Sensei Andrew Jones 4th Dan
began his journey in 1991, in the West Midlands training under Sensei’s Kelvin Rayner 5th Dan & Steven Carless 5th Dan at Tamashii & Walsall Schools of Shotokan karate. Andrew also trained regularly with top Japanese instructor Hanshi Shiro Asano 9th Dan at Honbu Dojo headquarters. He has also trained all over the world with other world class Japanese instructors such as Kancho Kanazawa 10th Dan, Sensei’s Kagawa,Murakami, Nagai, Miura, Sode, Takeguchi, Kawazoe, Koga, Wada, Oahta, Tagowa, Kobara as well as top British instructors Dave Hazard, Richard Amos, Ronnie Christopher,Wayne Otto, & film actor Terry O’Neill.
Andrew believes that a varied karate experience is essential to being a good karate-ka & instructor. The experience & skills that he has gained from training with theses masters is invaluable to him as an instructor & the knowledge he has gained is passed down to each & every karate-ka (student).
He first started as an instructor at Tamashii Dojo (formerly Seamless Tubes) He soon found that he had a flare for teaching & a natural ability to connect with students. Andrew finds it exciting to see students progress, for example whilst instructing at Walsall School of Shotokan Karate Andrew had a student begin training who was in his late 50’s. He guided & supported him through his kyu grades noticing that at every stage his confidence & spirit grew leaps & bounds until finally he was ready to take his black belt & passed with flying colours! A black belt is a white belt who never gave up & Andrew believes that anyone is capable of achieving black belt excellence.
Andrew has competed at both National & International level. He has represented Great Britain on 6 occasions as part of the men’s kumite (free fighting) team & also individual events. In Sheffield, Bali, Denmark, South Africa, Ukraine & more recently Japan. On a national level Andrew lead his team (Walsall) to victory on numerous occasions. Andrew has also had success as an individual at both SKIGB & various open karate competitions.
Although Andrew encourages students to compete, he believes that students must not forget that the basis of traditional karate. There should be no contradiction between training in traditional & sport karate. The latter should be built upon just such a strong foundation of Kihon (basics), Kata (forms), & Kumite (sparring) as the former, & should offer the karate-ka the chance to test skill, courage, determination & spirit in a constructive way.