Ken Hori - Club Instructors

6th Dan
Chief Instructor

Ken is the Chief Instructor of the club.

He began training karate in 1987 with CUKC under Eric Pich Sensei, with regular visits by Keinosuke Enoeda Sensei. Ken was the Men’s Captain in 1989-90, and again in 1999-2000 when he was back for his postgraduate degrees. Ken won Team Kata gold for CUKC at BUCS four times (1990, 1999, 2000, 2001), as well as Individual Kumite and Kata silver and bronze medals in 2001 & 2002 for which he was awarded the Full Blue. During this period Ken also won individual and team medals at KUGB Nationals, KUGB National Students and Central Regions Championships, winning no less than 28 medals competing for CUKC, as well as being in the winning side of the Varsity Match on 6 occasions. Ken still holds the club record for the shortest time taken from white to black belt (2 years 7 months).

From 2005 till 2019 Ken trained regularly with Yoshinobu Ohta Sensei, the Chief Instructor of JKA England, at Oasis SKC in London, during which time he became the National Kata Champion at the 2012 JKAE Nationals. In the same year he also won Individual Kata gold and Individual Kumite bronze at the JKAE Four Nations Cup. Ken was also the Assistant Coach for the JKAE national team until 2019.

Ken passed his 5th Dan with Ueki Shuseki Shihan of JKA in 2015 and 6th Dan with Kawasoe Sensei in 2023. Ken also holds Instructor (B), Referee (B) and Examiner (C) JKA International Licences.

Ken now runs his own club, Cambridge Karate Dojo, which is affiliated to JKA WF England headed by Masao Kawasoe Sensei.

When he is not teaching or training karate, Ken can be found lecturing MSc courses in Economics and Finance at Birkbeck, University of London, where he is currently the Head of Department at the Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics.