TEENAGER Nick Richards is hoping to be big in Japan.

The York Kenshinkan Karate Club pupil has headed to Tokyo to link up with the celebrated Takushoku Karate Club.

The 19-year-old brown belt is following in the footsteps of former Kenshinkan member Richard Heselton, who has been based in Tokyo for 14 years.

Heselton, 32, is the only Westerner to have enrolled in the club having completed four gruelling years of training, rising to the status of captain in 2002.

Kenshinkan instructor Ian Tate said: “Richard has given Nick the opportunity to go and train at the same club.

“People can go as guests and Nick is going to have three months of training with them. It’s a nice link with an ex-member of our club.

“As long as you can get somebody to take you – and you are brave enough – you can go along. You have to be accepted as a member. You need to show you have got enough about you for them to spend four years training you.”

Tate added: “It is daunting. Nick will be training for six hours a day, six days a week.

“There will be no let up. It’s full on, but the amount he will learn will be amazing.”

After his Japanese jaunt, Richards will be returning to the UK to take up a place at Sheffield University.

Meanwhile, the Kenshinkan club trains at Canon Lee School, in Rawcliffe, York, on Tuesday and Thursdays, from 7pm to 9pm.

Further information about the club, which was formed in 1961 by Gordon Thompson, is available by visiting the website www.yorkkarateclub.com