Hi, my name is Nigel Furness one of the parents of the many athletes from Chris Ewing Karate (CEK) in Musselburgh. 10 of the karate fighters and the head coach from CEK have been selected to represent Scotland in the WADO_KAI International Open at the Nippon Budokan, Tokyo Japan, in August 2025.

The athletes are aged between 15 and 27 (4 females and 6 males) and dedicate themselves to their sport both competing and coaching other youngsters in the club.

Why are we raising funds, well Karate is a self funded sport and to compete at the highest levels, all athletes have to commit to competitions all over the world in order to achieve selection for World Level , such as the WADO-Kai International Open.

In the last 12 months these athletes have competed in Dubai, Georgia, Poland, Spain, South Africa, China, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Sweden, Belgium, Cyprus as well as across the United Kingdom. As you can imagine this is a drain on all their supporters. All funds raised are used to assist members of the club to attend a variety of competitions, subsidising buses in UK and off setting travel costs where appropriate and possible to allow as many as possible to compete.

The ten athletes we are currently looking to support have reached International level, with a chance of World Level medals.

Not wanting to receive funds for nothing the team are taking on the following challenge:

It is approximately 10,000Km to Tokyo, so the aim is to complete a 12 hour step up challenge of 1 step up for every Km, so 10,000 step ups.

So if you can donate, please support the 10 young athletes who are trying to complete the journey of a life time, competing in their chosen martial art at the home of Karate.

Every penny helps.