About FightingArts.com
FightingArts.Com is an online community aimed at providing authoritative and well researched articles, features, interviews, videos and reporting on a wide range of martial arts and related topics contributed by historians, leading martial arts teachers and authorities in their fields.
The site is not associated with any specific school, style or organization, nor limited to Asian martial arts. Our goal is to provide timely and historical information, reporting, video presentations and interviews that are reliable and objective — presented by knowledgeable experts.
The FightingArts Team
Christopher Caile -Founder, Publisher & Editor in Chief. A profile of his life appears below.
George Donahue – Contributing Editor
Ed Frawley – Associate Editor
Deborah Klens-Bigman – Associate Editor on Japanese Culture
Columnists – Jeff Brooks, Victor Smith, George Donahue, WR Mann and Deborah Klens-Bigman
Contributing Designers – Dave Barnum, Christopher Caile and Richard Harvey
Technical Support and Webmaster – Richard Harvey and Jordan Gallager
About FightingArts.com's Founder Christopher Caile
His history and Profile
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Christopher Caile is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of FightingArts.com. He has been a student of the martial arts for over 65 years. His path to martial arts actually started with interest in track and field.
In high school Caile was a champion in shot put and discus, and member of the 880-yard relay team. In shot put he was one of the top five in the Eastern US. Several of his records still stand today (as of 2025). In college at Bradley University in 1959, Caile continued in shot put and discus but was introduced to judo, wrestling as well as karate under Phil Koeppel in 1959 (Hawaiian Kempo and Wado-Ryu karate). That summer he added Shotokan karate and joined a NYC distance running track club, where he joined members attending the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy.
At the Olympics, a member of the tour introduced Caile to members of the Finnish track team. They loaned Caile an official Finnish uniform and credentials to enable access to the Olympic stadium to witness events from the inside. After the Olympics Caile was then invited to Finland, where, he was told, the Olympic Committee would find him housing. He accepted and then hitch hiked to Finland where he was housed and trained with two visiting Olympic marathoners and accompanied them to several Scandinavian track and field competitions. He also studied judo and later placed 4th in Finland's first National Judo Competition. He was also taught karate at the judo club and is credited with introducing karate to that country. At Helsinki University he studied Russian architecture, and Caile joined his professor and other students in a visit to the Soviet Union (then Communist) to survey architecture — an adventure that almost landed Caile in jail as guest of the KBG- but that's another story.
After six months in Finland, Caile set out toward Japan wanting to continue his karate studies, hitch hiking– through Scandinavia, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Southeast Asia. He lived on 25 cents a day and hitch hiked anything that moved – cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships, even airplanes. When visiting Vietnam, he was almost killed in a guerrilla attack, an incident reflected in his future academic studies.
Arriving in Japan (1962), Caile was introduced to Mas Oyama and his full contact Kyokushinkai Karate by Donn Draeger, the famous martial artist and historian. Donn also housed him with several other senior international judo practitioners. Donn became Caile's martial arts mentor, coaching him in judo and introducing him to Shinto Muso-ryu under Takaji Shimizu.
Caile studied at Oyama's honbu dojo and also at Kenji Kurosaki's second Tokyo Kyokushinkai dojo. In his first day in class Oyama asked Caile to teach English to his chief instructor, Tadashi Nakamura. They have been friends ever since. Caile also participated in Oyama's masterwork book, "This Is Karate."
Caile left Japan with his black belt and designation as Branch Chief. Oyama Sensei had also asked him to be his representative on visits to his US dojos to report on their status. A little over a year later, Nakamura, Kusosaki and Akio Fujihira won an epic David vs. Goliath challenge match against Thailand's professional Muay Thai Boxers in Bangkok, Thailand, thrusting Kyolushinkai and Nakamura into national prominence.
Back in the United States, Caile returned to school at Bradley University. As a senior in two graduate level classes he conducted research in Vietnamese history. Caile then went on to graduate school at American University in Washington, DC in an MA program in International Relations specializing in South and Southeast Asia,
After graduation Caile worked in public relations as a writer and photographer for Project Hope. The charity was known for its white hospital ship "Hope" that brought medical education and treatment to port cities around the world. In the evenings, Caile continued to teach Kyokushinkai karate.
In 1972 Caile moved to Buffalo, NY. There he interviewed to teach International Relations at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY). His master's thesis had opened some doors and he was told to build out course curriculums. Caile's thesis had been the first public disclosure of US Secret WWII support in China and North Vietnam of Ho Chi Minh. It had required US Secret clearance access to classified US diplomatic, military and OSS (forerunner of the CIA) files, a long declassification process and interviews with key operatives. While constructing his SUNY course curriculum, however, Caile took an interim job in telecommunications with Litton Industries. He never looked back. At the University, however, Caile continued to teach karate for over 15 years, frequently lectured on the martial arts and Zen and created a university self-defense curriculum.
By this time Tadashi Nakamura Shihan had moved to New York City to head Kyokushinkai's North American Operation. In 1976 when Kaicho Tadashi Nakamura formed his own Seido karate, Caile followed. Caile is now an 8th degree black belt, Hanshi, in its Westchester, NY's Johshin Honzan spiritual center and dojo. In the NYC area his teaching has focused on kata applications and seminars which he has conducted in the US and dojos abroad. He has also produced, assisted by Ed Frawley (Kyoshi), a 14 segment video series on Pinan Bunkai.
