Shihan Nagashima, WKO Branch Chief, at IMAC Dojo: Bio, Kihon, Tanden

This was not a grading. The Shihan visited during the dojo's regular Friday karate slot and taught a short session of about 40 minutes. The room ran from orange belts who had just passed their grading to the dojo's own instructors.

He chose three subjects: sitting and rising, generating power in Kihon practice, and controlling the tanden for real fighting. I will take them one at a time, as I saw them in the room, without adding words to what I noted him saying.

The first thing he taught was how to sit down and stand up in the dojo. He said sitting and rising has to follow Budo etiquette, and that every Japanese martial art does it the same way. The idea is to imagine a samurai sword worn on the left: you kneel with the left knee first and then the right, and you rise on the right leg first and then the left. Japanese budo calls this convention sa-za u-ki (左座右起). What Budo means in full is a subject I covered in what Budo is and which arts belong to it.

In the article on budo spirit in a Japanese karate dojo I wrote about seiza customs from my own experience training with Japanese friends. Today our students saw the same thing from the person who directs their own lineage, which carries far more weight than anything I wrote.

The second subject was how to generate power in Kihon practice. He concentrated on Hikite (引き手), the hand that withdraws to the ribs. Pulling that hand back sharply carries the rotation of the hips and torso into the technique, so the punching hand, the Tsukite, travels faster and lands heavier — action and reaction. His other point was not to tense from the first moment of a punch or a block: let the arm travel, then release the power as it nears the target.

I think this is why our dojo structures the karate course so that Kihon is in every class, whether the core class or the Kata class. When the basics are corrected one point at a time like this, everything built on top of them changes too.

The third subject was the tanden, written 丹田 in Japanese, the body's centre in the lower abdomen. He taught breathing that gathers power at that point while working the abdominal muscles, then Ibuki breathing, making the point that Ibuki is not just the sound: it is being able to control the breath going in and out.

He then demonstrated in pairs at close range, so the room could see how controlled breathing and a braced abdomen behave when someone actually pushes. This was the part the adult students talked about most after class, because it is something you feel immediately in your own body.

The end of the day was what many students had been waiting for since August. The second grading of the year was held on Friday 21 August 2026, with the Shihan examining over Google Meet from Japan. Today he brought the actual belts and certificates and presented them with his own hands, one person at a time, returning every bow.

For a student, the difference between receiving a belt from an instructor in the dojo and receiving it directly from the Branch Chief is clear. It confirms that the belt around your waist is tied to the WKO grading system, not a belt the dojo made up on its own.

Before I say what that day tells you about our dojo, a little about the man, because many people who train with us have no idea what the person examining them has been through. Everything in this part comes from his biography page on his own dojo's website in Shizuoka (永島文秋師範の経歴) and from WKO's own notices, with nothing added.

Shihan Fumiaki Frank Nagashima, 永島文秋 in Japanese, was born on 25 October 1958 in Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture. In April 1977, the moment he entered Keio University (慶応大学), he knocked on the door of the Kyokushin Kaikan (極真会館) headquarters in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, and joined the Kanagawa branch (神奈川支部). The examiner at the first grading of his life was Sosai Masutatsu Oyama (大山倍達総裁), the founder of Kyokushin himself.

While a student he founded a Kyokushin karate club at Keio; four years later it became an official university club (極真空手部) with him as its first captain (初代主将). In the spring of 1981 Sosai Oyama came to lecture at the university, the club gave a demonstration (演武会) in front of him, and Shihan Nagashima cut through a one-sho sake bottle (一升瓶) with a roundhouse kick (回し蹴り). The photograph from that day is still on his website.

In July 1981 he completed the ten-man kumite (十人組手), the final test for a Kyokushin black belt, and received shodan (初段). In his last year as a student he competed in the 13th All Japan Championship (第13回全日本選手権大会), Kyokushin's biggest tournament in Japan.

In April 1982 he joined Yamaha Motor (ヤマハ発動機) in his home town of Iwata and transferred to the Kyokushin Kaikan's Shizuoka branch. The company posted him abroad several times, and each time he opened a dojo where he landed.

From 1988 to March 1994 he was in Indonesia, leading the Jakarta sub-branch (ジャカルタ分支部長) under Shihan Sujoto, the Indonesia branch chief. There he passed nidan (弐段) in 1991 and sandan (参段) in 1993, both examined in Indonesia.

In April 1994 he moved to the Netherlands as head of the Amstelveen sub-branch (アムステルフェーン分支部長) under the Dutch branch chief, and trained alongside Michel Wedel, whom his website describes as the strongest karateka in Europe of that era. He stayed until January 2001, then returned to Japan.

