Some examples of technical ability we aspire to:

Seishan and Chinto kata

This clip shows a nice clear performance of seishan kata by Khoji Okumachi, a student of Arakawa sensei. You can also see him performing chinto kata. Okumachi sensei teaches in Tokyo and still trains weekly with Toru Arakawa.

Here is Arakawa sensei demonstrating chinto from the Wadokai Kata series dvd.

Tantou dori - knife defence

This is one of a series of clips showing one of my teachers, Hakoishi sensei with his student Sachio Hayasaka 5th Dan explaining Wadoryu tanto dori (knife defence) techniques. The clips are from a Tokyo seminar held in 2008.

Interested in Japan?

If you live in the North West, you can find out a little more about Japanese culture by attending some of the activities organised by the Japan Society North West.

If you are interested in a basic introduction to studying Japanese then this link is quite helpful both to get you started and as a refresher if you've tried learning it at a night class.

Some karate groups around the UK:

Wadokai Karate Federation - a group training in the north east of England and following Shingo Ohgami 8th Dan.

Shikukai federation - a karate group in the south of England, following the instruction of Fumio Sugasawa 7th Dan.

Aiwakai karatedo federation - the karate group of Kuniaki Sakagami 8th Dan.

Some overseas karate groups:

Svenska Wadokai - Shingo Ohgami's Swedish Wado Kai website.

Japan Wadokai internship - read the blog of various young karate-ka taking the opportunity to live in Japan for a year, learn about the culture, train karate and enjoy being abroad.

Wadokai book - this is a book written and published by Roberto Danubio. He is a very good teacher with very good technique. The book is in full colour and is extremely well produced.