Gary Foxwell 6th DAN
I began my martial arts training around early 1980’s with Tommy Kwan at Rising Sun Karate Centre in Leigh and after some years of hard training I passed my Black-Belt 1st Dan in 1985 at the tender age of 11. At about the age of 14 Sensei Kwan realising that there was something missing used his own time to refine some of my techniques and ways of thinking about Karate. From this point I never looked back, initially I started to win local championships, then regional, got my 2nd Dan and then AMA titles started to come in around the age of 17. My major break came in 1992 when initially I received my 3rd Dan and then representing both the Rising Sun and AMA I won the EKGB National Championships. This proved to be a major stepping-stone as I then began to represent England and Great Britain, my first International match was at the Junior European Championships in Cardiff again this as so many times can happen in life proved to be a steep learning curve and I returned empty handed. However I had now trained with the greats like Ticky Donovan and Tim Stephens who explained the intricacies of International competition. These training methods combined with the commitment of both Tommy Kwan and my training partners, Wes Thomas, Mike Tucker, Carl Lees, Iffy to name but a few have seen me win 1 English Junior title (92), 1 English Senor title (97), 1 British Title (97), 1 Junior European Medal (94), Italian and Spanish open medals (94) and compete in the World Games (Finland 97) and Karate World Cup (Philippines 97). At the end of 1997 I retired from competitive Karate and focused on my career where over the next decade I became a lecturer in Computing and passed my 4th and 5th Dan black belt, a club running Karate Instructor for Rising Sun, an examiner and a member of the Black-Belt grading panel, received my NVQ in Karate and a fully qualified First Aid. For all of you who are considering Karate but feel you will not succeed remember all levels of success are personal and you must set your own individual goal! It may not happen overnight but in the supportive and experienced environment of Rising Sun we can and do work together to help everyone achieve their potential.
|
Competitive Karate had always been a keen interest of mine but initially proved to be a relatively fruitless exercise having received only a couple of minor placing’s, even so I can still remember having to get up at 5 am on Sundays so my dad could take me to catch the coach to go to places such as Sunderland, Newcastle, Birmingham etc (London and further South would come much later).