Instructors


New Beginners Courses! Starting soon! See New Members page for details.

Chief Instructors:
Clive Young 4th Dan Anne-Marie Box 5th Dan

Contact details:

Clive Young email
Phone: 01753 869970

Anne-Marie Box
Phone: 01344 883347

Affliated to Karate England

Instructors

Club Instructors

Clive Young, 4th Dan email

Sensei Young first started karate at Sussex University in 1972 and trained with a KUGB club. He moved to London in 1973 and joined an Okinawan karate style and was graded to 8th kyu. In 1976 he joined Shotokan Karate International (SKIF) training at the Harrow Leisure Centre dojo and gained his Shodan in 1979 and Nidan in 1981.

Anne-Marie Box, 5th Dan

Sensei Box runs the popular children's classes on Thursday evenings and also teaches at the mixed sessions on Tuesday evenings. She has been running the children's classes since 1992. She has been a student of Sensei Carpenter since starting at a beginners class over 20 years ago and has been graded at every level by Kancho Kanazawa.

More recently he has trained at Kobukan under Sensei Carpenter and was graded Sandan in 1995 and Yondan in 2003. All dan grades have been awarded by Kancho Kanazawa. He has also trained in Tai Chi for 5 years and practices the Yang Style short form.

In 1997 she gained 3rd place in the women's veteran kata in the World Championships in Milan and also took 3rd place in the National Championships for women's kata in 1999.

Chief Instructors

Sensei Kanazawa, 10th Dan, President of the Shotokan Karate International Federation (SKIF)

Sensei Kanazawa an original student of the founder of Shotokan Karate, Master Funakoshi Gichin, and has dedicated himself to the study and promotion of karate for more than 50 years. He founded the Shotokan Karate-do International Federation in 1978 and the organisation now has an estimated 2.4 million students in 106 countries. Sensei Kanazawa, now in his 70's visits the UK twice each year to teach on National Courses, but also finds the time to teach at Kobukan where students receive personalised instruction from one of the world's greatest karate masters.

Roger Carpenter, 6th Dan, Chief Instructor SKKIF

Sensei Roger Carpenter was born in London in 1945 and started karate training in 1964 at the Lyons Sports Club In Sudbury Hill, Wembley.

Originally he trained in the Wado-Ryu style and graded under Sensei Suzuki, and then changed to the Shotokan style under Kancho Kanazawa. All of his grades from 5th Kyu to 6th Dan have been from Kancho Kanazawa.
Since 1977 when Kancho formed SKIF, he has organised the schedules for Sensei Kanazawa in the UK. Originally this was for SKIEF and then for his own UK organisation, SKKIF, which now has around 30 clubs in the UK.

Sensei Carpenter is the Chief Instructor and Chairman of SKKIF and as such he undertakes bi-annual tours of all of the clubs in the association to instruct and maintain high technical standards in the organisation as well as to conduct gradings.

Assistant Instructors

Peter Crawford, 2nd Dan

Peter Crawford started karate training in 1975, at his father's Shotokan karate club in Langley, Berkshire. Since then he has studied Shotokan, Shotobudo, Goju-ryu and Matsubayashi Shorin-ryu karate as well as judo and aikido, and sees this experience as being very much complimentary to his core Shotokan training.

Peter's karate is very much centred on kata, and the interpretation and application of the moves within. This has lead him to research kata from other styles, as well as the older versions of current Shotokan kata. He is also a believer in use of training aids such as punchbags, focus pads and video to provide more technical feedback than can be obtained by just "punching air".

Peter has a deep interest in karate history, which he will inflict on slow-moving club members in the bar after training. This does not mean that he shuns modernity however, and he is a long-time member of a number of karate-related internet discussion forums.

Marc Barton, 2nd Dan

Marc started karate in 1996 at the Bank of England Karate club under Sensei Dorian Fretwell (6th dan). In 2000 he spent 3 months training at Honbu Dojo in Kugahara, Japan under Kancho Kanazawa and the Honbu dojo instructors. He graded to 1st dan in November 2001 under Hanshi Shiro Asano (9th dan ) head of the SKI European Federation. Between 2002 and 2004 he trained with Senei Shinji Akita at his dojo in Isleworth whilst working as a junior doctor in the Hospital opposite!

In March 2004 Marc graded to 2nd dan, again with Hanshi Asano, it was just prior to this that he began training at the Kobukan dojo in Windsor initially with Sensei Carpenter and now with Sensei Young and Sensei Box.

In May 2005 the Kobukan kata team - Clive, Peter and Marc won 1st place in the SKKIF National Championships.

Marc has also spent 2 years training in Wing Chun Kung Fu.

Nick Lloyd, 1st Dan

Nick first started karate in 1979 with KUGB in Brighton and graded to 7th kyu with Sensei Tomita. After a break from karate he recommenced training in 2001 with a KUGB club in Virginia Water and graded through to 1st kyu, mainly with Sensei Enoeda, but also with Sensei Ohta. In 2003 he then moved to SKKIF and started training under Sensei Carpenter at Kobukan in Windsor and was graded Shodan by Sensei Kanazawa in 2004.