extracted from notes made by Sensei Jim Stackpoole

Judo was my life, by 1966 I was the holder of a brown belt and was chief instructor of judo clubs at Sandgate RSL, Boondall, Zillmere, Indrooroopilly and Clontarf. I was approched by Mr Jim Bratchford, president of the Aspley Sate School Parents and Citizens Association, to Teach classes at the Aspley State School. Around that time, I had branched out into the field of jujitsu, and was taught by a gentleman named ray stevens who visited the sandgate judo club on a regular basis. Mr stevens had studied in Japan as a member of the allied forces after the second world war and was the sensei of many of the judo and jujitsu teachers in the brisbane area in the 1960's. I saw the opportunity of diversifying my interests by commencing a jujitsu club at the new venture at Aspley State School.

The club was sponsered by the Schools P&C  and they acquired some gymnastic mats for Saturday morning classes. I taught around 50 students every weekend. The usual format was to run classes for 10 weeks, and conduct a grading on the last day. Then we wouldhave a few weeks break and commence another series of 10 weeks. All the funds went into the P&C account, and eventually we saved enough money to purchase some foam rubber, plywood and hessian to make our own mats.

The style of jujitsu that I had been taught was known as "kyushin Ryu" and emanated from the sourthern japanese island of Kyushu. If we trace the history of modern judo as formulated by founder Jigoro Kano, he extracted his techniques from the five main styles of jujitsu - with Kyushin being one of these. Therefore when it came time to formalise the classes at Aspley State School it was named Kyushin Jujitsu Club (still the same badge today) - and the club badge is actually the original Japanese Jujitsu basge, with the five points of the cherry blossom flower recognising the five main schools of jujitsu. It may be noted that the "points" of the jujitsu symbol on the badge actually do not have a "point" at all, indicating that no one style was considered as being superior to others.

Judo politics has ridden over some rough, but interesting roads over the last 40 years. No formal organisation existed until the last 1950's, when the Judo Federation of Australia was formed. The Queensland branch was know as the Queensland Amateur Judo Union, and centred mainly around the University of Qld, the its focus on the development of seniors. However, due to the neglect of junior players, this resulted in the formation of an alternative body, know as the Judo Union of Qld. In the mid 1960's, ambassadors from Korea were sent all over the world to form an affiliated groups to form a strong enough body to take over internation judo, hence in Qld we saw the formation of the Qld Dae Myung Judo Association, this body grew in strenght in the rural areas of the state, and in 1971 joined together with the Judo Union of Qld to form the Queensland Judo Association which in turn affiliated with the victoria based Amateur Judo Association. At this time the combined membership out numbered the JFA by about ten times. An endeavor was made to amalgamate the two national bodies, and this eventuated over several years in the early 1980's.

As many of the Kyushin members had become very proficient they expressed a desire to enter into open competition, unfortunately there was no organisation for jujitsu clubs at that time, and instructors in the art were very scarce. In the early 1970's I attempted to affiliate with the Judo Union of Qld, but they would not accept "jujitsu" in the tital of the club, therefore, the name of the club was changed to "Kyushin Judo Club". In order to allow the members to compete on equal footing with judo players all instruction changed to judo.

Kyushin has had many cheif sensei in the past, such as Jim Stackpoole, Mark Brandon, Janelle Stackpoole, Robert Evans (still training), Michael Hall (still training), Chris Hall (still training). Michael has been the chief sensei since 1993, and has moved with the club to several locations Aspley State school, Asplet East State School, Nudge College, Windsor State School, Kedron Church of Christ hall and finally the construction of "the shed".

There are not that many judo clubs around who are able to lay claim to such an interesting and long standing history, and a real desire by its leaders to maintain the traditions established so long ago.