Chief Instructor for the Associated Karate Schools Sensei Anthony Barrett has many years of karate experience having first walked into a dojo in 1976 at the age of 7 and trained in traditional karate throughout his school years. As a young adult, inspired by the thought of sparring and competition, he later joined UKA and trained in styles Wado-Ryu and Shito-Ryu along with competition karate. He went on to gain a wealth of competition experience with the Shikon National Squad. He competed for over 10 years at Senior National and International level and was selected to represent England in 1997 and his competition performances have been featured on Sky Sports.

Being a former pupil of Leventhorpe School and living in Bishop's Stortford for many years, made the town the natural choice of location for the opening of his first Karate School in 1995.

He has passed on his competition experience to his students who have also gone on to achieve National and International success. See the Major Honours Record.

After many years of training, competing and working alongside Sensei Anthony Barrett, Senior Instructor Sensei Ian Warren opened his first Karate School in 2001 in Saffron Walden.

Continuing to teach and train together, in 2008 they joined forces and founded "Associated Karate Schools" a registered association with the English Karate Federation, which is the Governing Body for karate in England. 

This is a group of schools that strongly believe that if you are looking for more than a hobby and you truly want to learn to defend yourself through karate, firstly you must have a good foundation of well structured traditional karate along with regular fitness training and sparring is essential. Associated Karate Schools offers exactly this, teaching the Wado-Ryu traditional syllabus and advanced Shito-Ryu Kata along with sparring, practical street-style self-defence, sport karate and fitness training which includes fun games for the younger students and the young at heart.