When Shigeru Egami entered Waseda University in 1931 and began training under Master Gichin Funakoshi, day-to-day instruction was being transformed by Funakoshi's brilliant third son, Gigo (Yoshitaka) Funakoshi (1906-1945). Yoshitaka was the technical dynamo of modern karate: he lowered stances, developed deep lunging attacks (oi-zuki), created new kicking techniques (mawashi-geri, yoko-geri kekomi, yoko-geri keage, and ushiro-geri), and formalized structured combat forms including Ten no Kata and Jiyu Kumite.

To test and refine these revolutionary methods, Yoshitaka needed an unyielding daily training partner (aite / 相手) capable of absorbing his terrifying impact and matching his speed. That partner was Shigeru Egami.

Daily Sparring at the Mejiro Shotokan (c. 1935)

Master Gigo (Yoshitaka) Funakoshi (right) and Master Shigeru Egami (left) engaged in kumite, as published in Master Gichin Funakoshi's 1935 masterwork Karate-do Kyohan.

Shotokai.com Archives • Tokyo, Japan.

Shigeru Egami in His Youth: Rigor and Conditioning

Archival three-photo montage preserved by Nihon Karate-do Shotokai (shotokai.jp) showing Master Shigeru Egami in his twenties, during the height of his relentless training with Yoshitaka. Note the muscular conditioning, deep rooted stances, and focused kime.

Courtesy of Shotokai.jp (NKS) Archives • Tokyo (c. 1930s).

Throughout the golden pre-war decade (1930-1940), Egami and his senior Genshin (Motonobu) Hironishi (born 1900) served as Yoshitaka's daily testing ground. Egami later recalled the raw force of Yoshitaka's blows, which routinely broke makiwara posts in two. In early photographs from Karate-do Kyohan (1935) and university archives, Egami and Yoshitaka stand facing each other in dynamic stances, demonstrating the newly developed combat curriculum.

The Generational Reality and Postwar Claims

Yoshitaka Funakoshi died tragically young on November 24, 1945, at only 39 years of age, succumbing to tuberculosis after the Mejiro Shotokan dojo was incinerated in an Allied air raid in April 1945.

In the postwar decades, as karate expanded across Europe and the Americas, several instructors attempted to claim direct lineage or sparring partnership with Yoshitaka, seeking to bolster their personal prestige ("bringing water to their own mill"). Prominently in Europe, Sensei Taiji Kase (born February 9, 1929) was frequently depicted by followers as Yoshitaka's direct partner and senior disciple.

A calm examination of the historical chronology clarifies the reality:

• The Pre-War Decade: When Yoshitaka and Egami were revolutionizing karate and publishing Karate-do Kyohan in 1935, Kase was barely six years old.
• The Wartime Reality: When Kase began university karate at Senshu University around 1944-1945, he was only 15 to 16 years old. By that time, Tokyo was under severe bombardment, the central dojo was destroyed, and Yoshitaka was already bedridden and coughing blood in the terminal stage of tuberculosis.
• The Age Bracket: Practitioners of that younger cohort were simply not old enough to have had Yoshitaka as their active senior (sempai), let alone to have served as his regular sparring partner.

The historical record is clear: the only figures who stood before Yoshitaka Funakoshi's punches day after day, and who developed the modern technical canon alongside him, were the pre-war seniors: Shigeru Egami and Genshin Hironishi.