Singing was a very popular pastime at the sayonara parties in the early days. The master of ceremonies would call on someone to start and then he would ask the next person to sing etc. Having lived in Japan I was aware of what was going on so I had a very simple song prepared just in case. But for some people it came as a little shock.
Well by know everyone is back in their own countries after a hectic few days in Japan. The World tournament is only held every four years, but what a tournament, on the final day Tokyo metropolitan Gymnasium was sold out.
The atmosphere was electric, for those who had travelled from far away it must have been a great experience. The fighting was hard, but I thought that low kicks where not so popular this time, rather the kaiten or rolling kick seemed to be in favour. Low kick were used but I can’t remember seeing any scores from them, but we did get some spectacular knockouts with no injuries.
Anyway after the Tournament there was the usual Sayonara party, but for many it was not sayonara as we had our seminar and grading yet to come. The seminar was full, we had 420 participants from 49 countries and 109 who wanted to grade, this was the biggest so far. So you can see that the WKO Shinkyokushinkai organization is growing.
Trying to give as much knowledge to so many in such a short time was hard, but I did my best, after the seminar there was the usual grill party where the students who passed the grading was announced.
All in all a very successful trip to Japan, we should say thank you for all the work that was done before hand to make the event a tremendous success.
Honbu 1971 consisted of a basement where there were changing rooms and showers. The first floor was the entrance and a small dojo, the second floor was the main dojo and then the office and finally Sosai’s living quarters. I lived behind Honbu at the uchi-deshi apartment.
In this clip I am showing some application ideas of mawashi uke and kake uke. I also let the students practise different levels of bunkai in groups and make them analyse different techniques so they can come up with their own ideas. This helps them to understand what they are doing.
Are you the kind of person who runs into the dojo at the very last minute and then thinks about Training? Most of us like to get to the dojo at a reasonable time in order to stretch and warm up a Little. My blog this time is about when do you start preparing to train, here are some simple tips for you.
So don’t think that your training starts when your instructor says Hajime, think again.
We started 2015 with a small demonstration at a local shopping centre, it was only for 15 minutes. 15 minutes to show what Kyokushin is all about is an almost imposable task. We demonstrated Kihon, ido keiko and then using focus mits to show some good power and energy using kicks and punches which seemed to impress the spectators and finally some tameshiwari. Even after all these years tameshiwari is still the most popular.
So the year has started for Gothenburg’s Karate Kai, let’s hope it’s a good one.
It seems that wherever I go in the world Kiai is slowly disappearing. Its slowly being replaced by something that sounds like an old steam train. Kiai should represent a combination of energy and technique culminating in ichigeki, the final blow the finishing technique. What we have now sounds like someone trying to blow out a candle. Get back to basics and practice your Kiai.
This is one of the reasons we have steps outside the dojo. Sometimes you have to test yourself in different ways, walking up steps on your hands or seiken is just one way to do that. We took advantage of the nice weather to do some outside training on a Friday night. There was also the usual hopping up the stairs, running etc hopefully this helps strengthen the legs. You just have to be careful when doing such training in fact you should always be careful.
As in instructor you should always be aware if any of your students have any injuries that might prevent them from performing a particular movement safely if that is the case give them an alternative.
Shield training a training system based on Kyokushin karate fitness training. A new concept for those who do not train karate but need to challenge themselves. Not only will you improve your stamina and strength but during the process you will learn to hit and kick safely. The instructors have lots of experience and are qualified by me so you will be in good hands.
During my two years in Japan apart from the training there were lots of publicity photographs. At the time I did not appreciate them but now I value the memories they give me of my days at Honbu. Camps, grading’s and competitions.