About Us

The club’s name, when translated from Japanese to English, means:
‘The Association of the Samurai Heart the empty Handed Way’.

I first opened the club at Radford, Nottingham in April 1986 under the name of Bushiki Karate Do; this was the name of the club at which I had been training since the early seventies. Two very good instructors ran this club, by the names of Sid Wise and Alan Carruthers.

However, I changed the name about a year later, after Alan kept remarking on the name of the club being a limited company name in his and Sid’s names. So, on one of my visits to London, I went round to the Japanese Embassy and asked their help in renaming the club. They were so helpful, after about an hours wait I got to see one of the attaches and he provided coffee and biscuits, and then after some discussion on the old name, and the fact that I wanted to keep to the inference of the Samurai or warrior, he came up with the name, ‘Bushinkai Karate Do’. It was at that meeting that I learned the meaning of the name.

When I told Alan that I was changing the name of my club, he seemed quite peeved, whilst Sid on the other hand seemed quite happy about it, and actually said that ‘It is good that you have thought of using another name because it makes it more your own club, and that was the way it should be. So, Bushinkai Karate Do was born.

Bushinkai Karate Do Is A Member Of The Amateur Martial Association (AMA) and the English Karate Federation.