The LKA has decided, after much thought, that it is going to seek a new direction for it’s Karate and sadly end it’s affiliation to the KUGB.  There are a number of factors which have led to this decision but not least is the opportunity to receive instruction from, and compete against, the very best that Japan has to offer. 

We would like to thank the Senior Instructors of the KUGB for all their input and help over the years and if at all possible reassure them that it is in no way a personal slight on their Karate abilities, which we hold in high regard.   It has been an honour and privelige to train with and compete for the KUGB over the years.  However, we do feel that the time has come for us to make a fresh new start and move on.

So, with effect from Monday 23rd January 2012, the LKA has affiliated to the JKS England.  In addition to this we are also very pleased to annouce that we will be hosting a special course with the Chief Instructor of the JKS worldwide, Kagawa Sensei 8th Dan.  This will be held at the LKA Hombu Dojo on Tuesday 13th March.

Leeds Karate Academy  celebrated a fantastic year in 2011 with an awards evening at the Styan Community Centre, Harrogate.

 The award for Most Improved Junior went to Sam Mitchell. Sam, a pupil at Harrogate Grammar School, gained his Black belt in 2011 and took his fist competitive medal at the North of England Championships. All aspects of Sam’s karate greatly improved during 2011.

 The Most Improved Senior Award went to Joe Finlay. Joe’s constant hard work has seen him become an excellent Karate-ka. His diligence paid of in 2011 when he made his debut for England and took an individual Bronze at the European Shotokan Karate Championships. Joe also took the Players Player award as voted for by the clubs competitors.

 Junior Competitor went to Emelye O’Brien. Emelye, a pupil at Birkenshaw Middle School, had a fantastic year winning every kumite national title that she was eligible for, an incredible achievement.

 Female Competitor for a forth year running went to Ashley Scott. Ashley, a 3^rd Dan Black Belt, took many national titles including the British Championship. Ashley highlight of 2011 was leading the England Ladies team to the World title in Chicago.

 Male Competitor also for a fourth year running went to Ryan Tucker. Ryan, a 2^nd Dan Black Belt, had a fantastic year winning many national and regional titles. Ryan finishes the year in style by taking a senior individual Bronze at the European Shotokan Karate Championships.

 The award for Most Dedicated Student went to Holly Dickinson. Holly, a pupil at Harrogate Grammar School, trains up to 6 times a week and always put her full effort into anything she attempts. This hard work paid of when Holly took the North of England Kumite title in October.

 The lifetime Achievement Award went to Juliet Finlay. Juliet started karate in 1982; she has competed for the club and in 2009 gained her 3^rd Dan.  Juliet’s family have all trained and all have gained Black Belt. Juliet is a tremendous club member who is greatly appreciated.

The final award was for the 2011 Bassai Dai challenge.  The challenge was to get a photograph taken in the most unusual place whilst posing a move from the Kata Bassai Dai.  The winner, was the Brown family whose picture, taken in Chicago is below.  The challenge for 2012 is to get the most famous person you can to do a move from Bassai Dai.

Six LKA members and a number of supporters and family made the trip to Bielsko-Biala in southern Poland for the annual ESKA European Championships.  Joe Finlay was competing in the Cadet events, Jordon Probst, Melissa Finlay and Stephen Brown were competing in the Junior events and Ryan Tucker and Ashley Scott were competing in the Senior events.

The competition started on Friday 25th with the Cadet events where Joe Finlay was making his International debut.  Joe performed very well to take an individual bronze medal in Kumite, an excellent first effort by this promising your man.

Joe’s Sister, Mell was unlucky in losing by Ippon to a deceptively talented Ukranian competitor in the first round.  Jordon Probst and Stephen Brown were part of the England Team that took Bronze medal in Junior Team Kumite. 

Ashley Scott was part of the Female Team Kumite trio that took a very creditable Silver, losing 2-1 to the superb Austrian Team.  The Austrian girls had taken Gold and Silver in the Individual events and were an extremely impressive team. 

Ryan Tucker came home with 2 medals.  An Individual Bronze and a Team Silver.  In the team event, the England team lost very narrowly to the Germans.  After the initial 5 fights, it was an exact 2-2 draw and so each team had to send out an extra fighter.  In the deciding match the German proved too stong and gave them the Gold.

In the individual events, Ryan made the most dramatic moment of the entire event.  Fighting against former European and World Champion Dmitri Formiriakov in the individual Quarter Final, Ryan was a Wazari down against his giant Russian opponent.  With literally a second left on the clock, Ryan caught Dmitri with a Jodan Mawashi Geri to score and Ippon and take the match.  It was a sensational moment which brought the house down.  Ryan went on to take a Bronze, losing to the eventual winner, also from Russia.

Eleven LKA Karate-ka have just booked flights to once again go and train at the ‘Home’ of Karate, Japan.  We were originally scheduled to go in April this year, but due to the Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami and Nuclear crisis, our trip was cancelled.   The re-booked trip will take place in late March 2012, a very short time away now. 

