12/15/22 2:14 PM Age: 22 days
By: Erik Gruhn
Dan awards
Ulla Loosen with her kata partner Wolfgang Dax-Romswinkel, on the right Angela Andree, on the left Marc Odenthal (Photo: Florian Sieber)
Ulla Loosen was the first woman from North Rhine-Westphalia to receive the 7th Dan degree from JK Hagen through the German Judo Federation. Angela Andree handed over the certificate at the training event on the new graduation regulations in Witten.
With her successes, Ulla Loosen is the most successful kata athlete outside of Japan, after the five-time world champions Yokoyama Etsuko and Omori Chigusa, the third most successful woman in the history of international kata championships to date and the only non-Japanese woman to have become a multiple kata world champion. Furthermore, nobody in the world has won more World Championship medals (nine in a row in total, eight of them since the last graduation) than the 62-year-old.
Ulla Loosen acts as uke in competitions in ju-no-kata and as tori in koshiki-no-kata. Participation in 33 international kata championships and tournaments since 2014 in Ju-no-Kata with Wolfgang Dax-Romswinkel ended with 29 x gold, 3 x silver and 1 x bronze. Both won 4 x World Championship gold and 13 x European Championship gold.
At the national kata championships, the kata pair has been unbeaten in ju-no-kata since 2011 and in koshiki-no-kata since 2017.
Ulla Loosen was appointed to the Kata Expert Commission of the European Judo Union (EJU), made a significant contribution to the “Nage-no-Kata educational project” of the IJF and is present as a speaker at home and abroad.
“Your special merits lie in the area of your own international sporting successes and international teaching activities. In both fields, she is usually very calm, but due to her achievements and personality, she is an outstanding representative of German judo in Europe and the world,” said Angela Andree, summarizing Ulla Loosen’s merits.
