7th Dan, Midwest States Director, Okinawa Village Karate Association
Head Instructor, Cascade Village Karate (Grand Rapids, Michigan)
Tedd O’Neill began training in 1972 at ten years old, when he took his first karate lesson from Tadashi Yamashita in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After returning to serious practice in 1982, he spent his early adult years in Kobayashi Shorin-ryu under Sensei Gene Wudkewych. In 1998 he followed his teacher into Matsumura Seito Shorin-ryu Koeppel-ha, bringing his training directly under Hanshi Phillip Koeppel’s line and, from 2003 onward, under Hanshi John Hutchcroft, with whom he traveled regularly to Holt, Michigan for personal instruction.
O’Neill has operated his own dojo, Cascade Village Karate in Grand Rapids, since 2008, where he teaches classical Okinawan life-protection principles to kids and adults. He currently holds the rank of 7th Dan and serves as Midwest States Director for the Okinawa Village Karate Association, helping to support and connect dojos across the region that share the Matsumura Shorin-ryu heritage.
Over the years O’Neill has competed selectively, earning numerous trophies and two national kata titles in the United States Karate-Do Kai, but his emphasis has always been on personal development, solid basics, and practical bunkai rather than sport. After Hanshi Koeppel passed, Sensei Hutchcroft and O’Neill traveled to Bastrop, Texas to establish connections with Ron Lindsey’s group. That effort was focused on better understanding the methods of Hohan Soken’s senior students and helping to preserve that history within their own practice and teaching.
Students who step onto O’Neill’s floor join a lineage that runs from Yamashita through Koeppel and Hutchcroft, informed by direct contact with the Lindsey group, with a clear focus on calm mind, precise technique, and making old Okinawan village karate usable for modern self-protection.
