Club History
The Liverpool Nippon Kempo Club was founded in 1980 by Hamilton De Gale.
Hamilton spent many years of passionate training with his brother and UK Nippon Kempo founder member Luther De Gale in their hometown of London.
With the need to spread and introduce Nippon Kempo to other areas of the UK, Hamilton relocated to Liverpool. Initial training sessions were held in local community halls in Toxteth where the club gained many faithful members.
Moving into the Higher Education venues
In 1983, the club moved into the Liverpool Polytechnic Students' Union, which later became Liverpool John Moores University. The club continued to grow ever stronger thanks to member dedication and university grants. Liverpool Nippon Kempo Club became a hit with both students and local residents alike.
The club has continued to capture the interests of people and boasts a strong and healthy membership.
Today the club is as strong as ever, with renewed interest from new members and a strong family like friendship within the club making Liverpool Nippon Kempo Club a great place to learn the rare and amazing combat sport that is Nippon Kempo.
History of Venues
With the reloaction to liverpool from London, the first public liverpool Nippon Kempo training sessions were held in the Methodist Church sports hall located off Princess Avenue Liverpool 8 district.
Some time later when we lost that venue the club ran some sessions at the Stanhope Street youth centre and at another venue at the top of Upper Parliament Steet, Milner House, which is now demolished. As mentioned above, when Hamilton de Gale joinded John Moores University in 1983 a new base of training commenced at the Haigh Building in the large committee room. The training sessions were held at the Haigh building up until 1998.In 1999 the club relocated to St. Nicks; a sports Gym with strong links to Liverpool John Moores University.
As the club is largely made up of students the club generally operates around the semester based timetable with breaks during the Christmas period and Summer period. However due to the keenness of members who stay during these breaks, the club operated training sessions in the YMCA on weekdays and some Sundays up till 2004.
From September to December 2004, we ran sessions at Liverpol Hope University and returned to the Haigh Building later in the year when a training slot became available. In January 2005 we commenced training at Kensington Sports Centre until early 2006. Due to a decline in numbers we closed the class and returned to having both sessions the the Haigh Building.
Children's Classes
The club, in 2005 had again began providing the opportunity to teach children and young people our curriculum. This was successful in both the Hope University site and at the Kensington site. Classes for children will be provided on demand on 2006.