ISKF

Got all snoopy the other day. I don’t like taking things on trust if I don’t have to.

Our Karate club joined the International Shotokan Karate Association, known as the ISKF. They have been welcoming, and their Karate is top notch.

They are a USA based group, and are strong in much of that country. I wondered how successful they were in Canada.

Not counting us, there are 19 Dojos in BC. That is impressive, but how about the rest of Canada.

Alberta has 15 clubs, but Saskatchewan has only 2 and Manitoba 4. In the North, there is 1 in the Yukon, and 1 in the Northwest Territories, but none in Nunavut.

So far, about what I’d have expected in relation to the BC numbers.

In Atlantic Canada, New Brunswick has 4, as does Nova Scotia. There is 1 in PEI and none in Newfoundland.

It gets weird in Central Canada. Quebec is a hotbed of Karate, and her population is about the same as BC and Alberta put together. So how many ISKF clubs? Only 17.

Ontario has a population greater than all the rest of Canada put together, if you leave out Quebec. Karate is very strong in Ontario, but there are only 8 ISKF clubs.

BC is the biggest province in ISKF terms.

How about internationally? I got lazy and didn’t want to do all the research so I just looked into the big Karate countries in Europe. Britain has 8 clubs, France 1, Spain 1, Italy 1 and Germany 7. I find that pretty petite. BC has more ISKF clubs than all of those countries combined.

It seems that the ISKF is truly a North American group.

Nothing wrong with this, but good to know.

And by the way, they have no clubs in Japan at all.