My journey began in 1973 at the Kyoto Judo Club in Mitcham, Surrey under Sensei Alf Bates. I only stayed here for approximately 18 months then my best friend from school told me about a karate club in Streatham which he had been training in for some time, I went along...and was hooked. At the Streatham Karate Club I studied Bujinkai Karate under Graham Mitchell. Mitchell Sensei as far as I remember had been a member of the England Squad under Ticky Donovan and the standard of karate was high. I remained here for just under 3 years but had to take some time off due to an injury. When I returned to karate after doing nothing for 4 months my fitness had suffered, my flexibility had decreased (I have always struggled to maintain my suppleness) and some changes had been made to the syllabus. Sensei was also experimenting with introducing kickboxing to the club. I was only 19 at the time and these changes did not appal to me so after approximately 6 months or so I left to study Tomiki Aikido under Ken Broom at Crystal Palace and Dr Lee Ah Loi at the Yawara Martial Arts Centre. About a year before I started to train Aikido I discovered girls (yes, I was a late bloomer) and 6 months after starting Aikido I was married and shortly after that my first son Ryan was on the way. The responsibiities of father hood (we had 3 children in very short period) and being a husband took their toll and my martial arts training more or less stopped from 1979 to 1982. This was when I was in a position to start training in karate again and I joined the Sutton Dojo of Sensei Brian Dowler, 8th Dan. Here we trained in basically a split off from the Kyokushinkai. As far as I remember Dowler Sensei sold the Dojo in 1984-5 or at least he was no longer teaching there. I did not wish to continue under the new regime so left and spent the next 3 years training in Yoshindo Jujitsu and kobudo under Tanaka Sensei. In 1988 I was managing a martial arts shop in Croydon when a new customer came in he had just came from work and was still in his white overalls. he was a driver for a meat wholesaler and delivered the orders to retail butchers. His overall was covered in dried blood but we connected immediately. This was Sensei Brian Dineen, he would come to my shop several times a week after his work where we would talk karate over a cup of tea of two. We also trained 1 on 1 in Shirley Hills where Brian had his open air Dojo, (a tree where we used to hang his punch bag). He had trained with Brian Dowler, Bernard Creton and Frank Perry. In 1988 he wanted to open a club teaching his system, Kyoikenkai fighting Karate and asked me to assist him, this I was glad to do and in September of that year he began to teach. I opened my first club in Alfa road, Croydon in 1991 with a young up and coming student black belt Mark Robson but in 1992 my work took me to Malta and I had to give up my club to go there. I returned to England just over a year later and returned to teaching at my new club in knights Youth Centre. When I returned from Malta my interest in the self defence aspects of the martial arts I had practiced began to increase. I had spent almost the last 20 years training in sports oriented martial arts and realised that most of what I knew had no relevance to a street fight, the high kicks, low exaggerated stances of karate, the almost impossible to apply (against a determined , non compliant assailan) joint lokcs of Aikido and Jujitsu (at least the japanese systems I had studied) were on the whole useless for the street. I began to look elsewhere for the self defence aspects to what I wanted to teach, namely a form of karate with no sporting applications. I trained in Thai boxing, Jeet Kune Do. Escrima, Pencak Silat and Close Quarter Combat. I began to look at the kata that I had learned and tried to figure out how to practice the bunkai in a realistic way. From Thai Boxing I took the elbow techniques and the Thai clinch, from escrima I learned the disarms against knife and stick (I was not that interested in learning how to fence with stick and knife but the disarms and the unarmed aspects were a good starting point for what I wanted to reintroduce back into karate). I also took a couple of reciprocal drills from escrima (I now see these same drills being practiced by other karate systems who say they are Okinawan in origin but before I trained them in escrima I had never heard of them). I learned how to create my own drills and now have 7 that I use to help teach all the analysis of the kata and the rest of my syllabus. From escrima I also learned how to train joint locks etc in a more realistic way. From Silat I have taken some of the groundwork which I found more in keeping with what I wanted to teach rather than the usual MMA/BJJ type of ground work. | Close Quarter Combat (CQC) has had a profound effect on my teaching. From this I learned about testing all aspects of what I teach under conditions of extreme stress. (The Adrenalin dump etc). I also came to learn aspects of CQC taught to the military that have been proven in combat since WW2. All this and more I have put back into the systems I teach. I now teach two systems of martial arts to adults, (there is still sport/traditional karate for children. These systems are taught under the umbrella of the Shurashikata Kai (Fighting Science Group) the first I have named Uchinadi (Okinawa hand) this contains all aspects of self defence, both unarmed v unarmed and also against gun, stick and knife attack. Thanks to the ever growing literature from pioneers of applied karate such as Iain Abernethy and my own efforts the bunkai (analysis of kata) taught is as relevant as possible and has proven extemely popular with my students. The kata taught in the Uchinadi system come from both Nahate and Shurate systems. Ground work is also important to this system with defences being practiced from kneeling, sitting and how to finish your assailant in the shortest possible time if one or both of you go to the ground. Finally defences against multiple assailants are practiced on a regular basis as well. The other system taught does not contain any gun or ground defence and concentrates more on conditioning, kata and full contact sparring. This is the Okinawan White Crane system. As the name implies this is largely influenced by the White Crane Kung Fu of Southern China. The kata are all from the Naha regon of Okinawa and include Hakutsuru Sho and Tan, Paipuren, Nipaipo and Kumemua Hakutsuru (the original Okinawan White Crane kata) amongst others. The drills used in Okinawa White Crane are the same as in the Uchinadi system with the inclusion of other Okinawan drills included such as kakie and other sensitivity training drills. During the last 4-5 years all the above has come together and seems to mesh really well. I am still learning as I train. What I teach now has grown from what I have spent the last 30 or so years realising, it is not my art it is what I feel has been given to me and taken individually each system is the most complete of its type that I have studied. Uchinadi will give the student the most comprehensive self defence that they can find and for those who want more traditional martial arts training Okinawan White Crane is for them. The really interesting part for me on my continuing journey is that although I teach these systems I continue to study and learn from them. I am still challenged by them and the more I learn the more there is to understand. So what motivates me now to write, make videos, give online lessons and train? Well this is my passion and I want to share it and as I share it my understanding deepens. I hope that as I teach more and more students will come to love what I teach as much as I do. I could just continue to train with a small circle of friends but that is not enough. This is YOUR art. The time and devotion I give to it is wasted if no one else can experience and benefit from it as well. I want to help you become a highly skilled Karateka and achieve your absolute best, whether it be in Uchinadi or White Crane Karate.
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