arts, if they have done any research on the subject at all, will surely have come across references to Bodhidharma. He is known as “Daruma” in Japan and as often as not, this Indian Buddhist monk is cited as the prime source for all martial arts […]

Master Funakoshi

Master Gichin Funakoshi is widely considered the primary “father” of modern karate due to his efforts to introduce the Okinawan art to mainland Japan, from where it spread to the rest of the world. Born in 1868, he began to study karate at the age of 11, and was a student of the two greatest […]

Masutatsu Oyama

Masutatsu Oyama was born in Ryong-Ri Yong-chi-Myo’n Chul Na Do Korea in 1923, and completed middle school in Seoul. In 1938, when he was 12 years old, he came to Japan to live, where in 1941, he entered the Tokyo Takushoku University. Oyama had mastered the Eighteen Techniques of Chinese Kempo while he was still […]