Albert Geraldi Obituary, Death – I am writing to share the sad news that Albert O. Geraldi passed away on April 8th, 2023. It is with a heavy heart that I make this announcement. Mr. Geraldi was a veteran of the Special Forces who specialized in demolition and explosives. He was stationed in Okinawa. Mr. Geraldi was the only student of Master Seiyu Oyata’s who had continued to practice with him in the Machiminato Dojo in Okinawa after all of his other students had graduated.
Mr. Geraldi won the title of bogu kumite champion while he was on Okinawa, and he was competing for Seiyu Oyata’s dojo. A few days before he left Okinawa, Shigeru Nakamura presented him with his teaching license, and he stayed in close contact with Seiyu Oyata. After he and a large number of other senior Oyata students established an organization, he became an integral component of the core group that brought Seiyu Oyata to the United States.
After working for Seiyu Oyata’s organization for 30 years and being promoted to the rank of 8th Dan, Mr. Geraldi decided to start his own organization in 1995 for personal reasons and took a leave of absence during that time. Despite this, Mr. Geraldi kept up a steady line of communication with Seiyu Oyata, his family, and other senior students in the organization.
Mr. Geraldi’s primary objective was to maintain the Oyata and Nakamura lineage’s traditional methods of doing things and their combat skill for as long as possible. As a result of this, he was a consistent and unwavering advocate of Bogu Kumite fighting, and over the course of the previous several years, he worked to revitalize the training method in a number of dojos that fall under the lineage of Seiyu Oyata.
Despite the fact that we were confronted with resistance to it, we are going to keep up the practice until all of our lamps are extinguished.