Shotokan head of the Japan Karate Association's Brazilian branch. Action movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme holds a 2nd "dan" black belt in Shotokan and used the style when he competed both in traditional and in full contact karate competitions in the 1970s and 1980s. Michael Jai White has a 3rd "dan" in Shotokan, although he has long practiced other karate styles such as Kyokushin and Goju Ryu. Wesley Snipes has a 5th dan black belt in Shotokan. Shotokan Funakoshi had many students at the university clubs and outside dojos, who continued to teach karate after his death in 1957. However, internal
Tachikawa-ryu in 1113 by the Shingon monk Ninkan associated with Daigoji, was exiled from Koyasan to the province of Izu after getting caught on the wrong side of a political dispute. In Izu, he met an Onmyoji (Onmyodo: Taoism, Japanese esoteric cosmology) master from "Musashi no Tachikawa (Tachikawa of Musashi Province)" named Kenren (見蓮 also 兼蓮). Together the two created the school of Tachikawa-ryu. Ninkan taught mikkyo to specialist in yin-yang and Yijing divination in Musashi region, and regarded as a founder of Tachikawa-ryu, a heretical Shingon sect. Whether or not they can credited to Ninkan himself, the Taoist elements in