IN PURSUIT
OF EXCELLENCE

ABOUT OUR KARATE SCHOOL

Based in Cardiff, CSSK has been training students for the past 40 years and have been known to produce high quality students.

Sensei Owen Sumner, after 40 years of training and teaching and becoming a former Welsh Karate squad member and champion along the way, now focuses his time and efforts on developing key attributes in his students.

About

PRINCIPLES OF OUR KARATE SCHOOL

Character

Etiquette

Sincerity

Self-Control

Effort

Leadership

meet the staff

MEET OUR STAFF

Instructor

Owen Sumner

My journey into martial arts started in the mid 1960s when I started at the local Judo club at the age of seven. Karate was my first choice, however, as the nearest Karate club was 5 miles away, my mother sent me to the local Judo club as she claimed, ‘Judo is the same as Karate’. I practiced Judo for four years until I found a Karate club closest to my home which practiced the Shotokan style of Karate. Karate was strange at first as the techniques were very different to Judo. However, with hard work and practice, soon enough I got to grips with the punching, kicking and blocking techniques. By my mid-teens I had progressed to the stage where I was entering and winning competitions, but I felt that I still needed to improve and train harder. As a result, I sought out one of the best teachers in the UK to train with when I found Sensei Enoeda, who taught me new and different methods and techniques. He helped improve my competitiveness and elevated my skills and techniques to another level which I still train with to this day after many decades. Today, these training methods, skills and life lessons that Karate has given me over the past four decades are what I strive to instil into to my students at the Cardiff Shotokan School of Karate.

“If you don't overcome your tendency to give up easily, your life will lead to nothing."

Instructor

Peter Smith

I started Karate with a group of friends initially to learn self-defence. I was never very good at sport and not very supple, but I kept on training, despite at times wanting to quit when the going got tough. I initially started my karate training in 1976 at Herbert Thompson School, Ely before moving to the Rising Sun, East Canal Wharf. I trained there till 1981 attaining 5th Kyu. After that, I trained with various clubs over the years. In 1983, I joined CSSK at Canton community centre and trained there for six years and achieved 3rd Kyu, training with the likes of Andy Sherry, Terry O’Neill, Bob Poynton, Billy Higgins, Steve Cattle and others. Being one of the first brown belts, I was invited to take part in black belt training courses in Birmingham. After being promoted at work in 1989, I worked at various locations in the UK and stayed in Bristol for a while where I achieved my 2nd Dan before moving back to Wales and eventually settling down in Hirwaun, Aberdare. During my time here, I developed a serious health condition and was advised to stop training but still took an interest in the local karate classes at the village. When I retired, my wife and I moved back to Barry to be near our family where I found CSSK on Facebook. After consultation with new medical professionals and getting the all clear, I returned back to training.

Karate has taught me discipline, respect for others and confidence in everything I do but above all, karate has taught me to never give up.

Instructor

Neil Lodge

My fascination with the martial arts began when I was a boy in the 1970s. I loved watching the TV series ‘Kung Fu’ with the wise masters of the Shaolin Temple. My father had started Shotokai Karate in the sixties with Sensei Harada, one of the first Japanese Sensei in the UK at the time, and I remember watching him practise at home, all those strange moves and kicks, they looked so magnificent. I started my own journey in Karate when I was about nineteen with a local Shotokan club, but it wasn’t until I started training with Sensei Owen Sumner a few years later that my real journey began. Over the years Sensei invested a lot of time and patience into teaching me this wonderful art. The training was tough in the early eighties and although I felt out of my depth at times, I had a stubborn side to me that wouldn’t give up. Over the years I studied with some fine teachers from the Japan Karate Association and the Karate Union of Great Britain.

I took my Shodan or first degree black belt with Kenosuke Enoeda in 1994 and continued to train with Sensei Sumner. In order to understand my Karate better I decided to study other arts like Aikido, and Buddhist meditation. Eventually I met my other long-term teacher Laoshr Damo Mitchell, who taught me the internal arts of China. I studied Baguazhang and Xingyiquan for a while before I settled on Taijiquan. Over the years I also studied Daoist meditation, Nei Gong, Qi Gong, Acupuncture and Tui Na massage.
Today, as well as my Karate, I teach Taijiquan and Nei Gong and I practice Acupuncture. My Karate has evolved a lot over the years and is now much softer and more relaxed than how I practised it when I was younger.

Instructor

Louise Rich

Growing up I used to go and watch my cousin doing karate in the local school’s sports hall. How I wanted to take part, especially when as a young teenager I saw him attain his black belt. These memories stayed with me then at 18 years of age I joined a Shotokai karate club in Cardiff. I enjoyed the training but something didn’t feel right so I started to look for another club. I went along to Cardiff Shotokan School of Karate in Cardiff and how I remember that first night. Before class I sat and watched Sensei Owen Sumner teaching a female black belt and at that moment I knew I wanted to be just like her.

I was never a natural at karate and I found the training very hard but the harder it was the harder I tried. At that age I was very thin and not very strong and some people I knew laughed and joked about me “trying to do karate”. The more they did this the more determined I became to not just prove them wrong but to prove to myself that I could do this. Sensei Sumner had great patience with me and always encouraged and supported me, he has had and still does have a great influence in my life and is always there with words of guidance, encouragement and support. There were not many females in the club at a higher grade and the men did not always hold back in those earlier days, I learnt to move fast very quickly!!

I was fortunate enough to attend training sessions with instructors from the Japanese Karate Association and the Karate Union of Great Britain. The first time I trained under Sensei Enoeda will stay in my mind forever, you could hear a pin drop when he entered the room. The training sessions were hard, dynamic and so much fun. After lots of blood, sweat, tears and broken bones I achieved Shodan in 2001 and then realised that this was just the beginning, achieving Shodan was the start of the journey.