A Life of Adventure. The tale begins on the Garden Isle of Kauai in Hawaii, Tino Ceberano is a Hawaiian born Filipino raised in the sugar plantation villages of Kauai. Surrounded by the martial arts from a young age, he selected Goju Kai karate-do in Honolulu as his chosen discipline. From the Hawaiian Islands to the dojos of Japan, his life story is a fascinating tale about the human spirit, daring to break barriers. It is time to tell the story of this remarkable man who has inspired so many to be more than they ever believed. You will never doubt your ability to do anything again after reading this tale.

In 1966, Tino arrived in Australia with his family and instantly initiated moves to introduce the relatively unknown world of Karate to the continent. Tino’s martial arts style was well received here. Judo at the time was the mainstay martial art and it was everywhere and was everyone’s ideal of a fighting technology. At the time, Karate was still nonexistent.

Tino performed a demonstration at a local Judo club which was so well received he was asked to regularly perform demonstrations at all of the Judo clubs. From here the popularity of Karate just mushroomed. He would have as many as 60-100 people in a class.

The style he taught was very hard. His reasoning for this was that at the time, people wouldn’t really take on the likes of the ritualistic type of regimented training involving a lot of repetitions. So he gave them exercise as well which either made them or broke them and that was to sort out the mentally and physically strong from the weak.

This hard style proved something as well. It made the name associated with the school a strong one and the school gained a high standing and became a strong foundation for what martial arts was going to be like in the future. He spent decades travelling and showcasing the art of Goju in Australian and in many other countries. He became a great ambassador for the sport and coached state and national teams. Thousands of karatekas can trace their training roots back to this man. It is no wonder we call him the Father of Australian Karate.