Lichfield Wado Ryu Karate Club

Congratulations to everyone who passed their gradings last weekend!
A big day for the club with junior and senior gradings taking place throughout the day.
I know how hard all students have worked towards this grading, with some of the seniors delaying their gradings in March to allow more time to improve on certain areas.
Some students taking their first grading, and some taking their last kyu belt grading! And one individual having the courage to retake a senior belt grading following a failed grading in March, and absolutely smashing it!
Well done everyone. We are celebrating;
3 new 9th kyu red belts; Lily, Lily-Anne and Poppy
5 new 7th kyu orange belts; Sophie, Stuart, Harry, Eva and Paula
1 new 6th kyu green belt; Ant
4 new 3rd kyu brown belts; Luke, Emi, Liz and Chris
4 new 2nd kyu brown white belts; Al, Laurie, Hayden and Beata
And 3 new 1st kyu brown black belts starting the final stage of their journey towards their Shodan; Charlie, Huey and Vic - lots of very hard work ahead but enjoy the push, set the example and take pride in what you have achieved so far!
Well done everyone 👊

Grading time! Good luck those grading today!

Bit late with this one…but well done to our small squad who represented the club at The UAK competition last weekend in Burntwood!
Well done to Maia, Beata and Liz who competed in tough categories for kata. More valuable experience gained. Congratulations to Liz for achieving a Gold medal in ladies 18 and above 10th to 4th kyu kata.
Tough kumite matches for our sparring competitors this time, with Maia now stepping up against seasoned black belt competition, but she held her own and we are all proud to support her. Beata came close in her round but was narrowly defeated, still a great effort though!
And for our first timers Riley and James, fantastic effort in their kumite category against either higher grades or more experienced competitors. But they got well and truly stuck in and we are all proud of them for having the nerve to get up there and have a go!
And thank you to Jo who gave up her Sunday morning to step in and help out with the judging at short notice. Valuable experience for her which she quite enjoyed!

That’s a wrap! What a year for the club! The first new Shodan under our instruction, competition success, plenty of new members joining the ranks and great progression for students.

Huge congratulations to our 2025 Student of the Year Luke! Very very well deserved. Luke trains very hard and diligently, always stays focused, helps others, has fantastic technique and has bags of potential! Keep up the good work Luke!

The year finished with some silly Christmas games including 3 legged sparring, horseback sparring, break roll races, blind fold kata, piggy back kata, dodge ball, sensei says, murder basketball and musical statues with kata!

Thank you to everyone for my wonderful hamper and for making the club so special! Thank you to the Dan grades who are always willing to lend a hand teaching and helping, I couldn’t do it without you!

Have a great Christmas and see you in the New Year!

For a little side gig our competition side doesn’t do too badly! With gradings so close I can’t say we put much prep time towards this one. But that didn’t stop them! Well done team!
Gold for Liz for vets intermediate individual kata
Silver for Maia for ladies 15-17 yrs advanced kata
Silver for Liz and Chris for over 18s pairs kata
Well done Chris and Hayden for some great performances in your individual categories too and Hayden for stepping up and representing the club for the first time.

For us competitions are a bit of fun, something different and a bit of a social event for the club too! A very small competition this time but still good experience!

Well done all!