Chew Choo Soot was born in Alor Star, a Northern State of Peninsula, Malaysia, on 7 February 1922. As an infant, his father died and so he was brought up under the strict discipline of his grandfather, an elderly Confucian scholar who believed in education through books and not in martial arts. At 15 years of age, Chew became very interested in weight lifting and enrolled for training at a small body building club in Ipoh. Due to his dedication and training, he became the national Malaysian weight lifting champion in both the feather weight and the light weight classes in 1939, 1941 and 1942. During those years he also acquired an interest in martial arts and took up judo, jujitsu and wrestling. Aged 20, Chew was introduced to Karate-Do, during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. He was then contracted by a Japanese military officer, who had seen him in health and strength magazines, to become a personal fitness and weight lifting coach. During one of his scheduled visits, the young Chew discovered the officer practicing movements which we now know to be karate ‘Kata’. The styles of karate practiced by the officer were Keishinkan and Shotokan. Chew was impressed and asked for tuition, which the officer agreed to. For more than 2 years afterwards, they spent the evenings training together in karate, jujitsu, judo and weight lifting until the Japanese Army officer left for Okinawa in 1945. After the end of the Second World War, Chew went to Japan and Okinawa to further his karate training, as well as several trips to Taiwan to learn kung-fu and oriental weapons from a number of old kung-fu Masters of China. In 1966 at the request of his friends, Chew then decided to start a dojo at Petaling Jaya with a small number of students and Karate Budokan International was first founded as a lesser organisation. There was a large amount of interest shown by people who wanted to learn karate, which became so great that he found it impossible to cope with the classes without seeking assistant instructors. As there were no other karate instructors in Malaysia, he then made two further trips to Tokyo and Osaka and employed 7 Japanese instructors to assist him to conduct the karate classes. These classes had then spread the art to the North and South of the Peninsula within 2 years. Chew's ambition was to be able to travel to different countries and conduct karate classes when he reached the age of 80. However, he fell ill from a paralytic attack on 4 February 1995 and died, in Malaysia, on 18 July 1997 at the age of 76 years.
Richard Chew, the second son of the Founder Chew Choo Soot, was second Grand Master of Karate Budokan International. He followed the paths of his great father by visiting and conducting training camps and seminars at the Budokan Dojos worldwide and thus makes sure that the Budokan style is practiced in its pure form. Karate Budokan International's current World Chief Instructor is Wayne Macdonald of the Noosa headquarters.
