Personal Training from Asai Sensei

Here are some pictures of one-on-one practice with my late Sensei, Tetsuhiko Asai. I hope you enjoy them! I have many more photos and videos to come of private training.

As I've said before, being a personal student of Asai Sensei meant far more to me than attaining dan ranks, qualifications, and competition wins. In saying that, it also fired up much jealousy in New Zealand, causing me lots of trouble!

The amount of jealousy in the karate world is unbelievable (especially amongst those who have poor and ineffective technique), and is the source of all karate politicians. Such envy leads to ‘rumour spreading’ to destroy those who are perceived as unstoppable on the dojo floor. No one ever makes trouble with those who have inferior karate technique! My advice to everyone is simple: "Don’t spread rumours, just train!"

Asai Sensei saw my love of karate, and naivety in regards to politics, so he took me on as a ‘personal deshi’. This led to extensive private lessons. Why? Well as mentioned before, I was, and have always been ‘karate focused’; secondly, I tried as hard as I could to assimilate everything that he taught me. As a result Sensei invested much time and effort into my technique. As a Westerner this was great honour, especially being his only personal student from New Zealand. I'll continue to share these experiences here with you on my blog.

OSU, André Bertel

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© André Bertel, Japan 2008