Coach
Ray is the highest ranking American ever in the Martial Art of Shotokan Karate. He worked in the physical education department at the University of California, Riverside for 30 years, guiding the Shotokan Karate team to five National Championships.
Riverside Connection:
Instructor in the Physical Education Department at UC Riverside from 1967 – 1997
Coach of the UC Riverside Shotokan Karate team from 1967 – 1997
Owned numerous local and regional Shotokan Karate dojos
Accomplishments:
Highest ranking American in Shotokan Karate
His UC Riverside teams won five National Collegiate Karate Championships
Coached 8 individual National Collegiate Karate Champions
During his tenure as coach, UC Riverside hosted 20 National Karate Association tournaments and 2 International Karate Collegiate Association Tournaments
His 1997 squad finished 2nd in the International Collegiate Association Karate Tournament
I took karate from Ray Dalke the first year he began teaching at UCR in 1967. My girlfriend and I thought it would be fun and something new to do. Little did we know how it would change our lives. We both stayed for 2 years. I still think of those classes and how his teachings influenced me in so many ways.
I am overjoyed at this recognition!
How well I remember! Both you and Barbara Ochota had perfect attendance along with Eric Jackson, BD Duffin, Ken Simmons, and Les Reed. Thank you for remembering me.
Sensei Dalke was an inspiration in our lives and the lives of our students. Knowing sensei was transformative. We miss training with sensei and his warm, generous spirit. Not only was he our sensei, coach and mentor his friendship has been a bright light in our lives.
Hi Sensei Dalke, You came to Charleston South Carolina for a seminar and we hosted you and later hosted Sensei Ed Otis. You also had my son Bradley on the Junior team for the International Shotokan tournament. You really helped us so very much. Bradley always thought fondly of you, and appreciated what you did for us. And of course I did too.
However Bradley passed away totally unexpectedly on Feb 16, 2011, after playing a basketball game.
He was 34. It was a devastating blow, but somehow, thanks to God, dojo and family, I am hanging in there.
I hope all is well with you, and I will never forget you and your great teaching.
Best Regards,
Dale Coker, Japan Karate Institue
I will be bold and presume that I am also speaking for others of my generation of students who were lucky enough to have fallen into Ray Dalke’s clutches in the 70s, 80s, and beyond. One entered into his tutelage and emerged some odd years later transformed. “Life-changing” is trite and overused, but apt. I know that we are now all different souls who have emerged from the splintery wood of Dalke’s dojo floor. We entered willowy and tentative or chunky and demure, but emerged self-confident, open-minded, inquisitive, competent–and fit. Changed. Different–richer–people than we would have been had we never been so lucky as to have fallen into our association with Sensei.
It is not just that Dalke Sensei is technically amazingly precise and knowledgeable–which he is–but he is also one of the best natural-born teachers of any discipline–physical or academic–I have come across in my sixty years; most of his former students will remark about this same quality–his natural teaching expertise: interweaving yin and yang, hard and soft, intellectual inquiry with atomic power.
I am a different person than I would have been without my association with Sensei Dalke. I cannot imagine having to be that other person. My fellow karateka all remark the same whenever we happen to meet and we remember back. A thousand students would be poorer had we not crossed the threshold of Dalke’s dojo. “Thanks” is not enough.
I had the privilege to train with Sensei Dalke at the Riverside dojo and the training I had there with him was absolutely amazing. The amount of passion and inspiration that he imparted to his students, along with a thorough understanding of karate, is something that I have never seen anywhere else. The thing I am most proud of with regard to my karate training is that I was able to do so with Mr. Dalke.
Ray, i can’t tell you how much you mean to me. My life and Paul’s centered around Karate for so many years. Thank you.
Jean
Sensei Dalke it is good to hear that you made the Hall of Fame. I also trained with you back and forth. You use to come to the Hawthorne dojo that sensei Dennis T. Loebs owned. Sensei Frank Smith as well as Sensei Yabe would come by to train us. Sensei I have one question see if you remember “What is the best defence with someone with a chain?”. If you could be so kind as to inform me the whereabouts of Sensei Loebs and Sensei Smith.
Sincerely,
Juan Sanchez
Hi,
I am looking for a Ray-Dalke-approved
uniform before I resume my practice
interrupted 30 years ago.
Thanks.
Stuart
smcracraft@me.com
My experience at the UCR campus was brief but profound.
I went in for several days instruction in the early 1980′s.
Sensei Dalke was there and impressed. Several fun encounters.
A good man with a great sense-of-humor and command.
One day I went to his office to ask a scheduling or other
basic question. I saw him behind his desk with a huge
briefcase filled to the brim with cash. I asked him if he was
worried about its safety ever. He replied “Who would take it?”
Satori then happened.
Then, on one Saturday I went in and Sensei Otis was leading the
group. There was an odd number of students and Sensei Otis
chose to spar with me to make the even number.
Practice (for this pre-white-belt and still white-belt Stuart) was brief but interesting.
Class was excused. I returned to my car and drove in Riverside.
That’s when “it” hit. I can only describe the experience as a brief
glimpse of samadhi/nirvana/kaivalya which I only read about years
later. My best description of it was a removal of the separateness between
self and non-self. I cannot place it into words. Did not experience
it before or since (30 years later). It is greater than any music,
food, social, work, or other personal experience I have had. It lasted
for about 30 minutes. I simply drove around. Visited a donut shop.
Found Sensei Dalke’s dojo downtown to report the experience in realtime
to his assistants.
I phone-called Sensei Otis 20 years later and described the experience and he
indicated it was known in the literature but rare.
The experience was strong enough (compared to all other experiences
in my life which is over a half-century now) to completely scare me
away from karate.
I am tenderly dipping my toes back in later this year due to having exhausted
all other forms of physical exercise interest in my life.
Stuart