Alice kicks her way to club’s first black belt
A MARTIAL arts group is celebrating its first black belt.
Alice Munsch, 13, kicked and punched her way to achieve her cadet black belt. Alice, a pupil at Fallibroome School, joined Voodoo Gym at eight years old. It is the gym’s first black belt since it was established seven years ago.
Dave Kari, who runs the gym on Chestergate, said: “This is a massive achievement for Alice at such a young age and we are very proud that Alice will go down in history as our first cadet black belt.
“She works incredibly hard training two hours a week at kick-boxing and two hours a week at Brazilian jiu jitsu.
“Her skills and capabilities have advanced so much over the past 12 months that we had to move her to the adult ladies class to enable her to train at a higher level.”
Dave established the Voodoo Gym in 2008 with a few friends who wanted to train together.
But in the last seven years it has gone from strength to strength and is now a full time job for Dave and his wife Amanda.
Dave added: “We now teach numerous combat sports including, boxing, Thai boxing and kickboxing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, submission wrestling and mixed martial arts, as well as many fitness, yoga, strengthening and nutrition classes.
“In 2014 our under-16 membership exploded so we had to supply more classes to meet the demand. We currently teach eight combat classes a week for youngsters, as well as the 26 weekly adult classes.”
Dave’s Martial Arts experience began more 30 years ago when he trained in traditional Japanese and Korean karate under Sensei Alf Burgoyne, Muay Thai under Master Sken and American-style kickboxing and Wado Ryu karate under Patrick Scantelberry.