Nintai budo

Our Story

My name is Alan Calleja and I was born in Malta. I started my martial arts training with judo when I was 14; but I had always been a fan of Ninja movies and got inspired by the playstation game Tenchu, so I looked for other martial arts in relation of ninjas. I found Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu and I fell in love with the art. I learned that there was more to it than the ninja tricks you see in movies. In fact, at first, it was a very “military style” training with a lot of fitness involved as well as a certain discipline as you’d find in the army.
After several years of training I travelled to Japan for the first time where I spent 3 weeks learning directly from the source, under the guidance of Soke Masaaki Hatsumi, Shihan Nagato, Shihan Seno and Shihan Noguchi.
The journey was one of a lifetime and I was ready to do it again someday; but money being a factor when it comes to traveling, I had to wait another 5 years to get back. To this day, I visited Japan 5 times in 15 years.
In the meantime, I also found a great master to guide me through Some Hatsumi’s teachings and correct body movement: Robert Renner, Bujinkan Shihan and founder of the Zeropoint Systems.
I moved to London in 2013 where I have trained with several teacher, and more consistently with Peter king and Simon Yeo.
I have also been to several seminars abroad, among which the Paris Taikai in 2014 where I trained with Pedro Fleitas, Arnaud Cousergue and Sveneric Bogsäter. I’ve also consistently been going to Jason Godwin’s as well as Robert Renner’s seminars.
I also wanted to see and experience the different arts as I found elements that the Bujinkan lacks off, such as realistic attacks as well as strikes diversity, ground and grappling. Therefore, I have also tried different combat sports to diversify my training such as Boxing, Mixed Martial Arts and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.
My Brazilian Jiu-jutsu instructor is Simon Yeo, whom I been assisting in his Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu classes. With him, I’m learning ground fighting and grappling techniques.
I also practiced MMA in London for a year where I gained general knowledge in the basics of MMA.
Despite my diversification, Budo has always has been my main focus. My current rank is 10th Dan.