History

The Development of Shoto Budo

The technical director of the Shoto Budo Organisation, William Haggerty, began training in martial arts in 1967. After surviving and fending off two older brothers, Billy got interested in boxing in his very young days. It is through joining scouting that led him to practise Judo, which in turn lead to Karate. Billy, like many of the original Shoto Budo instructors, began training in one of Britain’s oldest traditional karate organisation under the guidance of Sensei Mitsusuke Harada. However, unlike many of his contemporaries, the Shoto Budo technical director is one few modern day martial artists to have received his fifth dan from Harada Sensei. This is made all the more prestigious when it is considered that Harada sensei received his fifth dan directly from Funakoshi, while in Brazil, and is also envied by many of his contemporaries as a result.

While Shoto Budo has strong roots in Karate, it also prides itself that many of its instructors also have extensive experience in other disciplines such as Boxing, Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, Kendo, Tae-kwando, Kick-boxing, Wrestling etc. as well as sports coaching and leadership training.

The more senior instructors also had interest and extensive training in modelling processes leading to excellence and studied Accelerated Learning, Transactional Analysis (TA), Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Developmental Behavioural Modelling (DBM) which offered many more tools with much more precision.

With these skills the approach to martial arts was enhanced and focused towards taking self defence, health and well being as the main building blocks of the organisation. As a result, a safe system has been developed to help the student learn the most useful skills quickly while still able to appreciate the wide array of martial arts and the differences between them. At the same time this approach opens up the interest and desire of seasoned martial artists to continue to increase their skills while also looking after their own health as they mature with age.

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