Teenager Matthew Turner struck jodo gold at the European Championships in Arnhem, Holland.

The 19-year-old from Peacehaven claimed the Turner prize by winning all seven of his contests in the Second Dan category.

It was the first time jodo had been included in the European Championships.

Turner said: "I didn't know how I would get on because all my previous experience of jodo had been in this country.

"It's really satisfying. You don't really go there with the sole intention of winning. You treat it as another practice, another way of improving - it's just that they give us medals.

"A sport is solely for competition and winning but that's not what martial arts are and I don't think there's the remotest possibility it will become an Olympic sport.

"Going into the Olympics has done a lot of damage to judo by turning it into a sport, not a martial art like jodo."

A former pupil of Tideway Community School, Newhaven, and BHASVIC, Turner practises two forms of martial art at the Shin Bu Kan Club, Carden Junior School, Hollingbury.

He said: "They involve the mastery of the Japanese sword (iaido) and the use of a stick (jo) to enable defence against a sword (jodo).

"It's a skill and a lot of philosophy goes with it. Both words end in 'do', meaning 'the way of', so everyone is trying to master the way of the sword.

"There haven't been, and won't be for a while, any 8th Dans in Europe but we've got 7th Dans in Britain and that's where I realistically hope to get to in another 15 or 20 years.

"We're just trying to raise standards. It's still a relatively new art in England, only about 20 years old. I hope that my success will possibly encourage people to train harder in martial arts and improve in their own way.

"The correct study of martial arts is to study everything that comes with it.

"My study doesn't just stop at the physical side. I study Zen Buddhism, Buddhist text and the history of martial arts that I practise.

"It's impractical to become a fully-fledged Buddhist but I would say I try as much as possible to follow a Buddhist way of living in terms of trying to be a better person."