Firstly I would like to thank you all for choosing me to be your karate instructor. It is a responsibility I take very seriously.
2024 has been a great year for our dojo. It is a year that I feel we have matured and created a strong foundation that will drive us forward for many years to come. The number of brown belts we now have is the largest we have ever had and there are lots more to come through in the next couple of years from all the great people we have in the greens, blues, and purple ranks. We also have some great committed students in our beginner ranks and I am very excited to see what the next year brings for them.
With so many great established students in place we will now be looking to recruit new members to the dojo so please spread the word, tell everyone how great the Gold Coast Chito-Ryu Karate dojo is and invite them to come and experience it for themselves.
Our leadership team members have gone from strength to strength and many of them are now very capable of taking their own classes. In 2025 we will look to increase their responsibilities as we continue to guide them to be even more amazing teachers. In 2025 we will also be looking to bring more members into our leadership team so if this is an area of interest to you please speak with myself or register to be a member of the leadership team in the eDojo.
Annual Award Winners
As the year comes to an end we present our end of year awards. We have always only handed out a couple of awards each year making winning one of these a very significant achievement. This year in particular there were many stand outs and choosing our winners was a difficult decision. I would like to congratulate each of our annual award winners.
- Little Champions Karateka of the Year – Ophelia Wu Leng
- Karate Kids Karateka of the Year – Henry Ho
- Senior Karateka of the Year – Siani Symons
- Budoka of the Year – Tom Allibone
Keep an eye on the news section of the website for more details of the great year all these people have had to win their awards.
2026 Soke Cup
In 2025 we will begin our serious preparations for the 2026 Soke Cup. As the host of this event our preparations will form two parts. One will be preparing our athletes to be ready to compete on the world stage. The other will be in planning the event. As the host we will be asking all our members for assistance across many different areas, from sponsorship to volunteers. Keep an eye out in the new year for notices about this.
For our athletes I am proud to announce our coaching team. It is a very experienced and knowledgeable team and I am sure they will lead you all to achieve your absolute best.
- Kata Coach – Sam Lenton
- Kumite Coach – Brendan Young
- Kobujutsu Coach – Kazumi Tominaga
- Support Coach – Anthony Horgan
Special training sessions, information sessions and more will be advised in the new year.
2024 Highlights
In a big year there are a couple of highlights I would like to note:
During the year both Brendan Sensei and Sam Sensei were promoted to nidan (2nd degree black belt), this a great personal achievement for each of them and a significant step forward for the Gold Coast dojo. When I first started the dojo 20 years ago I was only ranked shodan so to now have a dojo with shodan and nidan ranked students is pretty special. Over the next couple of years I look forward to seeing many more black belts join our ranks.
Another highlight for me was seeing Anthony Horgan Sensei finally get to open his own dojo. Anthony was my first serious student who started training in my garage and inspired me to make teaching karate my lifestyle. To see him progress to now be able to open Brisbane Chito-Ryu Karate is very special to me.
And finally with so many great classes, events, tournaments and more one event really stood out to me and that was the visit of Michael Noonan Kyoshi. Not only was it fantastic to see first hand what high level karate can look like, even more pleasing was the way so many of our members made the effort to attend the classes. And even more pleasing was how respectful, focused and the spirit they showed was. It was a very proud moment for me to see our dojo represented so well.
Once again a big thank you to everyone for a fantastic year I look forward to an even bigger and better 2025 as we celebrate 20 years of Gold Coast Chito-Ryu Karate.
Adam Higgins, Shihan