Sensei Max Beddow
Sensei Max Beddow's personal training regime is relentless as he spends hours everyday practicing and improving in the dojo that he has built in his garden and often has the black belts (Udansha) from the dojo join him for extra training offering technical insights that befits their senior grades.
Through his unique teaching style he has inspired and guided an number of his students to senior dan grades prior to and subsequent to him joining the English Goju Ryu Karate Association (EGKA) which is affiliated to the International Okinawan Goju Karate Federation (IOGKF) whose structure has provided members of the dojo to progress through a unified grading structure that has seen Sensei Max progress from 5th Dan (Go Dan) to 6th Dan (Roku Dan) with his sghts on 7th Dan (Nana Dan) at the European Gasshuku in July 2026.
Below is a link to an interview with Sensei Max by Sensei Mark Povall recorded in Hamburg in 2025 at the European Gasshuku.
Sensei Max Beddow has been training in Goju Ryu for 30 years, having started his martial arts journey in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).
His inspiration came from his mentor, Sensei Keith Pace who introduced Sensei Max to a way of linking kata to practical situations and this has formed the basis of his training and research since then.
His teaching and instruction today continues to provide the link between kata and application through a combination of drills, practical demonstration and experimentation where he encourages his students to develop their own appreciation of the secrets within kata movements.
Sensei Max has studied with renown practitioners of martial arts such as Steve Morris, Sensei Terry O'Niell, Sensei Ernie Molyneaux and Sensei Roy Flatt all of whom have helped guide and shape him into the formidable karateka that he is today.
