The answer is: All kinds of people, and for many different reasons. What follows is a series of short profiles of members of the Shi-Gaku-Kan Karate Club that meets in Aberdeen and Peterhead, towns in the north-east of Scotland. These people are typical of members of karate dojos in Scotland and around the world. Karate is for everyone.
More profiles will be added shortly.
I am a student at Peterhead Academy, currently working towards my fourth year exams. I started karate 8 years ago when I was 7 in the Shigakukan Peterhead dojo. I first joined for a combination of two reasons, one being that my parents were firm believers that every child should be involved in an activity outside of school . . . More
Aged 21. Practising karate for nearly 6 years. I started karate as a teenager because of a film I watched, not because of the fighting you see in martial arts movies, but because of the etiquette and culture that goes along with it . . . More
I am a retired university teacher. I was born in 1944. I studied karate for about ten years starting when I was 42. I gave it up partly because I felt that I was not receiving instruction in the interior aspects of the art. I restarted about three years ago in the Shi-Gaku-Kan dojo . . . More
My love affair with martial arts and Karate in particular came about through unhappy circumstances. When I was 10–11 years old my mother was being subject to domestic violence of a rather nasty nature. One day she decided 'enough was enough' . . . More
I currently attend the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen where I study architecture. I started karate in 2001 at the age of ten after finding out about the club through Peterhead Community Centre . . . More
At 40 I am one of the older students at our club and train mainly in the Aberdeen dojo. I am a veterinary nurse of 20 years experience working for an animal charity in Aberdeen city . . . More