Sensei Shaharin Yussof

Shaharin Yussof started training in Kyokushin at the age of 13, for about a year, while living in Iran in about 1972. The instructor's name was Mr. Grant. This training lasted for about a year and a half.

The next time was in 1974 or 1975, in Singapore under the then 5th dan Peter Chong (now 8th dan). One of Shihan Peter's students, then a brown belt, was a teacher at the school Shaharin attended (the United World College of South East Asia). He organised a demonstration, in which Peter Chong performed several amazing feats:

• Firstly, he had a car drive over his stomach (using a plank for a ramp).
• Then, he had two blocks of granite placed on his chest while he lay down, and someone smashed them both with a sledge hammer. The impressive part was that, before he lay down, he broke a few bottles on the ground where he was to lie down! When he got up, there was not a scratch on his back.
• And thirdly, a couple of his black belts attempted, unsuccessfully, to break an (empty) Johnny Walker bottle with a round-house kick, while it was being held by the neck. Peter Chong shouldered the black belt aside, wordlessly saying "Let me show you how it's done!" and he did it! The glass from the shattered bottle literally sprayed across the school's driveway like water!

Needless to say, the sixteen year old was veeeery impressed, and joined the class.

Due to academic commitments however, he only got past one grading (starting again at white belt), where he double-graded.

Some 15 years later, after having arrived in Australia, he decided that it was time to do something again, and found the nearest Kyokushin dojo to his house, which happened to be the Marrickville dojo.

Starting yet again at white belt in 1990, he eventually opened Newtown Dojo in late 1996, shortly before getting his shodan (1st Dan black belt) on December 15th, 1996, about 24 years after his first training session. Nidan (2nd Dan) followed in December, 1998. In March 2005, he finally managed to attain his 3rd Dan (Sandan), and this was then followed in March 2010 with a 4th dan (Yondan)

Sensei Shah is actively involved in the running of the IFKKA in a number of capacities, including IFK Country Representative, Secretary, tournament organiser, and website manager. He was also a senior referee in the National All Styles tournament circuit, having attained a Level 4 accreditation in 2005 (one of the first 10 in the country, together with Shihan Doug), and was awarded the title of NAS NSW Best Official 2002 and 2005.

In 2006, the Sensei Shah and Shihan Doug parted company with the National All Styles, and joined with Shihan Peter Mylonas of Kempo Ryu karate to form the Australian Martial Arts Championships circuit. Sensei Shah is one of the senior referees.

Sensei Shah also is the developer and owner of the main IFK Australia site, the Newtown Dojo site, and the Australian Kyokushin Website and a more extensive profile can be found there.

Brief Non-karate Biography

Shaharin Yussof is married with two children. His daytime job for the 20 years up to December 2009 was IT manager for the School of Risk and Safety Sciences at the University of NSW, and he has a Bachelors and Master (by Research) of Engineering. In late 2009 he took a voluntary redundancy and on March 1st, 2011 he started up a full time dojo called Kuro Obi Martial Arts.