KANCHO CAMERON SHAYNE - SHORT BIO

World Authority on Yogic & Martial Arts Integration

Budokon University was founded by philosopher, writer, Martial Arts Master and Hatha Yoga Master, Kancho Cameron Shayne. Before the age of 40 he has been credited for helping Kerri Walsh win her first gold medal in women’s beach volleyball, giving Courteney Cox, Jennifer Anniston, Meg Ryan and Renee Russo their incredible physics, choreographing fight scenes in Rush Hour 1 & 2 with Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, and helping rehab Charlie Sheen from drug addiction. He is the founder and creator of the Budokon Yoga style and the Budokon Martial Arts System. He is world champion martial artist with black belts in both Japanese and Korean systems, a direct student of the legendary BJJ Master Rickson Gracie, and an internationally renown yoga teacher trainer with 5 top selling Yoga home practice DVD's. 

Born in 1971, he began training in the Martial Arts and Zen meditation at the age of 12 under the Korean Moo Do Kwon system in which he received his first black belt under Master Paul and Master Dan Harmon. At the age of 16 along with his study of martial and zen arts Cameron became conscious of his relationship with food. For the next two decades he deepened his study of food as a way to heal the body. A life time of concentration on food manifested as the fourth pillar of the Budokon system. During this same time he also became very aware of the relationship between food production and the environment. His passion to understand the natural cycle of man and food manifested into an in depth study of environmental sustainability, which is the fifth pillar of the Budokon system.

At the age of 23 he began practicing Hatha Yoga in New York under the renowned teacher Cyndi Lee. He soon moved to Los Angeles where he continued a devoted personal study of Yoga under various teachers until merging the Yogic and Martial arts into an integral system. Together the martial and yogic arts form the sixth pillar of the Budokon system.

At the age of 28 he began to train in Japanese Karate-do (Yoshukai) in which he would later receive his 3rd degree black belt. From Karate-do he transitioned to Gracie Style Brazilian Jiujutsu where he is currently training for his black belt.

After 30 years of both Budo (martial arts)  and zen meditation as well as 15 years of Hatha (Posture/Asana) Yoga he began integrating the three systems into a single system he titled Budokon. It was at that time that Kancho Cameron created and founded the Budokon International Organization, the first codified mixture of yogic, martial, and living arts. 

His undeniable contribution to contemporary yoga is marked by his creation of several techniques and asana that are rapidly becoming staples in the modern yoga vernacular such as ROLLING WAVE, DANCING DOG, FALLING WARRIOR, FLYING WARRIOR, and WARRIORS BRIDGE.

For the past 10 years he has been establishing Budokon Academies through out Asia, Europe and the US. He presents annually at Wanderlust, the Tokyo Yoga Show, the London Yoga Show, the Austria Yoga Conference, The German Yoga Conference, Indonesian Yoga Festival, and the Yoga Journal Conference. 

The Beginning 1971 - 1995

Cameron Shayne was born the first of 3 children to Ginger Smith, a personal trainer, and James Walter Johnson, a graphic artist and musician, in the southern city of Charlotte, North Carolina. His extended family had very strong influence during his early years. His father's side was filled with an unusual mixture of artist, musicians, and unorthodox characters with a lineage tracing back to the nineteenth century American folk hero Davy Crockett. On his mother's side were educators, military officers, business men, horse breeders, and political figures.

Cameron spent most of his adolescent years catching snakes, playing in creeks and woods surrounding his family's middle-class home in the North Carolina countryside. His parents divorced when he was 10 years old. His mother remarried to a man named Ken Smith who became an important role model for Cameron throughout his life.

Cameron began studying martial arts in his teens. Through out his early twenties Cameron took odd jobs to support his martial arts training. He worked as a bartender, bank employee, horse trainer and night club cooler. He briefly moved to Atlanta, GA with his teacher Paul Harmon to pursue his Olympic style Taekwondo training.

The LA Years 1995 - 2009

In 1995 at the age of 24 Cameron moved to Los Angeles with friends and renown musical artists Jonathan Wilson and Benji Huges. During this time he met LA club promoter Rick Calamaro of the famed "ON THE ROX". Rick took Cameron under his wing and introduced him to a number of celebrity clients who frequented his night clubs.

The first client was actor-comedian Pauly Shore of the famed Comedy Store. Cameron began touring with Shore as his body guard in the late 90s and continued to work with him on and off for several years.

His next client was actor Charlie Sheen. Cameron lived with Sheen for a summer to help him rehab from drug addiction. This was an influential time for Cameron as he was exposed to the power and wealth of Hollywood's elite. During this same time Cameron met his next student, actor-comedian Chris Tucker. Tucker hired Cameron as his personal trainer and fight scene choreographer for his new Jackie Chan films, Rush Hour 1 and 2.

