Bryan Matsuoka

Bryan Matsuoka

Bryan Matsuoka

© 2023, USJF, all rights reserved

Judo Biography

Robert Fukuda provided a portrait of "Bryan Matsuoka, the Educator"

The Matsuokas were a typical judo family back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. His father, Guy Matsuoka founded the Twin Falls Judo Club (TFJC) in Twin Falls, Idaho. Out of a family of 6 (Dad, Mom, 3 girl 3 boys), all 3 boys did judo with their father. Bryan, being the youngest son, would be taken to judo when he was pretty tiny to hang out and watch. If you ask Matsuoka Sensei, he has very fond memories of going to watch judo long before he remembers starting school.

At the dojo, he would watch and admire his older brothers, dreaming of being out on the tatami with them very soon… Eventually, he did start when he was 5 years old. Little did Bryan know how much judo would become a part of him and his life… Back then, Sensei was enamored with judo and his goal was to be tough like his big brother Bobby and win the BIG trophies… Much time was spent traveling with his family and other Twin Falls Judo Club members to big tournaments around the Intermountain region. A good
start for an eventual professional educator…

Over the years, he trained, learned, and competed, but eventually a knee injury shelved his competition days permanently and he took on the role of a training partner and assistant instructor. Helping Matsuoka Sensei Sr. with the dojo.

Bryan at the Twin Falls YMCA Judo Club in 1965 (back row:  Guy Matsuoka,
Gene Humphrey, Lee Presley, unknown, Al Benkula, Bob Matsuoka, Loren Cannon, unknown
middle row: unknown, unknown, Jeff Brennan, Rex Lytle, Dave Johnston, Frank Hirai (head instructor after Guy stepped down), David Matsuoka, seated: unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, Bryan is in the striped shirt, unknown.
Those who are named continued in judo and have made lasting memories of judo at the YMCA

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During this time of change, there was a new police training program that started up at the College of Southern Idaho (CSI) with Wes Dobbs as the head instructor. A feature of the program was judo instruction and training which birthed CSI Judo (CSIJ). Quickly, a great friendship and cooperation developed between CSIJ and TFJC. So great, that they eventually merged into one program with a permanent home at CSI. CSIJ and TFJC have been there ever since. Even today, judo classes and CSI Judo Club have been a part of CSI curriculum for some 60+ years.

(Left to right) Greg Dobbs, Wiley Dobbs, Bill Benkula, Bryan Matsuoka, and Guy Matsuoka

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After high school, Bryan began studying in earnest and earned his BA from Boise State University, his M.Ed. from the University of Idaho, and had started work on his Ed.D. Like many of us, real life interrupts the flow of plans sometimes, so the Ed.D. is currently a work in progress. Likely to restart after retirement, perhaps? He really enjoys studying and learning, so we shall see. Most people who decided to pursue schooling after retirement go back to get their bachelors since they did not have the opportunity to go to college/university. Matsuoka Sensei might go back to complete his Ed.D. Yes, Bryan is pretty ambitious!

During this time he has been always been involved in education at all levels. His first experience at formal teaching was at one of the elementary schools in Twin Falls. He found his first experience in education to be enjoyable and interesting. The thing that made the biggest impression on him was the opportunity to help youth and their families through education and learning. Though he always thought that education was important, that experience completely sold him on education was what he wanted to be involved with. It convinced him that education is the best and most effective way to help people and also help them become better people and ultimately better members of society. This is sounding pretty familiar, isn’t it?

As real life put his studying life on hold, it again put his career as a school teacher on a pause too. He began family life with his wife (Jayne) and son (Nyle) and later daughter (Alyssa). He became responsible to clothe & feed his family of 4. An impossible task to surmount on his elementary school salary. He needed to find an opportunity to provide more for his family. So, he made the choice to work for a startup computer software company that eventually grew its client base to encompass the entire country. He had great success with that business and learned much about business by walking through the huge bonfire that is a software business start-up. Despite the business & financial success, like the call of the Sirens, education was beckoning him to return…  Though things were probably more along the lines of Jayne, Nyle, & Alyssa wanting to have Dad be at home regularly for dinner and take them to fun activities. All during this time, Matsuoka Sensei continued to help teach judo at TFJC/CSIJ, when he was in town.

