A RyuTe ® Renmei School
11001 S. Jackson Ave.
Kansas City , Missouri 64137-2040
816-217-9965
Instructors: Tony Skeen, Lee Richards

Lee Richards
Owner/Instructor

Around 1976, and for reasons I cannot recall, I became obsessed with studying Karate. There was a YMCA near my house with a giant Karate banner out front. I begged my parents but alas, my Mother was too afraid that I would get injured and enrolled me in baseball.  From there I did the only thing I could and repeatedly checked out every martial arts book Ingles Elementary School had, though I seriously doubt these had much influence in later years.  Around 1984, while in high school I watched a friend handled himself quite well during a cafeteria brawl.  When queried he stated that he studied Karate.   I arranged for him to give me some private lessons, though these only gave me some basic blocks, punches and stances.  The project then fell to the wayside and I never got his lineage.

I finally began real training in 1989 at Northland Ryukyu Kempo Budokai in Gladstone, Missouri. Instructors at the time were Shihan Michael Waddell, Fuku Shihan Tony K. Skeen, and Fuku Shihan Gene Burkhead. I additionally trained at another RyuTe® school in the Kansas City Metropolitan area as I wanted more hours of training and my first school was only open two days a week. With this supplement I was able to train six days a week at the two schools. I trained for six years until early in 1996 I went to a seminar where Taika Oyata told me to start attending the black belt class in preparation for Shodan. 

On July 19, 1996 I received my Shodan from Taika Oyata at summer camp at Tall Oaks. I continued training with Shihan Waddell until he handed his dojo over to Tony and me when he quit teaching around 1996. I continue to train with Taika Oyata at the International Headquarters in Independence, MO. For a while I trained at other Yudansha dojo in the Kansas City Metro. In 1996 we moved the dojo to its current location where Tony Skeen and I continued to teach until my job soon forced the closing of what we then simply called Budokai. In the summer of 2004 my job allowed me to begin having a more normal life as I no longer worked nights. Sandy Nellenbach urged me to start up a dojo again and so Kenshūkai was born. 

In addition to the martial arts, I am also an Advanced Trainer for the National Law Enforcement Training Center through the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. This is a set of courses for Law Enforcement. I am also an instructor in the Rapid Rotation Baton and the Monadnock PR-24 as well as Straight Batons.  I have been teaching law enforcement tactics beginning with Sundown Self-Defense Systems in 1990 until the present.