History of Walid Rashid

Official Biography

Walid Rashid began practicing Karate in 1982 in Baghdad, Iraq. From his early years, he competed in Kata and Kumite under the Japanese Karate Association system and successfully passed Dan examinations under certified Japanese instructors.

Seeking higher technical development and international experience, he trained and competed in several Arab countries before permanently settling in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. There, he became affiliated with the National Dutch Karate Federation: Karate Bond Nederland (KBN), as well as the Japan Karate Association (JKA) and the Shotokan Karate International Federation (SKIF) under the supervision of its founder, Soke Hirokazu Kanazawa.

For more than four decades, he has remained actively engaged in Karate, receiving direct instruction from Soke Kanazawa and participating in all technical courses conducted by him. He also attended numerous advanced European and Japanese seminars with leading Japanese Masters, including:

Kanazawa, Osaka, Shirai, Yahara, Sakata, Koji Abe, Miura, Enoeda, Koga, Asano, Nagai, Murakami, Nobuaki, Sawada and more.

He competed in a large number of official tournaments and achieved multiple first-place rankings in both Kata and Kumite at European and International levels, all of which have been officially documented. He also traveled to more than 37 countries to gain direct experience from European and Japanese experts in authentic Karate.

In 2021, Walid Rashid founded the Shotokan Karate-Do Organization (SKO), an officially registered international organization based in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and operating with full authorization from the competent Dutch authorities.

SKO is an official member of the National Dutch Karate Federation (KBN), providing its affiliated clubs with a formal organizational framework within the Dutch national system.

Today, SKO International includes more than 55 member countries and continues to expand worldwide, guided by its principle:

“Karate For All”