Dai-Shihan Roy Wilkinson has been training in Ninjutsu for over 40 years, and is one of a small handful of the world’s most senior Master Instructors for this art outside of Japan. After ten+ years in the art, Mr. Wilkinson took and passed the sakki ‘killing intention’ test and was awarded the title of Shidoshi (Teacher of the Warrior Ways of Enlightenment) by the Grandmaster. He currently holds the rank of Judan Kugyo (15th degree black belt) and is the Chief Instructor for the Atlanta Bujinkan Dojo, the first Ninjutsu dojo established in the Western Hemisphere. He is also one of a limited number of recipients of the prestigious Bujinkan Gold Medal, awarded personally by the Grandmaster, for his outstanding contributions to the art, and was one of the first recipients of the even rarer ‘Shin Gi Tai’ award, formally presented by Grandmaster Hatsumi in Japan in 2011. Hatsumi Soke has twice awarded him ‘Yu Shu Shihan’ status, and has further designated him as ‘Dai-Shihan’ or ‘Grand Master Instructor’.
Sensei Wilkinson is also an actor & fight choreographer with credits from ‘West Side Story’ to ‘Pirates of Penzance’. He has choreographed and performed in numerous one-on-one combat scenes, multiple-attacker scenarios, and mass brawls of 30-plus simultaneous combatants – both unarmed and armed, and with both traditional and modern weapons. He also instructs actors in martial combat and weapons usage for stage, screen and motion-capture performance. Mr. Wilkinson has appeared in European and American martial arts magazines, and was interviewed for a national television special on ninjutsu. Sensei Wilkinson was featured in the groundbreaking documentary on Ninjutsu, ‘Heart, Sword, Perseverance’. This film features action footage and interviews with Dai-Shihan Wilkinson and the last living Grandmaster, or Soke, of the art, Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi.
