Karate Union of Great Britain
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The KUGB - Karate Union of Great Britain - is a democratic body controlled by its membership and operates under an approved constitution. All positions on its committees are elected at the Annual General meeting by its members. However, the top positions rarely change hands and the founder, Andy Sherry, has been elected chairman every year since 1973. Its fully audited accounts are presented annually for approval by the AGM.
The organisation consists of over 400 clubs, all of which practice Shotokan Karate. It was established in 1966 as a democratic and non-profit making organisation for the development of Shotokan Karate and is affiliated to European and World Shotokan Karate Bodies. It has clubs established in many Sports Centres, Universities and Schools. The KUGB operated as the British arm of the JKA until the death from cancer of chief instructor Enoeda Keinosuke. Following the tragic death of Enoeda sensei, the KUGB unanimously elected Andy Sherry as chief instructor. Sensei Sherry now holds the rank of 8th Dan and continues to lead the KUGB.
The election of Andy Sherry rather than the JKAs preferred candidate, Ohta Yoshinobu sensei, lead the JKA to disown the KUGB in 2003. While this has had a minimal impact at club level, the JKA did prevent the KUGB from using their "rising sun" or "inyo" logo which had been the logo of the KUGB for many years. Since 2003, the KUGB have adopted the new logo shown above.
The KUGB has recently allied itself with the new karate division of "Sport England": the agency in charge of British athletics. Karate England is designed to promote the sporting aspect of British karate with the aim of producing a well-funded, unified team to compete internationally under the WKF ruleset, which it is hoped will encourage the acceptance of karate into the Olympic games. This is quite a drastic step for the KUGB, who have previously preferred to compete in traditional shobu ippon kumite (no padding, one solid hit can win the match) but are now more accepting of WKF kumite which uses padded gloves and fights up to nine points.
The KUGB remains the largest single-style (i.e. governing only one form of karate) karate association in the UK.
