Steven John Bellamy (born 12 June 1950, in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

) is a British

martial artist Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; and the preserv ...

, author, and lecturer.

Biography

Steve Bellamy practiced

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponi ...

and

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

at school. He began studying karate in the early sixties, crediting the book ''Karate the Art of Empty Hand Fighting'' by Nishiyama and Brown as his inspirational source. His first formal lessons were in the Wadō-ryū style under Masafumi Shiomitsu later changing to Goju-ryu style under Brian Waites. In the late sixties and seventies he won numerous national, European, and world titles in karate. He was a British All-Styles Karate Team member from 1970 to 1973. During 1974 to 1977, he won several full contact and kick-boxing titles in Japan and in the USA. He has lived and trained in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

for more than 40 years. In addition to instructor ranks in

karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...

, jūdō and aikidō, he holds advanced teaching licenses in several classical martial arts of Japan, notably Shindō Muso-ryū Jodō, Musō Shinden ryū Iaido, and Kasumi Shindō-ryū Kenjutsu He is a member of the Kansai Japanese language council (関西国語審議会) and has passed both the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (日本語能力試験) and the Japanese foreign service translators examination at level 1 (the highest). He was made a freeman of the City of Sheffield in 1992. In 1998 he was awarded a master's degree in Advanced Japanese Studies. In July 2009 he was appointed to the Nihon Jodo Association (日本杖道協会) Board of Directors. In September 2010 he was appointed to the All Japan Iaido Federation (全日本居合道連盟) Board of Examiners. On 24 March 2013 he received 8th Dan and the title Shihan in

Japanese calligraphy also called is a form of calligraphy, or artistic writing, of the Japanese language. Written Japanese was originally based on Chinese characters only, but the advent of the hiragana and katakana Japanese syllabaries resulted in intrin ...

(Shodo) On 12 June 2016 he was promoted to 9th dan Okinawan Goju Karate On 12 June 2020 he was promoted to 10th dan Okinawan Goju Karate

Training History

Steve Bellamy studied karate under: * Tatsuo Suzuki and Masafumi Shiomitsu in Wadō-ryū *Brian Waites, Steve Morris and Gary Spiers in the Gōjū Kai *

Morio Higaonna is a prominent Okinawan karate practitioner who is the founder and former Chief Instructor of the International Okinawan Goju-ryu Karate-do Federation (IOGKF).Ei'ichi Miyazato was a leading Okinawan master of Goju-ryu karate.Higaonna, M. (1985): ''Traditional Karate-do: Vol. 1 – Okinawa Goju-ryu, fundamental techniques'' (p. 32). Tokyo: Minato Research. () He was a senior student of Chōjun Miyagi,Toguchi, S., Tam ...

and Koshin Iha in Okinawan Gōjū *Kickboxing and Full Contact under Jeff Smith and Bill 'Superfoot' Wallace * Wing Chun under Joseph Cheng (UK) and Leung Sheung (HK) *His teacher and mentor in Japanese classical martial arts and in

for many years was Ichitaro Kuroda.

Writings

*''Traffic jams cause rain'' (1997) *
Sanchin: Your kata is killing you
(2002) *''Kihon: Wasted time, wasted energy. What you don't do will make you better'' (2004) *''Fight Right'' (2005) *''Between two trees. The Shindo Muso Ryu of Kuroda Ichitaro'' (2006)

Publications

*Menkyo : Principles and practice of classical Japanese arts, in English, Sanshidō Publishing, Tokyo (2007) *一角流教程 (Ikkaku Ryu Kyōtei) Training curriculum of the Ikkaku Ryu, in Japanese, Sanshidō Publishing, Tokyo (2008)

Other notes

*Bellamy is an Ashtanga Yoga, TM meditation, and Neuro-linguistic programming instructor. *Bellamy is an Iaido and

Jōdō , meaning "the way of the ''jō''", or is a Japanese martial art using a short staff called ''jō''. The art is similar to ''bōjutsu'', and is strongly focused upon defense against the Japanese sword. The ''jō'' is a short staff, usually a ...

Instructor at the Kaori-jiku Kobudo DojoWebsite of the Kokokuji Jodo and Iaido Dojo
/ref> in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

, Japan.

References