Back in Japan in January 2001 he started a karate club inside Yamaha, then opened it to the public the same year as the Kyokushin Karate Iwata Dojo (極真空手磐田道場). In December 2001 it was recognised as a dojo directly under the headquarters (本部直轄).

In July 2003 the Kyokushin Kaikan under Kenji Midori (緑健児) took the name World Karate Organization Shinkyokushinkai (全世界空手道連盟新極真会), the organisation IMAC Dojo belongs to today. His dojo became the Shizuoka-Seibu Nagashima Dojo, and on 1 August 2005 it was recognised as the Shizuoka West branch (静岡西支部), with him as branch chief (支部長) from that day.

In April 2015 the branch was renamed the Shizuoka branch (静岡支部). His website records that in the ten years since becoming a branch it grew from the first dojo in Shimada to sixteen dojos. He also chairs the Keio Kyokushin karate alumni association, and he worked for Yamaha until his retirement in October 2018.

What ties him to Thailand is 2009 to 2013, when Yamaha posted him here and, as always, he opened a dojo in Bangkok at once: the Thonglor dojo, his first in Thailand. In 2011 WKO headquarters appointed him Branch Chief for Thailand (タイ国支部長), concurrently with the Shizuoka branch, and he holds both posts to this day, flying between Japan and Thailand to keep the standard on both sides.

In June 2013 he passed yondan (四段) at the Asia Region grading in Kuala Lumpur, examined by WKO President Kenji Midori. WKO's World Karate Report on that event describes him as managing both the West Shizuoka branch and the Thailand branch, and praises the Thai competitors he brought. In November 2015 he became vice-representative (副代表) of the WKO Asia federation, twenty-one member countries, in his capacity as Thailand branch chief. In November 2019 he was promoted to godan (五段) on the Asia region's recommendation, and today WKO's official branch listings, both the Japan page and the Asia page, list him as 6th Dan (六段).

In November 2024 the Thailand branch under him hosted the Asian selection tournament in Bangkok, the qualifier for the 1st World Full-Contact Karate Championship in Tokyo on 31 May and 1 June 2025. Before the event he called on the Japanese Ambassador to Thailand, Masato Otaka (大鷹正人), together with the Thailand-based Japanese actor Hiro Sano (佐野ひろ), and the embassy gave the tournament its official backing. The WKO President's December 2024 message calls it the Asia tournament organised by Shihan Fumiaki Nagashima, Branch Chief in Thailand.

His website carries four mottos under the heading 座右の銘 (zayu no mei). I have translated them with the explanations he wrote himself, adding no interpretation of my own.

• 我以外皆師也 (ware igai mina waga shi nari — everyone but myself is my teacher). He says he teaches and trains karate in the belief that everyone, child or adult, beginner or veteran, woman or man, can be his teacher.
• 石上十年 (ishi no ue ni mo jūnen — ten years on the stone). Words Sosai Masutatsu Oyama wrote for him on a shikishi card. Nothing is achieved easily; be ready to persevere not three years but about ten.
• 文武両道 (bunbu ryōdō — the literary and the martial together). His reading: bun is work, bu is karate; running the two together, spiralling upward, is the complete form of a person in modern society, and one alone is not enough.
• 継続は力也 (keizoku wa chikara nari — continuity is strength). The one he addresses to dojo students in particular: keep going in the spirit of Osu (押忍) and every one of you will reach black belt and find a new road opening; whatever the reason, do not quit karate.

I have already written about the path of Shinkyokushin from Japan to Thailand. In short: WKO grants Thailand one country-level Branch, and Shihan Nagashima has been its Branch Chief since 2011. The Asia branches page of WKO lists him under Thailand.

Under him there are two dojos in Bangkok. The Thonglor dojo is the first, which he opened himself; IMAC Dojo at Ladprao 101 is the second dojo under the same direction. I opened IMAC Dojo with the trust he placed in me, after my family had trained in this lineage for years and every one of us had earned a black belt. Both dojos train the same syllabus and grade under the same system, and the examiner at every round, three times a year, is him: when he cannot fly in he examines over Google Meet from Japan, as he did on 21 August, and on 18 September he came and presented the belts himself. Put as plainly as I can: the person who certifies IMAC Dojo's standard, and who made this dojo possible, is him.

Today turned that sentence into something more than text on a website. Students at IMAC Dojo, Ladprao 101, train to the standard he sets, grade under the WKO system, and receive their belts from his own hand. If you are thinking of starting, look at the schedule and fees first, then ask about the right class for you through LINE Official.