Caile periodically returns to Japan for Seido events, to interview karate historians and to conduct his own kata research. On Okinawa he studied Goju Ryu karate under Eiichi Miyazato, 10th dan founder of Naha's Jundokan, training with Hohan Soken's senior student, Master Fusei Kise, 10 dan, founder of Matsumura Orthodox Shorin-Ryu Karate and Kobudo and with the grandson of the legendary karate master Anko Itosu.
Caile is also a long time student of aikido, first under Mike Hawley Shihan in Buffalo, NY and then with the late Roy Suenaka Sensei, founder of Wado-Ryu Aikido, who was also in-house student of karate Master Hohan Soken on Okinawa. Caile accompanied Suenaka Senesi with others to Japan in 1994 to practice at a variety of aikido organizations with their founders – including private interviews and practices at the Aiki-kai Aikido Honbu dojo with the son and grandson of aikido's founder, Doshu (headmaster) Kisshomaru (an old uchi-deshi friend) and his son, Moriteru Ueshiba and in Iwama with Morihiro Saito.
Caile's other martial arts experience includes: (1) Diato-ryu Aiki-jujitsu and Kenjitsu (under Shogen Okabayashi Sensei, founder of Hokukai Daito Ryu, a student of Tokimon Takeda, son of that art's modern founder), (2) kobudo (bo, jo & Sai), (3) Philippine Kali (empty hand, knife and Bolo), (4) close quarter defense and combat under WR Mann, founder of Defense Science, (5) old Tomari and Shorin-Ryu karate body mechanics (under George Donahue Senior US representative of Kishaba Juku), (6) boxing including several i- house fights against professional boxers at age 73 (under Lou De Valle, former World Light Weight Champion), (7) MMA (including helping coach a fighter in preparation for UFC 9, (8) Muay Thai, (9) Eight Star Praying Mantis (where he holds a second degree gold sash under Dean Economos then designated at the arts inheritor), (10) Pak Mei (White Eyebrow), (11) practice in a private family Chinese Kung Fu system, and (12) Kyushu. Caile is also a long-time student of Zen.
In his professional life in Buffalo, Caile continued in telecommunications with Siemens and then IT&T (now ITT) before founding his own private telephone company, TeleTrends Inc. Simultaneously he designed and manufactured a small, portable break-apart pontoon boat, Port-A-Boat, that was featured in Mechanics Illustrated in its "What's New" section.
Later, Caile founded Tree Technologies Inc, an electronic design company to develop and patent his idea for a new kind of low-cost telephone system. He was assisted by Jim Ritchy, former head of AT&T's Small System Division. The system was eventually sold to Bell South after an initial IPO was wiped out in the stock market crash of 1987. Other company development projects included project development for Kodak and participation in the US Space program. Caile also devised a new kind of computer mouse, but it was not prototyped before company closure.
After his entrepreneurship ventures, Caile became a reporter and photographer for a small Buffalo area newspaper. There over the next few years his reporting included stories on what he perceived as political bias and possible graft reporting. This led to controversy and threats, including a death threat, but also to investigations and the eventual defeat of local officials in elections.
During this time, Caile's mother suffered through an escalating series of medical problems that prompted Caile to seek out alternative medical study. On evenings when not teaching Seido karate, Caile entered a program on Medical Chi Kung (Qigong) in Toronto, Canada, at the Chinese & Japanese Health Institute. Several years later, as one of two senior disciples of Chi Kung Master Zaiwen Shen, Caile was certified to teach and practice and opened a practice, The Chi Kung Healing Institute on Grand Island, NY. He taught courses and seminars on the subject in Western New York including at the acclaimed Chautauqua Institution outside of Buffalo. His articles on the subject also frequently appeared in the Holistic Health Journal and in several books on alternative medicine. He also began study of the use of medical herbology.
In 1998 Caile moved to New York City and married Jackie Veit. They have two sons, twins, Nolan and Grant Caile. In 2000 Caile jumped into the new internet market, and founded this website (FightingArts.com), one of the first martial arts educational website, He also continued his Chi Kung privately. On his honeymoon to Peru, Caile and his new wife ventured down the Amazon River collecting samples of medical herbs, several of which were later tested in Boston at Massachusetts General Hospital. Subsequent family vacations included rain forest herbal research in Puerto Rico and Belize, searching for those applicable to cancer treatment. Currently he is researching and testing one medical plant among a group of cancer patients as a supplement to various cancer treatments.
Most recently with a partner, Caile founded Mediagration, LLC, a start-up software company specializing in ecommerce solutions for, and control and management of, streaming digital products such as video and music. The company is also developing platforms for social media, eBook development services and other projects employing AI services.
Over the 25 years since founding FightingArts.com Caile has written hundreds of articles on karate, the martial arts, Japanese art, Chinese Medicine and edited a book on Zen. He has also developed relationships with a cross section of leading martial arts teachers and conducted extensive private research into karate and martial arts, including private translations of the Bubishi, an early karate book by the karate master Kenwa Mabuni. In 2025 FightingArts.com website underwent a major redesign and update.
