Bujinkan Training in 2026

PUBLISHED 10 FEB 2026

Global Seminar Highlights

The coming year promises a remarkable sequence of international gatherings for practitioners of Bujinkan Budō Taijutsu, with senior instructors travelling across Europe and North America to share knowledge, renew friendships, and continue the living transmission of the art. Taken together, these events form more than a calendar of seminars. They reveal the enduring vitality of a global community bound by shared practice and a common lineage.

The first major event of the spring arrives in the United Kingdom, where Dai Shihan Andrej Jasenc, chief instructor of Bujinkan Slovenia and a long-time student of Ishizuka Sensei, returns for two days of training on April 11th and 12th, 2026. The seminar will focus on Kotō-ryū koppō, tantō, and kenjutsu. Training will take place across venues in Bletchley and Milton Keynes, with flexible attendance options. Jasenc’s continued presence in the UK underscores the close ties between dōjō across the region and the importance of sustained technical exchange.

In May, attention shifts to Austria, where Nagato Toshirō Sensei is scheduled to lead a weekend of training following his warmly received taikai in Paris. Early registration has already drawn participants from more than seventeen countries, highlighting the magnetic pull of opportunities to train directly with senior Japanese instructors. Organisers have emphasised that such meetings are as much about reconnection as instruction, providing space for friendships to deepen and for shared memories to form through the simple act of training together.

Summer begins in North America with a landmark moment in July, when Bujinkan Dai Shihan Shiraishi Isamu teaches his first United States taikai in the Seattle area from July 24th to 26th. Hosted at the Lynnwood Event Center, the gathering will occupy an expansive training hall and bring together practitioners from across the continent. For many, the significance lies not only in the instruction itself but in the rarity of direct access to senior Japanese teachers outside Japan, reinforcing the continuity between the Honbu dōjō and the wider international community.

August brings two further highlights. In Ireland, Junichi Kan, the twenty-second grandmaster of Gyokushin Ryū and one of the most senior and respected instructors within the Bujinkan, will headline the Galway taikai on August 15th and 16th. Events of this calibre remain uncommon in Europe, and their value lies in preserving the immediacy of transmission that can only occur through direct contact. Later in the month, from August 28th to 30th, Calgary will host Canada’s first taikai featuring a Japanese Bujinkan sōke, as Furuta Sensei—head of Kumogakure Ryū since 2019 and a direct student of Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi since 1984—leads a seminar themed “Catch the Space.” Beyond his martial accomplishments, Furuta’s professional life as a cancer cell diagnosis specialist offers a quiet reminder of the diverse paths that converge within the art.

The international cycle continues into early autumn in the United States. From September 25th to 27th, Randa Richards and Michael Jones return to Huntsville, Alabama, following successful sold-out events in 2022 and 2024. Hosted by Bujinkan Rocket City Dōjō, the seminar will again include a limited-capacity dinner gathering, reinforcing the sense that these occasions function as reunions as much as training opportunities. Richards and Jones, who have trained together since 2007 and opened their Cardiff dōjō in 2015, represent a generation of instructors carrying the art forward through partnership and community building.

Seen in sequence, the seminars of 2026 trace a living map of Bujinkan practice across continents. From the focused study of classical ryū-ha in England to large-scale taikai in North America and rare visits from senior Japanese teachers, each event contributes to a shared rhythm of movement, meeting, and renewal. In an art where transmission depends on presence rather than theory, such gatherings remain essential. They ensure that, wherever practitioners train, the thread connecting them to Japan—and to one another—remains unbroken.