Shihan Alex Karnasopoulos
5th dan

Shihan Alex began her karate journey in 1999 with Shihan Trevor Tockar, trained under Shihan Kenny Uytenbogaardt for many years and operated her own dojo in Cape Town for 4 years. She achieved her shodan in 2004, and was graded to nidan (2007), sandan (2011), yondan (2017) and godan (2024) by Kancho Matsui.

Alex takes every opportunity to attend international seminars and black belt conferences and has been trained by instructors from all corners of the Kyokushin globe.

She was Australian National Kata Champion in 2009, 2010, and 2012 and won both individual kata and group kata in both Australia and New Zealand Nationals in 2012. She has held 15 kata titles (the most recent being the 2014 US Senior Kata title) and 7 fighting titles, and has competed in 7 World Tournaments for kata. Shihan Alex retired from fighting after her middle weight win at Australian Nationals in 2012.

She is a registered IKO judge and travels to Japan regularly.

Shihan Alex ran the North Bondi dojo kids program, teen program and adult novice and intermediate programs until May 2019. Even though she has moved on and will be relocating to the US in the near future, she will always be an integral part of our Dojo family.