Inspirational weeks training with Nagaki Sensei
From Monday 17th June to Friday 21st June JKS England has the pleasure of hosting Shinji Nagaki Sensei once again who had travelled from the JKS Hombu dojo in Tokyo to teach at a number of European countries.
Nagaki Sensei is a 5th Dan JKS Headquarters instructor having graduated from Teikyo University which has a rich and recently unrivalled pedigree in karate under the guidance of Masao Kagawa Shihan 9th Dan JKS. Nagakis competitive career was immense and his most notable achievement was the -70KG WKF Kumite title at the 2004 World Championships.
The five day tour of England started in Abindgon, Oxfordshire on Monday 17th June. Nagaki Sensei was being hosted by Sensei Ben Richardson 4th Dan JKS at the Cando Martial Arts Academy. What an amazing session to start the week! Nagaki Sensei focussed much of the session around hip mechanics and applied the concepts to Kihon, and kata focusing on Heian Godan, Kanku Dai and Enpi. A lot of time was also spent detailing the timing of the techniques. The session concluded with conditioning on Kumite drills working mainly Kizami-Geri techniques and Ashi Barai.
On Tuesday Nagaki Sensei headed to London and was hosted for two days at Harrow and Kingsbury Shotokan Karate by Shyam Raithatha 5th Dan JKS. The two days saw many participants attend from JKS and other organisations from in and around the Londan area keen to train with Nagaki Sensei.
The Tuesday session in London proved to be a masterclass from Nagaki Sensei. Only close up is it possible to see the sheer mastery of basic technique. His kicking skills were a joy to watch and left many in amazement. Nagaki again focussed on the importance of correct Kihon highlighting many issues and advising and delivering training routines to help improvement. Katas taught were again, this time to a different audience, Heian Godan and Enpi. Nagaki, as ever did not miss the chance though to drill some fantastic kumite work into the session too.
On the Wednesday, which proved to be a very warm evening, Nagaki Sensei delivered an excellent session working on Keri-Waza, plus kata including Heian Kata standardisation and Kanku Sho. Comments were made from visiting non-JKS karateka about the standard of Nagakis technical ability and his incredible power.
On Thursday 20th Nagaki Sensei headed north to Leeds where he was hosted at the Leeds Karate Academy by Senseis Nick Heald 7th Dan JKS and Matt Price 6th Dan JKS. The session was a sell out and yet again Nagaki Sensei was on top form. The evening concentrated on Kihon and Kata with Heian Godan and Bassai Dai covered. Nagaki moved later onto some superb Kumite drills with a warm down with a difference at the end, a run through the Kata Wankan. A superb end to a fantastic two and a half hours karate.
The Friday saw Nagaki Sensei take a trip West across the Pennines for his final location, this time in Manchester, at Red Tiger Karate Club hosted by Paul Wolstencroft 5th Dan JKS and Rachael Wolstencroft 4th Dan JKS. As seen at the earlier session in the week, Nagaki Sensei spent much of the early class working on the improvement of basic technique. He taught several drills all designed to improve basics including the fundamentals of hips and footwork and Keri-Waza providing some outstanding demonstrations along the way. Nagai Sensei covered the katas Heian Shodan and Heian Nidan. Nagaki Sensei then moved onto kumite yet again demonstrating his extraordinary skill levels before finishing with a detailed practise of the Kata Sochin. It proved to be a superb end to an amazing week of karate.

Everyone who trained on the sessions during the week has yet again been completely amazed by Nagaki Senseis ever-impressive speed, agility, technique and warm & friendly teaching style. His karate speaks for itself, and everyone that trained left feeling utterly inspired by this World Class Instructor. It is very rare these days to see such an instructor with such a high Kumite pedigree where his kata matches it and his kihon surpasses it, however Nagaki absolutely does and we are extremely lucky to have access to such a talent.
