Shinji Nagaki Sensei visit to Manchester: March 2025
Huge thank you to everyone who attended our Shinji Nagaki Sensei Courses last week.We hope you enjoyed training with Nagaki Sensei, we can't put on these special events without your support. The good news is: Sensei enjoyed his time in Manchester teaching you all and would be so happy to come back and share his knowledge with us again in the future!
His mini tour kicked off on Wednesday evening by whooping all the Wolstencrofts at Hollywood Bowl, before going on to give us a masterclass on the basketball and air hockey machines. We quickly discovered that there is nothing that Sensei cannot do! A great night topped off with a cheeky Nandos and even Spencer managed to behave.
On Thursday we took Sensei on a tour at the Champions ground - Manchester City Football Club (still of course champions until May), which we all enjoyed very much.
Sensei kicked his teaching off on Thursday evening at the Sale Dojo. This was a well supported course with all students taking part enthusiastically and working hard. Long service medals were presented by Shinji Nagaki Sensei to those in attendance who have been training at RTK for 10 Years or more. We rounded the evening off with a lovely meal with RTK Senior students/Instructors at a local Indian restaurant.
We enjoyed another splendid day training at the gym with Shinji Sensei followed by a march up Holcombe Hill topped off by a pub lunch. Then Sensei visited the mighty Tottington Dojo to teach two incredibly sweaty sessions. The first one for the lower grades, whose behaviour and effort was exceptional. Well done and thank you, you did not let us down. The second session was for Black Belts and Sensei got his mitts and pads on straight away and showed us all what a World Champion spars like. Lightning quick, effortless timing, distance control, sweeps, kicks, punch combinations. Just awe-inspiring for those who were lucky enough to work with Sensei. An experience I am sure they will never forget. We worked on kumite drills and broke down Kata Kankudai. Sensei than awarded some more long service medals with Lori-Ann even coming all the way up from Essex to collect hers. We have missed you Mrs! Great to also see Emma Brady back in her gi and a celebrity appearance from the Cherrynator.
Thank you all for your attendance and to those who helped prepare the dojo and took photos, it is much appreciated. Back to ours for some lovely home cooking (from M&S), some Senior Sensei chat with Mike Beckwith Sensei and then off to get some rest before our Saturday sessions.
Sensei taught two amazing courses on the Saturday. The first course was for 1st Kyu’s and below where Sensei worked on our kihon, stances and kicks followed by Heian Kata’s and Bassai Dai. 90 minutes felt like it went in a flash and everyone was absolutely buzzing after it. Going forward, we must try and work on what we have learned from Sensei about stances, movement and those corrections in your katas. This is how you will make continuous improvement and this is how Sensei has become an exceptional karateka. Doing the simple basics but doing over and over and over again.
The second course was for Black Belts and it was wonderful to see so many of you come out and support this course, there were senior visitors from nearby clubs and this is a testament to what an incredible Instructor Nagaki Sensei is. When seniors up to 8th Dan are travelling to train with you, it’s an absolute honour.
We covered kumite once again from the get-go, with Sensei giving some of our juniors and senior black belts the chance to spar with him. What a privilege - well done to you all. Sensei then took us through some incredible kicking drills then finished up with some stance work and Katas - Heian Sandan, Empi and Kanku Sho. Take on board the corrections we have been given and as a team - get better for next time. The time flew by too quickly once again! Sensei then awarded more long service medals before finishing up with photos and signing gi’s/tickets etc.
We have plenty of photos to get through from all of the courses and they will be shared on the gallery page over the coming days.
We finished off an incredible 4 days with a lovely meal out at the Miller & Carter washed down with a few delicious and refreshing pints (no pints for Sensei Paul of course!). It has been an absolute pleasure not only to train with Sensei and learn from his exceptional experience but also to spend time with him. He is the the most humble and polite person, always smiling, nothing is too much trouble for him and he has been incredibly grateful for this visit. He has such positive energy and it is wonderful to be around.
Many thanks to Alistair Mitchell Sensei 8th Dan for coming along, supporting the Saturday course and making this amazing video! I think he captured perfectly just how much we managed to get through and how much fun we all had.
We cannot wait to do it all again next time and catch up with Sensei in Japan in May!
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