Dick Severance studied martial arts from 1955 till 2009. He originally studied and taught Japanese Go Ju Ryu Karate for 24 years, and operated a karate dojo for many years in Palm Bay, Florida.

One day, in 1979, Dick received a flyer in the mail from Larry Beaver, who operated a Karate dojo in Atlanta, GA along with Stephen Hayes (now Bud Malmstrom's school). Steve was living in Japan and was teaching a seminar while visiting the US. This was the first U.S. dissemination of the art he was studying in Grandmaster Masaaki Hatsumi's dojo in Japan.

Dick attended that seminar and since then, he has become one of a handful of Ju Go Dan (fifteenth-degree black belt) instructors under Grandmaster Hatsumi, and has been traveling across the country, studying and teaching this incredible art, Budo Taijutsu.

Dick Severance was a craftsman of fine Custom Training Tools used by martial arts practitioners around the world.

Dick was a veteran of the US Navy, where he was trained as a mineman and underwater swimmer. He was an avid scuba diver, snorkeler and swimmer and shared this expertise with many students through the years.