The link below shows where we will be training, the JKS Hombu Dojo of Kagawa Sensei.  The standard here is exceptionally high, as one might expect perhaps under Kagawa Sensei’s leadership.  They have produced 3 WKF World Kumite Champions in recent years and training there is very hard, but rewarding.

The LKA took our adults Squad plus a small handful of our best child competitors down to Loughborough for the Karate England Nationals.  This was an excellent chance to compete against a wider range of competitors from other association and styles.  Interestingly, with this being an Open event, there was a representation there from the Romanian National Team. 

Our first medalist was Holly Dickinson who took the Childrens Kata-Shotokan category with a good performance of Nijushiho.  In the Senior Female Team Kumite the LKA Ladies fought very well to beat Romania in their opening match.  With the match finishing in a 1-1 draw, both teams had to send out an extra fighter for a deciding match in which Ashley Scott did enough to give Leeds the win over Romania!  The LKA Team then went on to lose in the final against Shikon.  In the Rotation Team Kumite it was a different story with the LKA Ladies taking Gold this time.  The Rotation Team is a very exciting ‘tag-team’ match lasting 6 minutes.  The fighters can be tagged as often as you like, providing that they have been on the mat competing for a minimum of 20 seconds before the substitution.  If a Team clocks up a 6 point lead within the time limit they win.  An innovative and entertaining event, which places as much pressure on the Team Coach as the competitors!

In the Senior Male Kumite -75Kg category, we had a very good showing with 3 of the top 4 fighters coming from the LKA.  Joe Hart took a very creditable 2nd place with Tom Little and Mark Hardy sharing joing 3rd.  The winner of the event was a very talented Romanian competitor. 

In the Male Team Kumite events, the LKA lost twice to the very strong Shikon team in both the Sanbon and Rotation events.  However, particularly in the Sanbon event, the matches were closely fought. and we took 3rd place.

We would like to thank all the competitors and supporters for making the journey to Loughborough and if there was ine criticism of the event, it is that it was rather long with too many categories.  The full list of our results was:

The full list of our 17 competitors was:

Ashley Scott, Ryan Tucker, Melissa Finlay, Joe Hart, Stephen Brown, James Brown, Holly Dickinson, Tom Little, Hayden Steele, Oliver Deane, Sam Goulden, Mark Hardy, Lizzie Andrews, Jed Dickinson, Callam Payne, Emelye O’Brien and Joe Bulmer.

The LKA had a squad of 45 competitors take part in this years event, once again held at the University of Sunderland. It was undoubtedly our most successful outing at this event, with 7 Gold medals taken amongst a total of 25 different medal positions.

There were a number of categories where we completely dominated. The Male Team Kumite produced some very exciting matches. In the semi-final, LKA ‘B’ met LKA ‘C’ in a very close match, which was decided on the strength of a disqualification in the final bout between Jordon Probst and Callam Payne. Jordon’s sensational sweep and head kick combination sadly landed too hard, knocking Callam out. After a precautionary trip to hospital, we are pleased to report that Callam is fine. In the final, James Brown, who has recently turned 16, stepped up into the team to replace Callam and the final between LKA ‘A’ and LKA ‘C’ was a very exciting affair. Despite the 3-0 scoreline, each match was very evenly contested and the ‘C’ Team should be very proud of themselves. Particular mention must go to Joe Bulmer who, whilst half a point up, was caught by an excellent counter punch which dropped him. He was immediately back on his feet and on his line standing in Yoi. His opponent, Joe Hart, was awarded Ippon but we were very pleased with Mr Bulmer as many a lesser man would have stayed down and made a fuss about the contact. Excellent Budo Spirit, Joe Bulmer, we’re very proud of you!

The LKA’s Female Team Kumite girls also took first place with a win over old rivals Halewood in the final.

In the Senior Male Kumite event, for the second year running all four finalists were LKA men. Ryan Tucker won for the second year on the trot, narrowly beating an ever improving Tom Little in the final. Joe Hart and David Wright were joint third. David also won the Male Kata event with his usual finesse, performing Unsu.

In the Junior Male Kumite 18-20 Years,w e had 3 of the four finalists too. Jordon Probst’s all round skill proving a little too much for the spirited Joe Bulmer in the final. Stephen Brown took Bronze here.

It was nice to see Mell Finlay, in her last domestic KUGB event as a Junior, take Gold over World Championships team-mate Megan Dent in the final. Mell has put a lot of hard work in lately and this showed in her performance, more relaxed and good timing punches winning the day.

Holly Dickinson had a very good performance in the Girls Kumite Over 5’3” event, beating a bigger and stronger girl in the final with some excellent movement and fast punching. Holly has had to spend this year taking 2nd or 3rd place behind LKA team-mate Emelye O’Brien so it was nice to see have her moment in the spotlight. Emelye and Kate Lister took joint 3rd in the same event.