Intermountain and Daiheigen team training for junior national

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In the Centennial Olympic Year of 1996, or maybe it was 1997, but since "Centennial Olympic Year of 1996" sounds a lot cooler… A new opportunity arose at home. CSI was the higher education host of an Idaho Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in South Central Idaho. For those of you in business, the SBDC was essentially the management and educational component of a small-business incubator. Matsuoka Sensei was the ideal candidate to become the senior business consultant: a member of the local community with a good understanding the region and its people and needs, training in education and experience teaching, and a broad business background in a start-up. The folks at CSI were astute and found in Bryan, someone who checked all the boxes with the added bonus of being able to teach the college’s judo PE curriculum and run CSI Judo too.

Matsuoka Sensei had become an educator outside the academic education system. Through the SBDC, he was educating and providing guidance to entrepreneurs and businesses.

Now that he was home, he was able to spend time teaching judo regularly to more judo students than ever before. Now he was an education profession not only in the education sphere, now also in the business sphere. Yes, Matsuoka Sensei was now busier than ever before… Fortunately, his family was more tolerant since he was home pretty much all the time now and at that point, Alyssa and Nyle went to judo with Sensei. Mimicking the family activity that judo was for Matsuoka Sensei when he was a kid. A good example of how important modeling is in education. Though it was clearly different, with the difference being Alyssa doing judo. Back in the 1950s & 60s, girls did not do judo. Times have certainly changed. Even then, the telephone was still pretty new and there were alleged occasional sights of creatures that looked like dinosaurs in the remote corners of Twin Falls County…

An additional opportunity presented itself now that he was home and not out traveling all the time… In 1998, Matsuoka Sensei ran for and won election to a seat on the School Board Trustees of the Twin Falls School District. For the next 24 years, he won re-election for 6 consecutive terms and continued
to serve education in the Twin Falls community in this capacity until he ended his service by declining to run for re-election at the end of his final term in 2021.

Jonah Ruf and Bryan in Texas

© 2023, USJF, all rights reserved

© 2023, USJF, all rights reserved

A less visible position that Bryan holds is that he is a consultant with the Idaho School Board Association providing training and education to school boards around the State of Idaho to ensure they provide excellent, fair, and safe environments for learning at all Idaho schools. Matsuoka Sensei’s specialties are: governance, ethics, continuous improvement, and planning. Another sector where he is a recognized expert educator who provides education and guidance.

Sometime before 1996, Matsuoka Sensei took over the head instructor responsibilities for both TFJC and CSIJ. It was at that time in an effort to get more involved in judo and leadership, he began to become more involved in Intermountain Yudanshakai. Eventually he became the Intermountain President. Around 2011 or 2012, Matsuoka Sensei decided that it was time for a change and moved his judo programs to Daiheigen Yudanshakai. Matsuoka Sensei being the polite and respectful person that he is, made an amicable exit from Intermountain. Sensei and his students found that they enjoyed the frequent, long road trips to Northern California and found that the different cultural experiences were especially interesting and valuable to them. Matsuoka Sensei would eventually become President of Daiheigen and continues in that position today.

Wiji clinic under Michael Eldred leadership providing learning for athletes by Ajax Tadehara and referee development with Robert Fukuda

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Being a yudanshakai president has led him to participation at the USJF level. He has continued to be very active in USJF leadership roles including: Board of Directors, Athlete Scholar of the Year Scholarship Committee Chair, Junior and Youth Development Subcommittee Chair, and Endowment Trust Chair.

His most recent major project is the upcoming release of a joint educational project with Koka Kids: junior rank requirements via an online book for all junior ranks from rokkyu to ikkyu. It is currently going through final reviews and edits and should be up for use very soon.

