Ralph Castro

Bruce Lee, Ed Parker, James Lee, Ralph Castro

(from the Striking Distance Facebook page 10-1-16)

Ralph Castro emerged from the mid-20th Century martial arts culture of Hawaii. Although it rarely gets the credit it deserves, Hawaii was really the first great international martial arts melting pot in the world. And it wasn't just diverse, it was tough....old school tough. Once when I brought up Ralph Castro's name while interviewing Willy Cahill about this history, he smiled and said, "He went to high school with my brother; a really rough school....and Ralph was the toughest guy there."

Mr. Castro opened his first kenpo school in San Francisco in 1958. Barney Scollan, a student of Al Tracy's in Sacramento during the early '60s, told me: "Whenever we saw Ralph with his students at competitions, we'd all be saying - 'Jeez, we gotta fight those guys?!'

Castro was also a key part of why a young Bruce Lee left a good situation in Seattle to relocate to Oakland. Here in the Bay Area, Bruce aligned himself with a talented group of forward-thinking practitioners, training and talking martial arts with a 24/7 mindset. Linda Lee gave me a great description of this: "I can't tell you the number of late nights that were spent with Ralph Castro, and Wally Jay, James Lee, Allen Joe, all those guys. Many late nights were they would go around the room demonstrating things."

When I interviewed Mr. Castro a few years ago, I found him to be a very humble, benevolent, and down-to-earth guy. He is living proof that you can be a tough guy AND a gentlemen.

There are other people that are far more qualified to talk about his longterm career than me. But for the section of history that I have studied and written on, I have to salute Mr. Castro not only as a trailblazing martial arts pioneer, but as a class act in every way.