The full list of results was as follows:

The full list of our 45 competitors was:

Ashley Scott, Zoe Price, David Wright, Jordon Probst, Ryan Tucker, Mell Finlay, Joe Finlay, Joe Hart, Stephen Brown, James Brown, Holly Dickinson, Tom Little, Hayden Steele, Oliver Deane, Dan Martin, Tom Mitchell, Jed Dickinson, Kate Lister, Jamie Horwell, Callam Payne, Emelye O’ Brien, Adam Banks, Connor Payne, Sam Mitchell, Nathan Wilson, Laura Mackintosh, Joe Bulmer, Amy Jones, Jude O’ Brien, David Lister, Caleb Booth, James Williams, Matthew Mellor, Owen Thomas, Joshua Mellor, Sam James, Page Evans, James Keelen-Edwards, Katelyn Entwistle, Max Davies, Sam Bulmer, Sarah Howarth, Joe Hird, Callum Slinger and Oliver Morris.

The LKA sent  a Squad of 28 competitors to the KUGB Shotokan Cup, which was held in Chesterfield on 24th September 2011.  We took 3 Gold Medals, 4 Silver and 4 Bronze, which was an excellent effort, particulalrly considering that 5 of our top competitors weren’t there.

Many congratulation must go to Emelye O’ Brien who won the Girls Kumite Over 5’3” event, beating team-mate Holly Dickinson in the final.  This makes a clean sweep of titles for Emelye this year, having prevously won the KUGB Nationals in May and the Youth Championships in July.  Both girls show excellent potential and are amongst the most regular trainers at the LKA, showing that hard work pays off!

LKA instructor, David Wright, showed his consistently high level of performance in winning the Senior Male Kata event.  David is a regualar medalist in both disciplines, leading by example as we encourage all our instructors to do.

Hayden Steele once again showed his excellent potential and ability in winning the Boys Kumite Over 5’5” event.  Hayden is a talented and versatile performer who can only go from strength to strength if he continues to put in the hard work. 

Congratulations must also go our other successful competitors at this event, notably Joe Hart and Zoe Starr who both gained Silver Medals in Senior events and James Brown and Joe Finlay who took joint 3rd in the Cadet Kumite.  Well done to all.  The full results were:

 The full list of our competitors was:

Zoe Starr, David Wright, Mel Finlay, Joe Finlay, Joe Hart, Stephen Brown, James Brown, Holly Dickinson, Hayden Steele, Oliver Deane, Ronan Cain, Dan Martin, Jed Dickinson, Kate Lister, Callam Payne, Emelye O’ Brien, Adam Banks, Connor Payne, Nathan Wilson, Daniel Tremble, Laura Mackintosh, Jamie Booth, Joe Bulmer, Caleb Booth, Robert Skean, David Lister, Jude O’ Brien and Jacob Backhouse.

Sensei’s Nick Heald and Matt Price were invited to perform a demonstration at the JKS World Championships which were held in Edinburgh in September 2011. It was a great honour to be asked to do this in front of Kagawa Sensei and many of the leading figures of Shotokan Karate from all over the world. A link to the demonstration is shown below and as you can see, it was very warmly received. We would like to thank Paul Giannandrea for the invitation and offer him our congratulations on organising such a successful event. We would also like to thank Tom Little and Sam Goulden for their willingness and enthusiasm in helping with the demonstration! Follow the link below to view the demo!

Nick Heald and Matt Price demonstration at Edinburgh

The LKA had 5 of its members compete for the KUGB England Team at the Bi-annual WSKA Championships, which were held in Chicago, Illinois this time round.  This was very impressive as the LKA contingent made up 1/3 of the total squad which went to compete.

It was highly pleasing that 3 of our 5 competitors came back with a World Championships Gold medal, and the other two also brought home medals too.

Leading the way was Ashley Scott who fought number one for the Senior Female Kumite Team.  Having beaten Sweden and Spain in previous rounds, the England Team took a convincing 3-0 win over Poland in the final.  Ashley beat her old adversary Marta Dabrowska in her match.  This was a particulalrly good win as Marta had taken indivudual Silver earlier.  Footage of the final can be seen below.

WSKA Female Kumite Final 2011

Mel Finlay also took a Gold in the Junior Female Team Kumite event, where the England Team beat South Africa in the final, the winning fight being taken by Mel to secure the title. 

Jordon Probst was part of the Junior Male Team Kata that won the event with a performance of Enpi.  Their performance is shown below.

Junior Male Team Kata

Jordon had an excellent weekend as he also took individual Silver in the Cadet Kumite event and was part of the Junior Team Kumite that took Bronze, having lost to the USA in the Semi-Final.  Stephen Brown was also reserve for this team. 

Finally Ryan Tucker was part of the Senior Male Team which took Silver medal position, very narrowly losing the final to Germany, where only the strength of an Ippon win for Germany could split the teams after a 2-2 draw. 

All at the LKA would like to send our congratulations to all the Squad members but obviously we are particularly proud of  the 5 LKA competitors.