My father Rinus Nansink was a talented boxer in his younger days, so I presume my love for martial art is primordial. I started with kyokushinkai karate in 1967, after Peter Koopman introduced me to sensei Rinus Schulz, an instructor in Jon Blumings honbu karate dojo in Amsterdam. In those days the home base of Karate heavy weights, like Jan Kallenbach, Jan Stapper, Ton Heumen, Jan Plas, and wrestling and judo champions like Chris Dolman and Willem Ruska. Kumite (free sparring) was tough those days, but I could handle myself. Rinus Schulz was an inspiring teacher, he introduced many philosophical aspects of karate and practical kickboxing techniques into our training. About 5 years later, sensei Jan Kallenbach invited a selected group of karate enthusiasts to train under Yoshimichi Sato in his Shin bu ken dojo in Amsterdam Osdorp. Jan Kallenbach was the first Dutch who trained with Kenichi Sawai in person. Yoshimichi Sato, the son in-law of Kenichi Sawai was a senior instructor in Matsutatsu Oyama’s Kyokushinkai headquarters in Tokyo. That combination, Kallenbach, Sato and Taikiken, was something that really touched my feeling. As a black belt in Kyokushinkai karate, I increasingly started to concentrate on Taikiken. With some friends, we started to train Taikiken in the early morning in a forest in Overveen. In that time I met Leong Kwok Wai (Gary) a Chinese martial artist from Malaysia. He taught me long arm fighting, meditation and simple healing methods. After a period of training with Sato sensei, Akio Sawai (Kenichi Sawai's son) and Iwama Norimasa, took over the Taikiken training Shin Bu Ken. My Taikiken became more and more skillful, and half a year later my teachers invited me to Japan, to study under the old Master himself. Autumn 1975 I traveled to Japan for a seven month Taikiken practice. On the way I made a short side trip to Malaysia to visit Gary my Chinese friend, he introduced me to Chan Eng Hin famous for his fighting skills. Master Hin demonstrated his iron palm to me, breaking bricks by slapping them, and iron shirt qigong by moving a large piece of tree-trunk away from his belly, without any visible physical interaction. I requested him to be my teacher, but he smiled and said, that the time available was to short. But he offered me, to teach me how to learn. Since I was on my way to study with Kenichi Sawai, this was the best what could happen to me. In Tokyo I stayed with Masashi Saito a student of Sawai Sensei. Saito introduced me to Oshi Os sensei his Chinese Taiji teacher, from him I learned a form of Tai chi chuan in the lineage of Wang Shu Chin (1904-1981).
Saito and I did train in Meiji Jingu, near the Meiji Shrine, every morning from six till eight in the morning. Our training started with half an hour Ritsuzen meditation (zhan zhuang), Hai (crawling), basis stepping (mo ca bu), testing force (shi li), some pushing hands (tui shou) and Tai chi chuan.
Ron Nansink founder of wuyiquan