Matsuoka Sensei embodies much of what judo should be about, providing education and opportunities for others to take advantage of and learn, to build friendships, communities, and good people. He has used his education and experience to provide education and opportunities to increasingly larger audiences…

He started with himself and has continued to progress to increasingly larger audiences…

• Friends and family 
• Students at the dojo
• Classroom students at school
• Community school district
• Yudanshakai
• School districts throughout Idaho
• USJF
• What’s next?

In many ways, I suggest that Matsuoka Sensei embodies many of the qualities a real Judoka should. Many people refer to themselves as "Judoka", but I suggest that most judo people are "Judoists", but not yet "Judoka". I suggest to you that Matsuoka Sensei is a manifestation of "Judoka". He will be embarrassed by this. That is ok, he will survive this embarrassment. Among his many good qualities he is: intelligent, kind, respectful, appreciative, generous, honest, hard-working, sincere, responsible, empathic, and trustworthy.

In my humble opinion, all of these qualities and his never-ending commitment to education and educating, along with long history of toil, service, and dedication makes him, "the Educator" and also a "Judoka", and very deserving of the USJF Lifetime Achievement Award for a lifetime of providing education and educational opportunities for everyone. Throughout, he has never forgotten the important thought that he is a life-long student too. He is always looking for and taking advantage of learning opportunities to increase his knowledge and improve himself as a teacher.

Thank you Matsuoka Sensei for your many decades of service to education, your local community, the State of Idaho, your yudanshakai, your students, to USJF, and to Judo. Thank you for being a great student and an even greater educator. You are, "the Educator"!

Please congratulate Matsuoka Sensei with a warm round of applause and your appreciation for his hard work, dedication, service, and friendship!

Bryan responded with these thoughts

I am honored and humbled with this recognition with the Lifetime Achievement Award by a committee of those whom I respect as members of the Hall of Fame. Mine is less than a glamorous life in Judo

There are four students in my judo history who are national medalists. All continue to strive to be champions of character. The ideas of mutual benefit and selfless determination to do what is right remain in their human qualities.

Bryan’s top 10 Gallup Clifton strengths finder as a certified leadership
coach

© 2023, USJF, all rights reserved

Guy Matsuoka brought me to the dojo the year I started school. There is a coincidence, maybe, that the year I was born was the year he started teaching judo in Twin Falls, Idaho, and was a member of the Intermountain Yudanshakai. My judo as a boy was my only real competitive time. I spend my time on the end of Kohaku lines hoping someone in the other line would kick butt so I would have a chance to have some people to compete against. The concluding reflection of the day was the beginning of developing the leader in me. For me it was planning through watchful eyes, to actively listen, pay attention and keep those around from getting into trouble. One never knows where a deflected swat with a zori might land. A knee injury would be the end of my competitive time on the mat and the beginning of my time watching my friends advance in rank and enjoy being engaged with each other. It was disheartening, to say the least, and not a pleasing feeling even to write this and to reflect on that time of being empty and alone.

The following years were spent in frustration as a teenager wanting to be an athlete of any kind and failing. In college, Mr. Wes Dobbs encouraged me to ‘help where I could’ with his college judo class as a part of the Law Enforcement Program. Eventually, with old acquaintances, I was given my shodan. Yes, given. It was out of pity or disgrace or some symbolic gesture to my father, that I successfully struggled through a promotion event.

1982 was my first year teaching elementary students in the public education system. Teaching had become a passion and always felt right. As the first-generation college graduate in my family, it was a proud moment for me when I knew I didn’t disappoint my Mom, finally! My undergrad gave me tools to reflect on my time in the dojo from a new paradigm and many evenings was spent visiting with my Dad about what I had learned from my grade school teachers and how techniques were taught in the dojo. We shared our frustrations with my injury and attitude toward the challenges that life brings. It became a goal to make better people who would not waste time always looking back, but to learn and to continue to move forward obtaining goals and doing the actions to achieve those goals.

