Felton Messina

Felton Messina started practicing Karatedo in 1966, while studying in the University of Puerto Rico, city of Mayagüez, supervised by his first teacher, the Puerto Rican Edwin Hernández in a style called Okinawan Kenpo Karatedo. In 1968 he was promoted to black belt 1st Degree and received the grade certificate from Hernández. In 1969, Felton Messina returned to the Dominican Republic and graduated as engineer. When he arrived in Santo Domingo he saw that the only martial arts practiced there, were Judo and Taekwondo. A group of young people heard of his arrival, they asked him to teach them his style of Karatedo that he had practiced in Puerto Rico. In 1969 the Kenpo Karatedo Association was founded by Felton Messina, and was spread throughout the whole nation. While being president of the Dominican Judo Federation, Messina, with the assessment from the president of the Dominican Olympic Committee forms, what to this day is known as the Dominican Karate Federation (DOKAFE), which was recognized as well by the Dominican Olympic Committee. With the recognition of DOKAFE by the Dominican Olympic Committee Felton Messina gives in the Dominican Judo Federation and becomes the first president of the Dominican Karate Federation. Messina, in 1975, changes from the style to the style Nihon Koden Shindo Ryu under the teachings of Hiroyuki Hamada, native from the province of Sendai, Japan.