About Us

Glenn McIlvride (Owner/Operator)

I am a New Zealander who has been living in Okinawa for the past 15 years.  There is so much great stuff here in Okinawa, both martial arts related and not, that you just cannot get anywhere else (unless you are willing to pay a premium).  Our whole motivation of setting up OkinawaDirect.com is to let everyone overseas enjoy the great products and prices of Okinawa that we do.

I originally moved to Okinawa to continue practicing Goju Ryu Karate.  I began karate in New Zealand under Terry Hill Sensei who encouraged me to make the trip here when I graduated university.  While I had only planned to be here for 3 months before returning to NZ to start a career, the quality of the training astounded me to such a degree 15 years on I'm still here.  Now married with two small children I have no doubt we will be here for a long time to come.

My wife and I run the site personally in order to give you the best service we possibly can while keeping the costs you have to pay to an absolute minimum.  We are still building the site up and if there is anything that we have missed that you would like all you have to do is let us know and we will do our best to get it for you.