Karateka mid-kiai, fist extended in oi-zuki, gi snapping with motion blur against industrial dojo ceiling lights
OSU
KIMETraditional Shotokan Karate

No padding. No shortcuts. No apology.

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Close-up of white knuckles and clenched fist against dark background during karate grading examination
Winter · Grading Night

The board
doesn't care
how you feel.

January grading. The dojo is cold. The examiner's clipboard doesn't move. Fifteen students kneel in seiza waiting for their name. White knuckles. Controlled breath. This is where rank means something — because you earned it in front of people who don't hand it out.

Kyu Grading Twice YearlyDan Examination by JKA Panel
94%
Grading Pass Rate
6
Active Black Belts
Karate team performing synchronized kata during spring competition, frozen mid-movement in perfect unison
Spring · Competition Season

One breath.
Fifteen bodies.
One kata.

April through June. Regional circuits, national qualifiers. The team kata squad trains Saturday mornings while the city sleeps. You don't have to compete — but those who do come back different. Quieter. Harder. More precise. The floor at Kime produces fighters who place.

See the Timetable
12
Medals This Season
3
National Podiums
Karateka training outdoors on wet grass at dawn during summer gasshuku camp, mist rising in morning light
Summer · Gasshuku

Five days.
Wet grass.
No excuses.

August. Residential camp. 5 AM kihon before breakfast, kumite sparring through the afternoon heat. Instructors who've done thirty of these. No phones. No excuses. Students who attend gasshuku don't train like the same people after.

Annual 5-Day Residential Camp
All Grades Welcome
Guest JKA Instructors
Single black belt karateka in quiet empty dojo, folding their gi alone under dim overhead light in autumn
Autumn · The Return

The dojo
doesn't close.
Neither do you.

October. The competition season is over. The dojo is quiet on a Thursday night. One black belt folds their gi on the bench — the same bench they've used since 1998. They'll be back Monday. They've always come back. This is the year you start that.

"The floor doesn't care about your schedule.
It cares about whether you showed up."

— Sensei T. Nakamura, 6th Dan
Step Into the Dojo