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Toyama started his martial arts training in the 1960s in Japan where he achieved the shodan, or first degree black belt, in both Kendo and Judo. In 1975, he relocated to Birmingham, Alabama, then to Brewton where he met his future wife, Donna, and trained in Santa Rosa County.
As a Yoshukai brown black belt in the late 1970s, he started teaching at Bayview Community Center. In 1980, he helped start the annual winter workouts on the beach. By the early 1980s, he was listed in Black Belt Magazine as one of the top ten martial artists in the southeastern United States. The 1990s saw his classes at the YMCA begin, and in 2000 he helped start the Summer Camp in Lake Eufala.
He has recently again taught Yoshukai Karate in both Santa Rosa County and southern Alabama, and has had more than one-hundred of his students earn their black belt.
