Our INstructors
Sensei Len Sim is Hachidan (8th Dan), Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karate. He began training in March 1967, and started Wokingham Karate Academy in 1984. Sensei Henrieheta Sim is Nanadan (7th Dan) and set up the junior section of the club in 1985. Henrieheta holds a bronze medal from the 1991 World Championships in Okinawa, Japan.
Skills and knowledge in coaching, safety, teaching children, supporting those with special needs, refereeing and first aid are all basic requirements for a karate instructor and all of our instructors have attended many appropriate courses and gained qualifications to help maintain the high standard of our club, including being CRB checked to enhanced level.
Sensei Henrieheta Sim began training in 1975 in Booysens, Johannesburg, and gained Shodan in July 1985, at the IOGKF Gasshuku in Stellenbosch, South Africa, where she met her future husband, (who made no mention of this in his section above!) She moved to England and Sensei James Rousseau gave her away at their wedding in January, 1986.
Henrieheta represented English Goju-Ryu internationally and won a number of UK Gold medals for kata. Her competition highlight was winning the ladies bronze medal for Kata at the IOGKF World Championship in Okinawa in 1991. At the associated IOGKF Gasshuku she met the Prince of Mongolia and had one-to-one training with one of the IOGKF advisors, Sensei Aragaki.
Her skills as a teacher of karate are enhanced by her qualifications in a number of therapies including Seitai, Kinesiology, Functional Biochemistry and Therapeutic Massage. Seitai is Japanese Osteopathy and she spent three years studying it in Oxford under Sensei Tatsu Nakamura. (He restricted his teaching to martial artists and was a 5th Dan Kyokyushinkai karate-ka and ex-Kyokyushinkai world karate champion.) In August 2013, she was successful in grading for 7th Dan. This was awarded by Shihan James Rousseau, 9th Dan.
The Sims have two sons who have made black belt. Lenny reached Nidan and David reached Sandan.
Sensei Ivan Levanthal 4th Dan has moved to our area a couple of years ago and learned his GojuKai in South Africa. He is Sensei Henrieheta’s nephew and participated in the famous 1979 Gasshuku in Poole Dorset at the age of nine. Sensei Higaonna stayed with the Sims for a couple of days and spent a few hours in the garden teaching Ivan. Quite an honour!
Sensei Warren Koe is the club’s welfare officer and helps teaching in our kids classes. He gained his Shodan Black Belt at the GKI Gasshuku in England in 2023.
Black belts produced by the club include…
Lawry Moss, John Foster, Mathew Taylor, James Cook, Jerry Sherlock, Lenny Sim, Peter Fallowell, John Taylor, Robin Edwards, Philip Edwards, David Sim, Daphne Birkitt, Dan Bass, Ben Caird, Paul Morrison, Alex Sim, Bill Cuzzocrea, Terry Perks, Ann Rich, Mathew Taylor, Norma Robertson, Roger Deed, John Barnes, Carolyn Sim, Darren Pickard, Graham Ingleby, Raj Phull, James Sibley, Charlie Weaver, Sarchan Phull, Niyor Gogoi, Warren Koe