Mathew Pearman

I am standing for the president of UCL Karate because over the last few months training I have come to really care for the members of the club and the direction that it is travelling in.

I have been doing karate for quite a few years, over a few clubs, and UCL Karate is one of the best I have had the honour of training at. I personally share a lot of the values that the club and Kofukan England hold, and I want to be able to help develop them in the mentality of the practitioners here; values that create well-rounded karatekas who have goals and know how to attain them. I have my own ideas of what it means to 'study'/'train'/'do' karate, what it means to climb belts and hold a black belt, and these principles gives me the enthusiasm and ambition that I have for the art. I come from a Shotokan background and I am learning (slowly) to shake off the tense, sharp training style that I am used to, but starting over with something so different has only encouraged me to try that little bit harder to achieve what I want (not too far from the white belts who have just successfully passed their first grading).

I still have lifetimes of karate to learn, but nothing would make me happier than continuing that journey with UCL Karate as my club, representing them as their president.