Grandmaster Sam Kuoha
Grandmaster Samuel Alama Ah Wo Kuoha was born on the island of Oahu, Hawaii shortly after the close of the Second World War. His father was a full-blooded Hawaiian trained in Lua, a Hawaiian martial art known for “bone-crushing.” Grandmaster Kuoha began his own martial arts training at the age of four with his uncle, Sensei Joe Mack Makahilahila, who passed on a Japanese style martial art to him. Eventually, Kuoha attended a Judo class at the local YMCA. At the age of twelve, after meeting Professor William Kwai Sun Chow’s disciple, Master Charles Kuheana, Kuoha moved into a home set up as a Buddhist Temple, along with 5 other students and began training with Master Kuehana nearly ten hours a day, six days a week.
Kuheana was a patient and kind martial arts teacher, who started Kuoha in Professor Chow’s Chinese Kenpo System. Professor Chow’s own classes were more demanding than was advisable for youngsters, so, although he met Professor Chow several times when trainings were held at the Salvation Army Gym, Grandmaster Kuoha studied with Master Kuheana throughout his high school years, with training sessions sometimes lasting eight to ten hours six days a week, assisting Kuehana in teaching a class that sometimes had nearly 100 students.
After high school, Kuoha met for a time with Professor Chow, who lived very near the home where Kuoha lived with his new wife and family. Although his goal of being a law enforcement officer in Hawaii was frustrated by his slight statute and weight at the time, Kuoha provided defensive training for new recruits. Eventually, Kuoha moved to California, where he finally began to live out his law enforcement dreams.
On the mainland, Kuoha trained in several other martial arts, including Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, and Aikido, but never stopped yearning for the martial arts style of his youth. Though he lost track of both Professor Chow and Master Kuehana when he moved, he tried a number of times to contact both of them, to no avail. Finally, in the mid-1970's, Kuoha located Professor Chow through his mother, a friend of Professor Chow’s wife, Patsy. Using comp time accumulated on his job, Kuoha flew to Hawaii to spend several weeks with Professor Chow, who had no other regular students at that time. After that initial meeting, Kuoha began training with Professor Chow once again in earnest, spending 8-10 weeks each year, as his job allowed. The instruction was intense – most often lasting at least 13 hours a day.
Kuoha also studied other martial arts disciplines and eventually assisted Professor Chow in adding to the already superb art of The Chinese Kara-Ho Kempo-Kenpo Karate System. In 1987 after the untimely death of Professor Chow, Kuoha was deemed the new successor to the system, being promoted to 10th degree black belt, the highest one can receive in Kara-ho. Under his guidance, the system grew from 20 students in two schools to over 200 schools with more than 15,000 students in 9 different countries.
