2006-What a Great Year for Leeds Karate Academy

How do you measure a club's success? If the answer is in number of Dan Grade Promotions combined with competition success, then 2006 will be a difficult one for the LKA to better!

In 2006, we gained 18 new Shodans. These were Steve Cuddy, Simon Mccartney, Winson Wong, Neil Taylor, Richard Upton, Miles Wilson, Carlvert Hassan, Claire Lister, Nathan Kenny, Jonathan Amaku, Sophie Pennington, Karen Sunner, Dave Fishkin, Stephen Outhwaite, Bruce Taylor, Connor Featherstone, Ashley Mallinson amp; Connor Torissi.

We gained 5 new Nidans, namely Ashley Scott, Daryn Hobden, Michael Gale, Jayne Brown amp; Joe Finlay.

One new Sandan in Harry Finlay.

One new Yondan in Glenn Riley.

One new Rokudan in Randy Williams.

A total of 26 Dan Grade promotions in one year! Combine with this the fact that at the KUGB Nationals we had Matt Price, Tom Little, Jordon Probst and Michael Gale all crowned National Champions.

At the National Youth Championships in July, both Ryan Tucker and Jordon Probst won their respective events.

Jordon Probst then went on to win the Shotokan Cup in Sepember, whilst in November Ryan Tucker won the Student Nationals and Ashley Scott was crowned Grand Champion, winning both Kata and Kumite titles. Along with Natasha Balyckyi and Karen Sunner they also took the Female Team Kumite titles.

Finally the icing on the cake from a competitive point of view was the European Championships in Switzerland where Zoe Starr and Natasha Balyckyi took a bronze in Junior Team kata and then Matt Price finished off a superb year for the LKA by being crowned ESKA Senior European Kumite Champion!

So to summarise, we had 26 Dan Grade promotions including a new 6th Dan, 11 National titles and a European Champion!

What can we do in 2007? Certainly 2006 will be hard to get anywhere near, but all we can hope for is that we get many new people involved in enjoying Shotokan Karate and that the ones that are already training will strive for further dan grade promotions and be inspired towards emulating the achievements of our current Champions! Who know what faces will appear in the 2008 LKA calendar?

Pictured below at the LKA December Grading are Sensei's Williams, Heald amp; Price along with their instructor Sensei Bob Rhodes 7th Dan.