Luca at the World Championship of Karate Australia Oct 25

Hello,

Our 15-year old son Luca has started Karate in September 2024. He attended the ISKA English Championship in April 2025, after only 7 months of doing karate, competing in the Kata Traditional Hard Style 15-17 and winning silver :-)

Together with other young people of the amazing Sean Kinsella Martial Arts team, he has been invited to represent England at the World Championship in Australia in October this year.

Luca had always wanted to do karate but somehow we never really followed it up. It's not a sport any of us is familiar with. Instead he did years of gymnastics and trampolining, in between other things. Finally last September Luca insisted that he wanted to start and had his first lessons of both karate and kickboxing.

Straight away Luca loved both karate and kickboxing. He seemed to pick it up quickly and to go through the different colour belts at speed. His trainer, Sean Kinsella, said Luca was very talented and he gave him an excellence award the week before the English championship.

Kata is like a sequence of karate moves and techniques. Luca did ever so well, he has a wonderful presence and focus on the tatami. He's now keen to learn a more complex Kata for the world's championship in Australia.

Just mentioning Australia sounds a bit unreal. We're still working out how we can organise it all, but one thing is for sure, this is far beyond our means, but we are also clear that we cannot have him miss this life time opportunity.

Doing karate and kickboxing has given Luca a focus and helped with his confidence too. He goes to the gym twice a week and trains in karate and kickboxing two evenings a week too.

And he practises all the time at home, walking around our house doing Kata movements, throwing his feet up in the air!

It's so nice to see Luca enjoying himself. He really likes how Sean teaches them.

Sean's team did ever so well at the championship, winning many medals, but also supporting and cheering each other. What a fabulous group of young people they are!!

A few of our friends have mentioned the idea of doing a fundraiser and we know that other people have also seeked the sponsorship of local businesses too. So we will try everything and thank you all for reading this far.

So if you can spare a couple of pounds, we would be very grateful.

Also, if you know of a business that would like to be represented at the World Championship of Karate, please do get in touch :-)