Cameron left the film business to work with private clients such as Robert Downy Jr., Courtney Cox, Jennifer Anniston, Renee Russo, David Arquette, Sugar Ray Leonard, Rodney Peete, Sean Penn, Amber Valetta, Christine Davis, Congreeman Jesse Jackson Jr., and Jamie Lee Curtis.

During this time he also worked with Olympic Volleyball legends Karri Walsh and Casey Jennings. Cameron was credited as being a pivotal part of Walsh's gold medal.

Martial Arts Education

Cameron grew up surrounded by men that were street fighters. His father and uncles were raised in a rough section of Charlotte NC. Racial integration fights were common among the economically challenged kids in his neighborhood. According to his father, young Cameron was not much of a fighter and had little interest in hitting or being hit. His mother remembers him as being very soft hearted, sweet natured, and sarcastic. This combination was not well received by the local boys and he was often the target of bullying.

At the age of 12, after pleading with his parents, he was finally enrolled in a Moo Duk Kwan (a traditional Korean style of Karate). The Moo Duk Kwon school was run by brothers Paul and Dan Harmon. This school maintained a traditional approach to the martial arts with focus on breaking, sparring, and kata. His teachers considered him to be unusually gifted athletically and he flourished in this environment. Cameron credits the Harmon brothers as being his first true childhood role models and still trains with them during visits to Charlotte, NC.

In his 18th year Cameron shifted training to Olympic Style Taekwondo, following the Harmon brothers. The Olympic style approach is the science of kicking, technique drills, and competitions. Within this style Cameron mastered the art of technical kicking and point fighting. While he enjoyed the technical and endurance training found in the Olympic Style, he was dissatisfied with the absence of philosophy and meditation. Cameron had hit a cross-roads in his martial arts career. He made the decision to move to Los Angeles and expand his knowledge of the arts as well as further develop his creative talents.

In early 2000 Cameron began studying Yoshukai Karate, a very traditional Okinawan style of Japanese karate-do, under Shihan Gerry Blank. This was Cameron's first introduction into Japanese Budo and Bushido. This art is a combination of traditional kata, kumite, and weapons: nunchaku, sai, bo and katana. He advanced through the system from white belt to second degree black in an unprecedented eight months. It was here that he developed his budo skills further in the areas of hand breaking techniques. Yoshukai's founder, Mamoru Yamamoto, was famous for his incredible breaking skills. This exposure to the traditional Japanese arts profoundly affected Cameron's direction as a teacher. During this time he began to focus his self taught meditation practice into a more formal Buddhist Zen mediation practice. He also shifted from competition based training back to classic technique and kata work.

The Yoshukai school was sharing space with Cameron's next teacher, Jiu-Jitsu legend Rickson Gracie. For 2 years Cameron watched and trained side by side with the Jiu-Jitsu students but was disinterested in the art. It was not until he met and began training with a former student of the academy that he became a believer. Cameron started studying privately with Tiago Vela, a Rickson Gracie brown belt. After 2 years of diligent study Cameron officially joined the Rickson Gracie academy and achieved his blue belt in an unprecedented six months. Cameron credits Jiu-Jitsu with profoundly changing his understanding of leverage and balance, as well as completing his skill sets as both a stand up and ground martial artist.

Yogic Education

Cameron went to his first yoga class at Cindy Lee's OM yoga studio in NY during the summer of 1996. It was here that he was introduced to Vinyasa flow and Mysore style Ashtanga. He was immediately impressed with the focus on self-observation and uncovering layers of resistance and weakness in the body. Shortly after joining the school he was asked to attend teachers' training as the class posture model. Each teacher would correct his positions, align his body and practice cueing him through postures. He believes this was a blessing in disguise, as executing postures was far more educational for him than teaching postures.

Returning to Los Angeles the following winter, Cameron began a home practice that would last 8 years until he was introduced to his next teachers Bill and Patty Asad in 2001. Bill and Patty were well known teachers under Chuck Miller and they were the founders of Jiva yoga studio. Cameron's yoga practice took a quantum leap forward as Bill was able to mold Cameron's raw intuitive practice into a technical, science based practice. Shortly after this relationship started Budokon began to evolve into the yogic/martial art form that it is today.

Spiritual & Scientific Education

Cameron was raised in a predominately Christian culture. His mother and father were Southern Baptist Sunday school teachers. He studied the bible from childhood into his late twenties, even considering seminary Univeristy.

His move to Los Angeles in 1994 exposed him to a diverse assortment of world religions, philosophies, and cultures. In Los Angeles he was transformed by the works of Sufi master Hazrat Inyat Kahn, writer-poet Kalil Gibran, poet/mystic Rumi, Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, and the great Hindu classic the Bhagavad-Gita. Cameron studied each of these mystic traditions with the same vigor he brought to his martial arts studies. Cameron's studies continued to expand into the worlds of metaphysics, quantum physics, physiology, psychology, animal locomotion, primatology, and paleontology. These studies further exposed him to more science based theories of human and animal, as well as emotional and physical development.