General information - Our Instructors

General information—Instructors

Our instructors

The Chief Instructor of Seishin Shotokan Karate is Paul Walker, a 5th degree black belt with over 25 years of experience in the martial arts. Sensei Walker started his martial arts training in England in January 1982 achieving the rank of 3rd degree black belt in Anshin-ryu karate in January 1993 under Sensei Keith Bell. He began Shotokan karate in 1992 at the University of Aston under Sensei Roger Timmins and trained at Master Hirokazu Kanazawa’s Headquarters Dojo in Tokyo for three years from August 1996 to July 1999. In June 2003 he attained his 4th degree black belt with Master Kanazawa and just this year in June 2008 he was awarded his 5th degree black belt—once again from Master Kanazawa.

In March 2005, Master Kanazawa visited Sensei Walker’s club in Apple Valley and taught a series of four seminars and in the same month Sensei Walker accompanied Master Kanazawa to Hollywood and featured in the master’s DVD series “Mastering Karate” with Rising Sun Productions. Master Kanazawa continues to be the primary influence and mentor in Sensei Walker’s karate training.

In June 2007 Sensei Walker published his first book, Lessons with the Master, about his experiences of studying karate under Master Kanazawa in Japan. For more information about the book click here. He has also had his articles on karate published in Shotokan Karate Magazine (Issue 94), The Shotokan Way website (www.theshotokanway.com), and at Ezine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com) and iSnare (www.isnare.com) among other websites. In addition to this he has a series of free reports on the martial arts available for download at www.freekarateinformation.com. He is currently working on releasing a new instructional DVD series called Shotokan Karate: The Complete Curriculum that covers all of the Shotokan content from beginner to black belt. This series will be sequentially released during 2008. For more information on this series click here.

In addition to our chief instructor, our club has several black belt instructors who teach and assist in class on a weekly basis. They are Erin Walker (1st degree black belt), Andrew Sherman (1st degree black belt), Joe Sherman (1st degree black belt), Nicole Portillo (1st degree black belt) and Debra Esquibel (1st degree black belt).

Also several of our brown belt students give freely of their time to assist in class and to help mentor our beginner and intermediate students.

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