FARMINGTON — A local karate teacher is helping to raise money to assist his Japanese mentor and others suffering from the devastating earthquake and tsunami in that country.

Sensei Michael Cook’s modest training center, or dojo, at 221 Broadway is where he has taught Shotokan karate to several hundred students over 35 years. Today, the 6th-degree black belt feels frustrated and helpless, because his own mentor, Hirokazu Kanazawa, and others in Japan who are as close as his own family, have lost everything. Cook said he has tried daily to contact his former students and fellow instructors, with whom he has trained, shared his home and visited.

He said he is stunned by what he has seen, because he has traveled to that area, including the city of Sendai, north of the damaged nuclear power plants.

“When I look at the news videos, the place is totally unrecognizable to me,” he said. “That video of the big black wave curling onto the land, with cars looking like Matchbox models, was actually flooding over a 30-foot high concrete protection embankment.”

Eight Shotokan Karate International Federation dojos were located in Japan’s northeast region, Cook said, and one sensei was killed by the tsunami.

Kanazawa’s ancestral village of Miyako in the Iwate Prefecture (state), was one of the hardest hit by the giant wall of dark water. A widower, he now lives in a Tokyo suburb near his three sons, but his older brother Dr. Hideo Kanazawa is still in the northeast region.

Kanazawa learned Hideo and his family survived the tsunami, but the hospital where he worked was destroyed. He is helping with rescue operations in another hospital, Cook said. Another brother, Kanbei, 90, and his family are safe, but their homes were swept away.

Cook feels a “giri,” or obligation, to help.

Kanazawa Kancho — kancho means master — will be 80 in May, but he still travels the world to teach, Cook said. “He has helped us to become better people and bring harmony to the world, one dojo at a time, never asking for anything in return.”

As the U.S. general secretary of Shotokan Karate International Federation, Cook has asked his fellow students and instructors around the world to help Kanazawa and others in Japan.

“We’ve started a 2011 SKIF Tsunami Disaster Fund, specifically to aid those affected in northeast Japan,” he said. “There are 50 SKIF dojos in the United States, and we’re a small part of the worldwide connection that wants to help our sensei.”

He and others have planned an annual training class in the Longwood area of Boston, Mass., on April 30, and all proceeds will go to help their Japanese counterparts. A South African relief organization, the Gift of the Givers Foundation, has donated $30,000 to Kanazawa’s SKIF World Federation headquarters to buy and provide blankets and other emergency needs for the victims.

“Kanazawa Kancho is the highest-ranked karate instructor in the world and received his rank of 10th-degree black belt in 2000, from the All Japan Budo (Way of the Warrior) Federation, the martial arts governing body of Japan,” Cook said. “He has traveled to Maine and New Hampshire seven times in the last 12 years to share his knowledge and experience, and I think, at a time like this, it shows we are all part of a greater family.”

Cook said he had booked an April flight to train with Kanazawa, but the staff at the SKIF headquarters in Tokyo suggested training and visits should be postponed until the country was in better shape. Satoru Iwai, the senior managing director, sent a polite message saying that they still had no phones, electricity, or transportation.

“Given all of this confusion, under the circumstances, we strongly recommend to postpone visiting schedule till the time we can say, ‘Please come,'” Iwai wrote.

For more information about relief efforts, Cook may be reached at 778-0413, at [email protected], or by visiting www.maineshotokan-skif.com.