Ronin Washington SKC

26/04/2026

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14/03/2026

We would like to express our thanks for the support following the passing of John Holdsworth who has meant a lot to many people in many different ways.

If anyone would like to attend the funeral, we now have details but would request that you get in touch so we can give you them privately and it will also give us an idea of numbers. This can be done via messenger on this page, contact with Julie Nicholson or contact with Fiona Holdsworth via messenger/text/whatsapp to 07746993690.

We would love to hear about your memories of John, there will be a book at the funeral and everyone is welcome to put something in that, photos are welcome too. Or you can put something on this post or send privately and we will put them in so they can be reflected on from time to time.

13/12/2025

Delighted to announce that Christine Marshall passed her Sandan grading and Riley Calvert passed his Nidan grading today at the HDKI GB Christmas Course and Dan Grading. Both have worked extremely hard to prepare themselves for the grading, their hard work, commitment and dedication paid off. Huge congratulations from everyone at Ronin Karate Club, a great achievement and well deserved.

01/12/2025

22/06/2025

Members of Ronin Karate Club travelled to Liverpool this weekend to train with Scott Langley Sensei. A fantastic seven hours of inspirational karate with lots of principles to take away and integrate into our training.

A Dan grading followed the course and we are delighted to announce that Mark Adamson successfully passed his Sandan (3rd Dan) grading. Congratulations to Mark from everyone at Ronin Washington and Ronin Seaham, this is a great achievement and well deserved.

Thank you to Randori Shotokan Karate Club for organising and hosting and to HDKI GB for providing such fantastic opportunities.

15/06/2025

Great to see Jonathan and Riley representing Ronin at HDKI GB Squad today. As always fantastic spirit and attitude from both!

28/05/2025

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19/05/2025

Great to see Riley Calvert stepping up and representing HDKI GB at the 2025 HDKI Ireland Open Championships. Well done Riley!

10/05/2025

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Shotokan Karate Magazine Issue 164 JUNE 2025
FEATURES JULIE NICHOLSON 7th Dan HDKI
Julie Nicholson was born in Jarrow, Tyne & Wear in the North East of England in November 1964. She began her Shotokan karate training in 1975. We featured an earlier interview with Julie in SKM Issue 66 February 2001. So, it’s interesting to now read her views and ideas after 24 more years of continuous training, plus her extensive teaching experience. Many subscribers in the UK and in Europe will know Julie Nicholson from her incredibly successful competition days where she had a fantastic career. She won 15 KUGB Kata titles and was a three-times European Kata Champion. Julie Nicholson made history in 2001 at the KUGB National Championships when she became the first woman to become Grand Champion. She won both the Individual Kata and Kumite events. Julie was an active member of the KUGB National Squad from 1983 until 2001 when she retired from International Competition. From the beginning of her career Julie was coached by her husband, John Holdsworth sensei 7th Dan, who provided the structure, guidance and encouragement to keep going in order to reach her goals. Both are now members of HDKI. I think it’s fair to say that SKM is more focused on featuring karateka who have passed the competition years of their own karate journey. From the conversations I’ve had, that goes for many subscribers/readers of the magazine. It’s a period which many karateka go through. l would like to conduct more interviews with younger karateka but the majority only want to talk about their competition career or tournament karate in general. Again, we have a good, varied choice of articles in this issue, one very interesting piece by Tim Hanlon (USA) a student of the late Hidetaka Nishiyama regarding teaching karate; namely, are instructors actually, ‘Showing or Showing Off’.
Editor.
https://www.shotokanmag.com/

28/04/2025

Great to have Simon Bligh Sensei back at Ronin Karate Club, another fantastic seminar, thank you Simon Sensei.

Working on principles of the Dan grading syllabus to prepare students both mentally and physically for their grading. Some excellent thought provoking drills and exercises to help with all elements of the syllabus.

Well done to everyone who did the mock grading, you pushed yourselves out of your comfort zone and rose to the challenge well. It is good to see improvements being made. Lots of useful feedback and ideas to assist with future training.

Thank you to everyone who came along to train, your contribution and support is very much appreciated.