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KARATE NEWS

Leicester Karate Club Membership Form

New dojo joins from Madrid

I have returned from a very productive trip to Madrid, Spain and pleased to announce a new dojo has joined our karate family. I met with Luis Vazquez who had travelled from Argentina to assist in the development of the dojo and pleased to meet the instructors and students face to face and a great bunch of people they are too and already at a good standard.

All being well March 2025 may be on the agenda for a return visit.

There was a unique training session on Saturday 28th September held by a published Neuro scientist (Luis Garcia) who has been investigating how neuro science is being used to improve the development of athletes and karate students. A very in-depth and interesting course. The whole course was filmed and hoping it will be available to view in the near future.

Academy Course in Barcelona 2024

The last academy course of the year involved a weekend trip to Barcelona. What a great city it is, you can feel the history as you walk around this grand place.

Mark Russell, Robert Mclean, Lauren Frearson and myself took part on the course and everyone enjoyed the training experience.

It was also good to see Dirk Heene again after a few health scares this year and he is gradually getting better from surgery earlier this year.

Don from Lithuania (our Leicester student!) was also there and it was great to catch with him and he is practically a full time karate teacher now which is great to see.

Met up with some "old" friends who haven't seen for a while and made some new friends along the way.

The next academy course is in May next year in Helsinki. Looking forward to it.

If any black belts wish to attend let me know as as soon as you can. If you book flights early you can get really low prices from around £85 return!

Club History

In December 2022 I began a project of documenting the history of our martial arts club which, as it stands, is the oldest established martial arts club in Great Britain. Same venue since it started in October 1946. 

I have found newspaper articles, and various media articles as well as old photos and write ups on our dojo, its instructors and much more. So far it is around 66 x pages deep with content being added on a regular basis. 

Sometimes more questions arise than answers on the dojos history and as the sands of time move on, some information as to what happened at various times in the club are open to speculation.

Soon a downloadable PDF will be available to all members which I hope some will find interesting.

It is a work in progress and covers events from 1946 right through to the present day...

Dave Wilkins

UPDATE 10th November 2024

I have just put some finishing touches to this first edition of the dojos history and details of how to download this for your perusal will be available soon. Just a couple of gaps to fill and this will be done.

The intention is to review this annually and as maybe information comes to light it will be revised, altered and improved. Dave

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Harry Ewen founded Leicester Martial Arts dojo in October 1946 and such was its popularity that around 300 people trained in the dojo every week. Initially Jiu Jitsu but changed to Judo a year later. Aikido started in 1960 and Karate started in 1966. We train in the oldest, established club in Britain. 

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