Sensei Frank Brennan

Frank Brennan (8th Dan) is a legend within UK Shotokan karate and had a glittering competitive career from 1974-1990. 

He is now one of the foremost senior instructors for the KUGB (Karate Union of Great Britain) and carries out training sessions and gradings for all kyu grades at Sendai Newcastle.

Frank Brennan was born in the City of Liverpool on the 6th of May, 1960.   In 1973 he joined  the Red Triangle Karate club and started to train under the tuition of Andy Sherry.

His introduction to Karate competition was in 1974, when he competed in the KUGB Northern Regional Championships. He entered the Junior Kata event, which he won. He was a 4th Kyu at the time, and it was indicative of things to come that he won the first competition he ever entered. His introduction to Kumite Shiai was even more dramatic. In 1975, while fighting for the Red Triangle team, Bob Poynton broke his leg in one of the matches. The team has no reserves, so the young brown belt, who had only entered the Kata event, was suddenly in the final of the Team Kumite event against Leeds. He fought one of Leeds' most experienced fighters, Andy Harris, and decisively beat him, scoring with a fast Ushiro Geri followed a few seconds later with a Jodan Mawashi Geri to help Red Triangle win yet again.

His first international appearance was with the KUGB Squad in the European Championships in Sweden in 1978, where he came 2nd in the Senior Kata event. The next year, in Belgium, he won both the Senior Kumite and Kata events to become Grand Champion of Europe at the age of 19, a feat that he achieved no less that four times.

As a fighter, he is rather unique, in that he has no particular speciality - he is equally at home using hands or feet, and quite often surprises his opponents with very dynamic combinations of some of the more unusual hand or foot techniques. As a senior member of the KUGB International Squad he led the KUGB team to victory over Japan in the 1990 JKA World Shotokan Championships in. He is held in great respect internationally - in an interview at the World Championships, the Japanese team coach, Ex-World Champion Masahiko Tanaka said that the one man that the whole Japanese Team were specifically trained to beat was Frank Brennan.

He is a staunch and loyal supporter of the KUGB, and works very hard to further the aims of the Association. Asked recently what he thought were the main strengths of the KUGB, he replied:

''The KUGB is fantastic. It has shown itself to be one of the great associations of the World, and I'm not just speaking about success in competition. I refer more to the attitude and dedication displayed by its members - people who practice Karate as an art who constantly train for the perfection of their technique, that's what I really like about it. Nothing is perfect, and there may be some glitches on the route, but it is a bit like life, like evolution - things change and get better, and I can only see the KUGB getting better all the time.''