Sensei Ralph Porzio
3rd Degree Black Belt
My Name is Ralph Porzio otherwise known as Sensei Ralph.
I’ve been studying Martial Arts for approximately 30 years. I started studying Karate in 1973 at Fred Villari’s Studios of Self Defense. My Instructors name was Craig Seavey he was very strict and very serious. Of course in 1973 the only Martial art reference was the wildly popular show Kung-FU. I was hooked after my first class. I received my first Brown Belt at the age of 12 in which I had to endure a 6 hour test.
I studied Karate in Framingham, MA until 1978 at which point Craig Seavey took of for California and one of the assistant instructors Joe Shuras took over teaching in Milford. This was great because it was closer and I could attend more classes.
Then something strange happened I got tired of just doing Karate and decided to concentrate on Baseball and Football. I also learned how to play guitar and was pretty good so I joined lots of different bands and gave being a professional musician a shot. I was out of karate for about 6 years. I got married when I was 24 and decided that something was missing from my life and my cousin Stephen told me he was taking Karate from Joe Shuras in Milford and talked me into coming back. And it was just like I remembered lots of yelling don’t ask questions but I still missed it enough to keep going. Of course my cousin quit and I went for a while until I was in a very bad car accident. I had to be life flighted to UMASS because of my injuries. This accident left me in a wheelchair for 4 months and then a walker for a month until I could walk on crutches for about 3 months and then graduated to a cane. It took almost 1 full year to learn how walk again and the doctor contributed that to all the hard work I had done in Karate prior to the accident.
Then my cousin calls me one day to tell me about a school in Bellingham that taught Ed parker’s American Kenpo. Well I was curious because who the heck was Ed Parker and what made his Kenpo so much better than what I already knew. So I showed up watched a class and then took a private lesson and I was hooked logic techniques for both right and left handed attacks and they encourage you to ask questions….WOW where do I sign up. And who was in class next to my cousin another friend Sensei John. The cool thing is we were all starting out together so we could all work together which was very helpful. We practiced diligently in Sensei John’s basement and attended class regularly until we were asked to start warming up classes. Occasionally we would teach and away we went through the belt ranks rapidly because of our previous Martial arts experience. We earned our First degree Black Belts on July 31st 1999 It was a very hot day 92 degrees and 90% humidity. The Test took all day about 7 hrs. and it was tough but worth every second. At some point Sensei John started running the Bellingham School and decided that this is what he wanted to do. After offering to buy Bellingham kenpo decided to open his own school and asked me to join him. Naturally I agreed and here we are.
That’s my story in a nutshell…
Sincerely Sensei Ralph
