THE dedication of Kendal based martial artist Sensei Rich Smith has been rewarded after he received the UK Martial Arts Show Hall of Fame award.

The UK Martial Arts Show awards were established by Bob Sykes, former editor of the Martial Arts Illustrated magazine, and Paul Barnett to allow martial artists to celebrate their achievements both with their friends and family and other practitioners in the wider world of martial arts.

And at the glitzy ceremony held near Nottingham at the weekend, Sensei Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame and presented with a certificate in recognition of his 40 years of training and nearly 25 years of teaching martial arts.

Earlier this year Sensei Smith achieved his lifetime goal of becoming UK’s first world champion in Sport Nunchaku, which he won at the sport's world championships in Paris.

Sport Nunchaku is an ever growing martial art made famous by legendary actor and martial artist Bruce Lee, and Sensei Smith will have the honour of hosting the world championships in September 2020 at a venue to be decided.

With the recent introduction of his online course, which is both accredited and affiliated with the Nunchaku International Academy, Sensei Smith hopes to expand the world of Sport Nunchaku by allowing people to train and be assessed anywhere in the world from the comfort of their own home.

Anyone interested in signing up to the online course please to call Sensei Smith on 07718530346 or via his Facebook page RichSmithMartialArts.

For those who would prefer to learn Sport Nunchaku or Ju-Jitsu face-to-face, Sensei Smith also runs group and private weekly classes in Kendal and Windermere.