Dad was a survivor of White River Dojo in Washington State as well as Tulelake, CA relocation camp. He spoke fondly about having his last match being a kekengatchi loss to his future brother-in-law due to the prior match, when he needed to extract an incisor from his forehead after a successful ouchi gari. The forfeit clinched the marriage to Taka, only 20 days prior to their new home in Tulelake. Dad definitely married up and the five of their children worked not to disappoint our Mother. There was minimal talk of camp life or of our first sister, who didn’t make it out of camp. Mom and Dad would visit in Japanese, mainly around Christmas and birthdays. The five siblings were all about English; no speaking Japanese for Robert, Jeanne, David, Janet, and Bryan.

With my son and wife to provide for, I could no longer afford to teach school. In 1986, a friend and my calculus professor (whose two courses I took) asked if I would consider selling software for them. [After all, I was the first teacher in my grade school to get the box labeled ‘ Commodore 64’ and the principal stated to, ‘go forth and conquer’… and muttering ‘… and I will pray for you’]. No doubt, it was the determination to be a calculus student, to show up for class every day as a teacher, that was a reflection of getting up 10 times after being thrown 9.

Allen Easterling with his shodan. He is a community leader and owner of Jensen Jewelry, a generous contributor to the Hall of Fame event.

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Moderate business success was based on principles of mutual benefit and well-being, we built a base of trusting customers in the vertical markets of local government and education. After becoming a shareholder in the corporation as well as the general manager, our customer base ranged from Northwest to Nanka to 50th State to Shufu and down to Florida State.

The Twin Falls YMCA Judo Club had some challenges in the 1970s and 1980s. Guy Matsuoka survived two open heart surgeries. Hirai Sensei was tragically killed by a drunk driver coming back from a McCall Judo Tournament. The club was asked to leave the YMCA location when there was new management. There was an increased value of time and how precious it is to us. Lessons in work ethic, being on the offense, and having no time for cooking rice (Fukuda, 1991). It seems fatigue makes cowards of us all. Then, there came a glimmer of hope.

Dr. Wiley Dobbs stepped up as head instructor and brought the program to the College of Southern Idaho. Brian Harmison extended the community program to the upstairs of a local law firm and continued the judo education. Dr. Dobbs was appointed principal of a middle school and time became skinny. Wiley asked me to take on the head instructor position in 1991 and I accepted. What I didn’t know was I became the head student and continue to be that student to this day. Students teach teachers, and it can be brutal.

Left to right
Back: Bryan Matsuoka, Bob Suyehira, Dan Palmer, Jonathan Ryan (ASOY recipient), Kuniko Takeuchi Sensei (highest ranking Female in the world), Haruo Makimoto sensei(Okubo), Christopher Acosta, Rick Padgett, Officer Damian Acosta.
Front: Wyatt Towner, Gabriel Galicia, Mja Towner, Noelle Acosta, and Michael Eldred

© 2023, USJF, all rights reserved

Some highlights of my career can be seen in these activities

• Intermountain YDK started a development fund and were able to train, travel, and have an Intermountain team competing at the Jr/Yth Nationals. I believe that was one of the few, if only, sponsored Intermountain YDK teams at nationals.
• I was president when Daiheigen YDK adopted a comeback fund for dojos to start back as COVID-19 restrictions allowed
• promotions online became an SOP (Matsumoto BOE Chair, Dan Israel Tech)
• Continuing Education Seminars (Matsumoto)
• NTIS certification seminars
• Kata support for Kuniko Takeuchi Sensei

I was able to show up regularly and participate in National Committees

• NTIS – National Teachers Institute Sub-Committee – Chair, committee member
• JYDSC – Junior Youth Development Sub-Committee, committee member, Chair
• ENDOWMENT – Vice President? elected 2 or 3 terms
• MARKETING – committee under Imada sensei
• ASOY – Athlete Scholar of the Year, committee, Chair

I was also able to act as

• National Referee – Jrs., President’s Cup, Obukan / NW YDK, San Jose
• Technical Official – several US Open and Sr. Nationals
• National Coach
• National / Master Teacher Certification.

This honor is a stark reflection that I am on the downhill slope of Judo, when I can offfer what has been called mutual benefit. I am only a beneficiary of having been around those of greatness, selfless commitment to their judo, and their selfless commitment to others.