Aissa Adjadj
- Started karate training in the early 80s in Algeria where he got his 1st dan and 2nd dan.
- 3rd dan JKA 1997 under the famous tiger off Shotokan Keniosuke Enoeda Sensei, England
- 4th dan JKA 2002 under Sensei Mashiko Tanaka, Japan
- 5th dan 1SKF 2013, England
- Selected for Algeria karate national team senior in the early 90s
- Arab Champion CARO1994
- 1st place international off Rimini, Italy, 1994
- 1st place African champion Harare ‘95 team
- 2nd place African champion Harare ’95, individual ‘97
- Moved to the UK in ‘95
- Joined the famous SKC Marshal St under Sensei Enoeda
- 1st place KUGB south region team and individual ‘97
- Won the famous Enoeda trophy (fighting spirit) ‘99
- 3rd place JKA individual Europe champion in 2000, Holland
- KUGB 2nd place individual, 2001
- KUGB 2nd place team, 2002
- KUGB 3rd place individual, 2002
- KUGB 1st place team, 2003
- KUGB 2nd place individual, 2003
- JKA E team capitan 2004 jak world champion tokyo japan.
- JKA E 1st place individual, team Gilford, UK, 2005
- JKA E 1st place individual Gilford, UK, 2006
- JKA E team captain world champion, Sydney, Australia, 2006
- JSKA world championship 1st place Kumite individual Manchester, UK, 2008
- JSKA world championship 2nd place team Manchester UK
- SKF 1st place Kumite Europe Champion, Berlin, Germany, 2018
Yassine Adjadj
Yassine is the deputy instructor at AKA and has been training in karate for 15 years, having achieved a second-degree black belt, having also competed many times winning various titles with the standout being a European championship.
In addition to his years of training, he has also been assisting with the running of the club for roughly 6 years. He has also used his skills in karate to become a full-contact MMA fighter and has competed multiple times in this discipline exemplifying the capabilities of karate, which he has learned from AKA in a full-contact, no holds barred situation thus showing the effectiveness of the karate being taught at AKA.
Karate in Japan
Karate was first demonstrated in Japan in 1917 by Gichin Funakoshi at the Butoku-den in Kyoto. He was invited back in 1922 by Dr, Jano Kano, the founder of Judo, and remained in Japan to teach Karate at the Kodokan Dojo with the backing of the Judo master.
Karate gained massive popularity with university students and Funakoshi continued to teach at various colleges around Japan. It is at these colleges and universities that many of the modern masters such as Nakayama, Obata, Noguchi and Watanabe were introduced to the art.
By the mid-1930s, Gichin Funakoshi started to have less to do with the running of his clubs and handed control to his son Yoshitaka. Yoshitaka continued to modernise the style until in 1936, the Funakoshi's opened a new central dojo — the Shoto-kan (hall of shoto). Shoto was the pen name Gichin Funakoshi used to sign the poems he had written in his youth.
World War II had a serious effect on the growth of Karate in Japan, as many of the former practitioners went off to serve in Japan's armed forces. The additional blows of the death of Yoshitaka, the destruction of the Shoto-kan and the banning of Martial Arts by the conquering Allied forces left Shotokan Karate in complete disarray.
Gichin Funakoshi managed to get the ban on Karate lifted and in 1948 the Nihon Karate Kyokai (Japan Karate Association) was formed, with Master Funakoshi named as chief instructor. Due to Funakoshi's advancing age (81), Masatoshi Nakayama took on most of the teaching and Hidetaka Nishiyama headed up the instruction committee.