Welcome to St Pats Karate Club

St Pats Karate club was set up in February 2007 with just one class 5/7pm every Friday, by instructor Sensei Rob Green. He was approached by a project called Grangetown and Butetown healthy living program and they supported the club financially for the first four weeks. The club was based at St Patrick’s Parish Hall Grangetown. That is were the name of our clubs come from.

Sensei Rob is a very experienced karateka, with over 30 years experience in Shotokan karate and having experience running 4 other clubs in Ely, Cathays, Splott and Trowbridge. He is a very active karateka competing in tournaments and attending training courses.

 In February 2007 while with the WSKA under chief instructor Sensei Gabriel Operanta who was Sensei Robs instructor since 1985, Sensei Rob opened his St Pats Club completely on his own, but did and still does have the great support from his wife Sue Green, who is the club secretary with a lot of experience running clubs.

With just one class at St Patricks Parish Hall, demand grew for more classes. Sensei Rob had a meeting with Mr Paul Catris head teacher of St Patrick’s School Grangetown at the meeting it was agreed that karate would run as an after school club on Mondays 4.45/5.45pm. This was and still is a great success with 25 to 30 students training every session.

By December 2007 the club had entered 10 tournaments picking up no less than 33 medals including three Welsh titles. With such success Sensei Rob decided it was time to move the club to another level leaving the WSKA and joining the VGKO (Vale of Glamorgan karate Organisation) The Vales Chief instructor is Sensei Robert Copeland and club secretary Cathy Copeland. The decision to leave WSKA was not made lightly Sensei Rob had been with the WSKA for 25 years, but with the VGKO being the most successful organisation in Wales, he decided this was the best move for the club, as the vale would show great support to the club in terms of high standard karateka for our students to train with, a great instructor for Sensei Rob and great administration guidance from Cathy for Sue.

In March 2008 Sensei Rob opened another after school club in St Cuthbert’s Cardiff Bay.Again this class was a success with 15 to 25 students at each session.
With the reputation of St Pats Karate Clubs growing Sensei Rob opened a class in St Paul’s Parish Hall Grangetown. With 20/25 students’ training in St Paul’s he was very pleased at how well the clubs were growing.
At all the clubs Sensei found that he had a growing number of students under 7 years old wanting to train so he opened a class at St Paul’s for students aged 4 to 7 years this class was opened up every  sunday 11.45/ 12.30 and was called Little Samurai. karate club This class is a fun way to introduce young children to Shotokan karate. We have a club mascot that comes in most Sessions to train with the children (they love him) his name is Phoenix the cat. Little Samurai also has its own grading system to help develop the students. Sensei Rob wanted this class to be great fun, with the students learning karate by using the kick bags and other items so the children would enjoy an introduction to Shotokan karate. (we now have a little samurai karate class every saturday  in st pauls hall paget street grangetown at 11.15-12.00 ) ,  Rob then opened another class in the gathering place st athans and in a different part of Cardiff, The Holy Family School Pentrabane. 

in September 2008 he opened 3 more classes in Woodlands Special Needs School, Howells College and The Star Sports Centre in splott. And further a field in St Athan he opened 2 more classes in the Gathering Place.

in febuary 2010 st pats moved associations for the last time this time to the WSKO  under sensei jason ashcroft the reason for this was because the VGKO had slightly changed the structure of its grading system and the rules with in the association no longer suited the students of st pats karate club , this was a with great sadness has the club had enjoyed great sucess under the VGKO  and competiton karate but rob green felt in order for us to move forward we needed to be with a different organisation that would allow the club to move forward but still have guidence in terms of karate , and the WSKO has given us , during the first 6 months of 2010 the club focused on a new jouney with disability karate the club set up a disibility class and set out to find students that would like to take part in shotokan karate this was a great struggle to start but it is now a great sucess with the club haveing about 20 students with some kind of disibilty ranging from wheelchair students , visually impaired and blind students , and also teaching students with ceribal puarse and learning disibiltys with rob also looking for students with hearing impediments and deaf stuents having already had the pleasure of teaching such students at cetain venues such as llanishen high school in cardiff as well as in aber vale this has been a sucess and with the aim to be to get these guys into the competitons , in july 2010 bbc wales today filmed the club for the disability class a head of a competiton hosted by the WKGB in this competiton the WKGB held 2 disability catergories for disability kareate students and the jouney to help make disability karate in competion had taken a big step , the club then regained the competion curcuit winning a few more medals but most of all making a big impact into disability karate , we feel that we know have a wide range of classes with a reel future for karateka of all ages gender and ability with a grading syllabus to keep to tradition of shotokan karate going and also with the students know learning the 20 precepts of gichin funakoshi , as well as soon having to know and perform  the application of the katas they are learning to grade thanks to the knowlege passed on to the club through the WSKO

In 2010 rob started to teach to the special need unit in cantonian high school and managing to get 4 students active outside of school and even getting them to compete at national competitons and even on the BBC tv with one of the students becoming a reining welsh champion , the school were so inpressed with the progress of these students produced an artictle of them on the front page of there annual newsletter in december 2010 this has even been noted on the welsh karate governing body web site under school kids kick start karate , all of these students now train with the main stream class out side of school and there confidence is very high in terms of mixing with other children , students and more importantly what ability they have .

