Sensei Noah Mitchell and Sensei Ken Manse began studying karate at the Sankaku Kyokai karate organization in 1983.  Sensei Carol Mitchell began her karate training in 1977, and returned to the organization in 1995 following a 9-year hiatus.  The Mitchells began their kobudo training in the 1990s, around the same time that Sensei Manse began studying ju jitsu.  The Mitchells subsequently joined Sensei Manse in ju jitsu in the early 2000s.

Their original karate instructor had studied Shotokan karate under Latino Gonzalez and Goju-ryu karate under Peter Urban in the late 50s and 60s.  He returned from military service in the Philippines and opened the Sankaku Kyokai Karate organization in Yorktown in 1967.  His unique system combined traditional Shoto-kan and Goju-ryu karate styles.  In 1995, Sankaku Kyokai changed hands and became the Watakushitachi-no Karate Association, which lasted until 2006.  At Mountain Stream Budo, we will endeavor to perpetuate this unique combination of systems, while helping it to grow and expand, as all healthy budo systems must do in order to improve.

Sensei Noah and Sensei Carol study Matayoshi-ryu kobudo, a 400-year-old kobudo system.  Their lineage is tied directly to Matayoshi Shinpo sensei himself.  Shortly following Matayoshi-sensei’s death in 1997, Gakiya Yoshiaki-sensei founded his own organization, the Okinawa Kobudo Doushi Rensei-kai, which is now a world-wide kobudo system.  Sensei Noah and Sensei Carol’s kobudo instructor is Kyoshi Stolsmark, who runs the North American Headquarters of OKDR, and is a personal student of Gakiya-sensei.