Ed Barbor, 2nd Dan
Ed’s first experience in karate was in GKR in 2006 and he joined DKK in 2009. He has remained with the club ever since.
“The reason I train with DKK can be summarised as ‘because I don’t know whether I can’. At every grading I have reached a point where I’m unsure whether I can finish it and had to draw deeply from reserves which I didn’t know whether I had or not. Even lining up at the start has been a challenge sometimes – on one occasion I was so nervous on the way to a grading that I almost threw up. It’s this that makes me keep turning up for training and for gradings. It gives me a forum to test myself against criteria which I value, and to try and earn the respect of people I respect, and whose opinions I value.”
Ed graded to Shodan Ho at Summer Camp 2013 and was awarded the rank of full Shodan a year later in June 2014. In Summer 2016 he completed the gruelling 30 Man Kumite and was awarded the Nidan grade with DKK.