Blog & Contribution Doug Jepperson

Doug Jepperson

7th Dan
Head Instructor Park City Karate
USA-Karate Technical Committee Member
Board of Directors: WIKF USA
Director: USA Wado
Author: Karate Sport for Life

Sensei Jepperson began his karate training in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1966 under Ed Parker, founder of American Kenpo. A few years later, Toshio Osaka, 8th Dan Wado Ryu, moved to Salt Lake and Sensei Jepperson switched schools after seeing one demonstration of Sensei Osaka’s technique. Sensei Jepperson began teaching karate in 1980 for his first instructor, Toshio Osaka; in 1986 founded his own school in Nashville,Tennessee.  In 1990 he opened a Jepperson Karate Dojo in Sandy, Utah and went on to expand his program in Park City in 2004.

Sensei is a firm believer in the Long Term Athletic Development method of coaching which emphasizes age-appropriate skill acquisition to maximize the athlete’s potential and builds progressively throughout a athletes career.  He structures his classes and overall teaching based upon the goal of providing the student/athlete the opportunity to acquire and perfect skills as their body/minds develop.

Sensei Jepperson has also taught AAU Wrestling, Women’s Self Defense in Sandy, Utah and was a Women’s Consultant for the “Battered Women’s” Shelter. He has been involved with the US Army Special Forces at Dugway, Utah, the Tennessee Drug Enforcement Agency, the Salt Lake Police Academy under Toshio Osaka in addition to weapons training.

Sensei Jepperson is one of the very few practitioners of Wado to receive Dan grading in all three groups of the Wado style – Wado Kai, JKF under the Founder Master Hironori Otsuka, Wado Kai JKF with Toshio Osaka, Wado Kai, JKF with Tatsuo Suzuki, Wado Ryu with H. Ohtsuka II, Wado Kai JKF with T. Mano, WIKF with Tatsuo Suzuki 8th Dan Hanshi

He has trained in Japan several times and was lucky enough to train at Nichidai (Nihon University), the top karate college in Japan as well as H. Murasai in Kyushu.

Sensei Jepperson has had all of the top Wado instructors in the world teach at his own dojo, including:

Shihan Teru Arakawa, coach of Nichidai and technical head of Wado Kai
Saiko Shihan Hironori Otsuka II, head of Wado Ryu
Hanshi Tatsuo Suzuki most senior Wado instructor in the world 8th Dan Hanshi
Shihan Toshio Osaka
Shihan Masafumi Shiomitsu
Shihan Kiyoshi Yamazaki
Kazutaka Ohtsuka, grandson of the founder Hironori Ohtsuka
Toshio Takahashi
Shihan S. Kurobane
Seiji Nishimura The All Japan Team Coach

Nowadays, Sensei Jepperson would say his biggest inspiration for teaching comes from his own students, who continue to amaze him to this day.

Sensei Jepperson competed from the 1970s to his last tournament in Curaçao in 1995. As a participant, coach or referee he has been a part of many World Championships from Athens, Greece to Tokyo, Japan and from the Pan American Championships to National Championships here in the States.

He has been involved in the following organizations:  AAU, WUKO, Wado Kai, WIKF, Wado Ryu International, USAKF, and USNKF – NCAA as a division 1 wrestler and AAU Boxing.

If you want to book Sensei Doug for a coaching seminar please contact him at: Doug@ParkCityKarate.com