Scottcoachmilne

On 6/7/2009 at 3:03 PM, Flash@TMB said:

Hah - there's been a lot of rumours spread about Master Felber and he won a case of defamation over this a few years back. Here's the full story:

Master Felber's experience started in the late 50s when his father sent him to boxing lessons. He boxed throughout the 60s and fought bare knuckle for money on a few occasions. He started training in karate when it first came to Aberdeen (I think in 1962), and gained his 1st dan in 1967 aged 20, about a year after Ronnie gained his black belt.

From the late 60s to present he's devoted pretty much his entire life to studying martial arts, traveling to train intensively with the best instructors that he could find. I know that he trained in aikido and jujitsu during the 1970s and then aikijitsu and weapons during the 1980s.

He developed Kafdo between 1980 (around the time he left tae kwon do) and 1984 when he registered it with the Okinawan Martial Arts Union (this is easily verifiable). It's a mixture of techniques from everything he's studied including boxing - hence the name (which I agree is misleading). Bear in mind that this was before MMA emerged, and at the time it was considered by many in the MA community to be heresy, hence much of the bad feeling. He's qualified to award dan grades in karate, aikijitsu, and trad weapons. I have a video of him cutting through a fence post with my L7 katana in one fell swoop. his sword work is amazing. There's also videos of him slicing a watermelon in half while it's balanced on someone's stomach, and I witnessed this live back in December.

He was one of the founders of the World and British Martial Arts Federation but resigned in support of James Monclair.

He has always graded outside of his own art, and he gifted me a full duplicate (not a copy) of his DAI-SHIHAN (Great Master) certificate of appointment. This was in Juko-Kai Kokuasi Renmai. It's signed (clearly in hand) by both Dr Rod Sacharnoski, soke and also Shian Toma, soke and President of the All Okinawan Seidokan Motobu-ryu Association. His registration number is 1195. The certificate is clearly genuine.

I've spent a lot of time with Karl, and so I know about a lot of the history and politics. Personally, my take on it is that there's a lot of jealousy involved. I previously trained in Shotokan Karate at Scottish Shotokan centers (Ronnie) and before that when I was a youngster in Wado Ru. The instruction I received from Karl was superior in every way.

Karl keeps a folder with all his grading certificates, plus letters, press clippings, and photos. I've seen both of his commendations from the police, in each instance there are photos of him receiving a medal, one of those was 2 years ago, and I've subsequently met and trained with the police officer that he rescued from 5 attackers! I've also seen letter of thanks from The Royal Marines for unarmed combat training courses that Karl ran for them, and I believe he is actually running a course for them at present, even though he's 62 years old. If you'd like to see his scrap book then I can probably arrange that... if you've got a couple of hours to spare MTA can also vouch for all this.

Sorry for the lengthy reply, but although I no longer train in Kafdo I do feel that Karl's reputation is worth defending!

Thanks for the kind words about SCS

The guy is a fraud,I was one of his "black belts" 4th dan once I started training in boxing and then joined the army he took the hump with me, he was abusive to all his kids, Karl jnr Suzie and Mark, he done the same to his wife Adrian who for some crazy reason stays with him, I could write a book about this clown...