With rob having the difficult task in trying to recrute new students for the disability group opened up a class every saturday for disability karate even with the support of the media , with the BBC Wales producing an atricle on one of there programs and the south wales echo also producing an article in one of there papers back in 2010 on the blind and also the disability class itself , with very little funding avalible rob offered to teach volutary in the hollies special school in pentrebane in cardiff this would be every monday starting in december 2010 , through the hard work and determination of both he school and st pats club they managed to give the opportunity to around 30 disabilty children and even get around 10 students to come along to the saturday class , rob then did the same in another special need school riverbank in the , ely area of cardiff giving the oportunity to another 30 students and getting a further 8 students active out side of the school on a saturday , this as been such a succsess that the hollies have arranged to start an after school karate club starting in april 2011 this is a very difficult thing to achieve for a special need school , the reason being is that most students get transported home , and this will be the very first after school club for a special need school of anykind in wales , WELL DONE TO THE HOLLIES , staff teachers and parents as well as st pats karate club . we have now got students with special needs or some kind of disability involved through the following schools and groups , cantonian high school , plas mawr high school , cathays high school , corpus christy high school , st cyris high school , cardiff institue for the blind , cardiff deaf institute , riverbank special school , llanishen high school , hollies special school , woodlands high school , erin derin special school , and we are supported and also coach at the wheelchair spectaular which is held annualy in UWIC in cardiff , the work that rob as made and produced in the feild of disability karate has been reconised by sports cardiff being nominated for disability coach of the year in 201 getting to a short list of no less than 90 coaches and getting 3rd place , rob was also nominated for disability coach of the year for wales , by sports cardiff and this progress in disability karate has even been reconised by the welsh karate governing body on there web site , and even as far as the british karate federation with the clip from the BBC also on there web site ,

We now have classes in:

7 SCHOOLS CLASSES                2 LEISURE CENTERS CLASSES            2 CHURCH HALLS CLASSES                                      
St Patricks, Grangetown               Western leisure center , ely                   St pauls parish hall , grangetown                                                                     
Windsor clive primary               
Holyfamily, Pentebane
st pauls primary
roath park primary
LLanedyn primary school
lakeside primary school

1 DISABILITY CLASS                  1  4-8 YRS CLASS                              6 HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES
St pauls hall , grangetown              St pauls hall , grangetown                     glyn deruw high school
                                                                                                          cantonian high svhool
                                                                                                          plas mawr high school
                                                                                                          corpus christy high school
                                                                                                          st cyris high school
                                                                                                          cathays high school 
VOLUTARY CLASSES 
Riverbank special school
hollies special school                

St pats karate club we feel has achieved a lot within the small time we have been running like all clubs we have had our problems to but have also come through them , we respect all karate clubs has karate is for peace not to creaate enemys the WSKA were and still are a great association with a great senior instructor , as well as the VGKO , but as all great clubs will tell you doing what is best for the club and the students it represents is what is important and st pats has found the right organisation for it to be under the WSKO this has no bad raflection on the associations it has been under and is greatfull for the knowledge they have passed on we feel that the 20 precepts are important along with the dojo kun in the world that we live in and can be used in order in making a good character mainly in children and the application of the katas needs to be learned in order for karate to be practised and know we feel we are ready to move on as a club in a great and united organisation .
St pats karate club was founded in 2007 with just 1 black belt 2nd dan and 3, 7th kyus yellow belt and just 1 class 5 - 7pm every friday , we have grown to having alsmost 30 classes a week including classes for 4 - 8 years of age , uder 16s years of age , over 16 years of age disability classes as well as that we have after school classes in 7 primary schools , 6 high school and also have lunch time classes and 2 of which are in school lesson time all running through the 5 x 60 activites in  high schools , 
we are not all about competion karate we have a syllabue which we feel covers all aspects of shotokan karate , phisical , philosiphy , technical , also kata and kumite
, we have competed in competiton and feel it is an important part of modern day karate , with in 3 years we have know got a club with history be it a small one we have competed in 39 competitons picking up 175 medals which include 29 ist places and some biig national competitons such as welsh and british championships which
you can see all 175 medals though our medal history page.
For those of you who are looking for a friendly welcoming club with a future and a real goal to develop you at performance as well as character this is the club for you.
For more information on training times view our class times on the this web site or feel free to contact rob green on 07878788034

Thank You Sensei Rob Green