I started training in 1984 after losing my way somewhat and needing a bit of discipline in my life. After walking into Sensei Mick Dewey's karate club and witnessing the intense and very disciplined training that was going on, I knew that was exactly what I needed. After 24 years of blood ,sweat , and tears (quite literally all of said ,in bucket loads), I think I have achieved some of what I sought, as I am by no means at the end of my journey.

Began training in 1984 at Portsmouth Karate Club (Honbu of SEKU), under the guidance of Sensei Dewey 7th Dan, and numerous Senpai. Progressed at a reasonable speed through the kyu grades, but didn’t get seriously into my training until after having a 3 week lay off at red belt, that has been the longest time not training that I have ever had that was not down to any injuries. I then started competing in which would lead to my time in the SEKU squad . At brown belt I was invited onto the squads 'b' team which started my 21 year competition career , winning many prestigious titles in both Kata and Kumite, nationally and internationally with the SEKU Squad and with Portsmouth karate club. I have now moved on to refereeing and have as of recently been appointed senior Kata coach for our association, of which I am very honoured to have accepted.

I started teaching for Sensei Dewey at PKC at 1st kyu with the job of teaching the beginners, that led to me doing more and more teaching over the years, and getting invited onto the SEKU Instructors class , which was run by Sensei Dewey , Sensei Hazard, and Sensei O’Donnell . This class was the highest achievement that SEKU could offer an instructor and you knew it too, as they were the hardest sessions that I have ever done running into 6 hours sometimes. I trained on these classes for many years with all of SEKU's top karate-ka until it unfortunately stopped, to be later replaced by a more instructor friendly version , which is of equal importance.

As I have briefly mentioned earlier, I have been proud to compete for SEKU, which has taken me all over the globe, Brazil, Italy, Slovakia, Japan, to name a few, but one of the highlights of my karate life came when I, along with my great friend Simon Staples, made the trip to the Mecca of Shotokan karate,the Japan Karate Association, in Tokyo, Japan. We stayed at Sensei Nakayama's private Dojo, the famous Hoitsugan in Ebisu , just round the corner from the Honbu JKA dojo, training 3 times a day (with a day off on Sunday) for 3 months, having to return as our funds ran out. I trained with many of the top instructors at the JKA and on some occasions had near on, one-to-one lessons with some. Training in England and Europe has meant that I could train with as many top Instructors outside of Japan as well. Sensei Enoeda is by far the biggest Karate name I have trained under probably in the world, and will be sorely missed now that he has sadly passed away. I still manage to get to courses with top instructors enriching my karate, and character, as well as training under my own instructors, Sensei Dewey, Sensei O'Donnell and Sensei Hazard whenever I can.

Having achieved the grades of Shodan (01/11/87), Nidan (05/11/89), Sandan (07/03/93) and my current grade of Yondan (15/09/02), I am at present the Principal Instructor at the Honbu dojo, Portsmouth Karate Club, imparting as much of my knowledge and wisdom that I can to all that want to learn; from that of which I have picked up through my ongoing journey in karate.