I am pleased to be training and to achieve my black belt at 74.

I trained in this style in the 1970’s however unfortunately I had to stop due to financial constraints.

I was diagnosed with Celiac disease in my late 50’s. I also have a few old injuries from working in steel.

Training in the KDS has allowed my bone density to stay high into my 70’s. As with
Celiac disease the bone density can be low enough to give me brittle bone disease.

The club has been very helpful tailoring how they teach me individually around my
injuries. 

I was struggling with my confidence after a fairly recent life event before joining in 2017.

My father and I went to try a free first Cardiff club training session. The experience was of a warm welcoming extended family.

The club has always supported my neurodiversity. By continuing to work hard on my KDS journey, it has been worth it to feel myself grow in confidence.

KDS Cardiff have been nothing less than very supportive. It has helped some of the
comorbid conditions such as coordination, balance and sensory issues.

I joined the KDS back in 2021 and it’s honestly one of the best things I’ve ever done. 3 years later and I’m in the best physical condition of my life; I’m stronger, fitter and more flexible than I ever felt before.

Karate has also helped my mental health enormously, and no matter how stressful the week has been, or what I’ve got going on in life, I leave training with a clear head, feeling like a million dollars!

In Cardiff we’re really lucky to have such a wealth of experience in our instructors, and each has supported me with different aspects of my training, helping me to work on continuously improving my karate, enabling me to push myself further than I ever thought possible.

The club is warm and friendly, and I’ve met some amazing people here who have not only helped me with my training but also become true friends who have been there for me during the ups and downs.

Karate has made me stronger, fitter, and healthier in a lot of ways but it’s also helped me to become wiser, calmer, more patient, and more focused. So with that said, and with almost three years under my belt, I know I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life.

As a teenager I suffered from a degenerative bone condition and by the time I got to university in Southampton I was suffering from serious back pain.

The doctor recommended strengthening my back muscles, and so started my journey along the ‘karate-do’ with the Shotokai club in Southampton. I soon found my physical fitness and my back issues improved. More importantly though, the social aspect of the club, introduced me to lifelong friends that remain dear to me to this day. I was never a natural athlete, but I received my black belt from Southampton University in 1992 after 3 years of training. Access to Master Harada Sensei and his 5th Dans in those early years was inspirational and only now do I realise how lucky I was to have the first-hand experience of training with them. 

When I moved away from Southampton my karate practice became more irregular, with no clubs in my area I would meet up with friends and train one-to-one when we could, often travelling long distances to join club sessions elsewhere. In 2000 I moved to Japan for work, this is where I was introduced to the Shotokan style of karate and was lucky to practice occasionally with Yoshiharu Osaka Sensei.

My next adventure took me to Lilongwe, Malawi in Africa, this is when my instructor experience from the Southampton years came in handy and I helped run a local school karate club. Although run as a traditional Shotokan style karate club. The Sensei, Walter Ntho, had been trained in both Shotokan and Kung-fu so our personal practices took on a distinctive new flavour, I wish I could remember the bo kata’s he created at the time!

When I returned to Japan for the second time, I started teaching karate to a small group of school children in the British School in Tokyo, something I continued to do when I moved back to Penarth in the UK, returning to the Shotokai fold and helping out Jonathan DeClaire in his karate youth club.

I have now joined the Cardiff KDS club where I have found my new karate home, striving to better myself with the help of inspirational 5th Dan’s like Ian Mackenzie and Roy Margetts, welcomed open handed by an incredible family of karateka from all works of life that challenge me weekly to improve. And so, my karate-do meanders along!

I’ve always wanted to learn a martial art so when spotting a class whilst leaving a gym back in 1997 I gave it a try and have been hooked ever since. 

Keeping fit and active has always been important to me and karate is a crucial part of this,  especially as I am now the wrong side of 50!  It brings an element of flexibility, mobility, and co-ordination I can’t get from the gym or aerobic activities alone. 

In addition, it keeps the mind active as there is always something new to learn and each person you train with has their own karate ‘personality’, no matter what their level of experience.