Hi All,
I just wanted to post my experiences about Ty-Ga Karate and Gary Wasniewski in response to an earlier post.
Ty-Ga Karate is named after the two brothers who started the Style/Organisation, namely TYrone & GAry Wasniewski. The sounding of Ty-Ga is of course like Tiger and Gary even has a Tiger (the animal!) tattoo on his arm. Both brothers are proud Londoners - not Scottish.
It is based on Wado-Ryu Karate. When I was a student many years ago the original badge was the Dove Fist logo of Wado. I know of no connection to Lau Gar other than occasionally competing against that style in semi-contact Karate tournaments.
The Katas I learnt were the basic Pinans (nidan, shodan, sandan, yondan & godan) but some time later G. Wasniewski dropped the pinan prefix in favour of Ty-Ga (nidan, etc..).
Tyrone Wasniewski left Ty-Ga some 15+ years ago to form his own style TYKI (TYrone + KI, Japanes for Chi - inner power) which is based on Full Contact, Muay Thai and grappling and more geared to "reality" combat than TMA. He runs a smaller club that is, I assume, now affiliated to Ty-Ga as there is a link on the TY-Ga nternational website.
As far as any doubts over international links or being "Worldwide":
I remember a Black Belt called Trevor Joseph who went to Japan to open a Ty-Ga dojo, i believe that the school is still open, at least T. Joseph is still listed on the Website (but still only 2nd Dan after 20 years?) but I cannot verify this.
There were 2 BB brothers from Czechoslovakia (before that country split in 2!) who went home and opened a Ty-Ga club. I am not sure if the the club still exists in either Czech Republic OR Slovakia
if at all.
As far as I can tell the Dojos in the US are run by "representatives" who are not actually graded in the style but may have done some seminars. They are of course Graded in other similar styles.
I could go on (I believe I already have :P ) but I will post again later when I have more time - also I will use a post I put up on another site.
OSS