Chui-Yi Lau (also known as ‘Rosie’), 4th Dan KUGB and 3rd Dan SKIF, started practicing Shotokan Karate in 1993 at the Kanazawa Ryu Shotokan Karate Centre in Wilmslow in Cheshire. Through training with Master Hirokazu Kanazawa’s organisation, she was introduced to him, his Karate, philosophy, etiquette and approach.
Rosie encountered her current instructor, Sensei Garry Harford, for the very first time when she studied at Manchester University. Her Karate flourished under Sensei Garry Harford. Not only did she have that close encounter with high quality training, she also experienced first-hand that putting one’s all into one’s training and training with a good instructor is key to pushing one’s Karate progression forward in ways that she had never experienced before.
After graduation, Rosie worked as a Business Management Consultant which demanded constant business travel. Over time, she learned that travelling is not necessarily a ‘blocker’ to her Karate training but instead can be an ‘enabler’. Sensei Garry Harford is, and still remains, her Sensei, but Rosie accepts that working away from home gives her additional opportunities to train and learn from other instructors. As an example of the many opportunities for training with different instructors, Rosie is currently training with Sensei John Parnell and Sensei David Graham at KUGB Basingstoke dojo during the week when she’s working away from home.
As well as training on both the KUGB England Kata Squad with Sensei Andy Sherry and the KUGB Central Region Kata Squad with Sensei Frank Brennan, Rosie travels to West Kirby at the weekends to train with Sensei Jimmy Brennan. Once a year, she also travels out to Tokyo Japan to train at SKIF Honbu dojo.
Over the last 9 years, Rosie has accumulated many hours of teaching experience across her 2 different karate associations, in dojos across 16 different UK locations, using a blend of different learning techniques: one-to-ones, teaching a class/assisting in a local dojo, running a special course as well as ‘studying’ how the experts teach in her Lessons from a karate master. That moment when the student’s eyes light up with joy when they
suddenly ‘get it’ is what Rosie always finds most inspirational.
Rosie has always cherished her dual-heritage Karate and aspires to continue building on this unique blend of knowledge from both her SKIF-Kanazawa-based instructors that inspire her across the world and her KUGB-Enoeda-based instructors that inspire her at home in Manchester and throughout the UK.
Master Hirokazu Kanazawa once said to her “Even a small thing is impossible unless you try”. Through karate, she has learnt that when things get tough and you start thinking you cannot, that’s the moment you must “try”.
SHOTORAMA! 