Seventh dan success for vegan karateka
Seven years ago vegan karate expert Mirko Buchwald became one of the highest ranked black belts when he passed his 6th dan grading. He's just taken it one step further and been awarded his 7th dan.
Mirko achieved this at the Budosai festival, organised by the Traditional Okinawa Goju Rya Karate Do Federation. It was in front of world Chief Instructor Higaonna Morio Sensei after hours of training. The assessment meant Mirko had to perform a range of techniques from advanced katas to demonstrate speed, power, control and mental focus.
Around half of all participants at all level did not pass, and Mirko was the only one to pass the 7th dan.
Vegan fighter
Mirko was raised vegetarian and turned vegan in the late 1980s as a teenager. Since then he’s been British Champion and captained the national team in the US where he now lives. He’s one of one of only three practitioners at 7th dan or above in the United States.
He says “many instructors that I have known and trained with for many years train very hard but due to their diet still have issues with weight and their health as they get older. So they are interested and usually very surprised if they don’t already know I am vegan.”
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