KUHL, JOHN (1935 – 2003 ) American karate instructor and official. Kuhl began karate in Montreal in 1957, under Ari Anastasiatis and continued after moving to New York, under Peter Urban and Gosei Yamaguchi. His own style, which he calls combat karate, draws upon karate, judo, and jujutsu. Kuhl has refereed in nearly all of the important East Coast karate events. In 1962 he packaged what may have been the first exclusive karate magazine, Combat Karate. He has also contributed articles to Official Karate Magazine, whose editor, Al Weiss, was trained by Kuhl. In 1975. he was named to Who’s Who in the Martial Arts. During the 1960ies and 1970ies he spend a lot of time in Berlin-West (Germany) where he played features in various movie productions (see IMDB profile for Johnny Kuhl). He trained with Georg F. Brueckner, a martial arts pioneer widely known as the “father of European kickboxing” and inventor of Top Ten sports equipment, during this time in Berlin. He also trained Taekwondo together with Park Jong Soo.


