FAQs
Hi I’m Sensei Marty and I’m a First Dan black belt with GKR Karate.
I grew up in The Gap, a suburb on the north side of Brisbane.
When I was in my teens I trained at Zen DO Kai Karate also known as Bob Jones Karate.Training 5 times a week I quickly learned a lot of great skills and found it exciting and challenging. I remember the club being very disciplined and the students took the training seriously, so it was a good environment for learning this kind of martial art. Everyone respected the Sensei and they seemed to have so much knowledge and skills to share.
When I finished school and got a job, things changed and unfortunately I stopped training. As so often happens life gets in the way and years went by. I got married and then we had a family. I always thought of going back to karate but just didn’t find the time to look into it.
As our son started to grow into his teens he seem to be spending so much time on his computer and not enough time moving around, which concerned me. Then one afternoon a knock on the door and a young fella asked if we were interested in joining the local GKR Karate club. I grabbed the info and put it on the kitchen table. I wasn’t thinking at the time, but later put 2 and 2 together and thought I always wanted to go back to karate and Luke needed to exercise. Perfect, we could learn karate together. And so we did.
As soon as I stepped into that Dojo and put on my Gi I was hooked. That was 11 years ago and now I’m the Sensei and I’m still loving it. Our son has moved to Melbourne now and when he gets settled he’ll be able to find a GKR Dojo and jump back into training.
I’m so glad I got to give Luke some training in Karate. It’s a skill that stays with you because it’s reps, reps, reps and it trains your muscle memory to react.
I teach and train on the north side of Brisbane at The Gap, Region 11 which includes the suburbs of
The Gap ,Taigum, Sandgate, Petrie, Lawnton, Ferny Grove, Everton Park, Chermside West, Bray Park, Banyo and Albany Creek.
There are hundreds of students at clubs just in our region and it’s a great family orientated club.
Once you’re a lifetime member you can train at any of the GKR clubs. This means you can train every day of the week, 50 weeks of the year. So if you miss a class there’ll be other classes on somewhere else close by. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so popular.
Another thing is when you start you don’t have to feel self conscious because every other student knows exactly how you feel. They were once starting out, just like you, so everybody wants to help you learn. It’s a great atmosphere to train in.
Looking forward to you seeing you
Sensei Marty