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Selby Shotokan Karate Club

Monday, February 25, 2008

Facing Africa Appeal

On Saturday night at my TA unit we held our annual event to commemorate the battle of Rorkes drift, after a very social drinking game while watching Zulu we held a raffle.

I would like to thank members of 106 Royal Engineers for their contribution of £135 towards facing Africa.

A number of the Squadron will also be running the Sheffield half marathon in April, for our appeal.

Rebecca is hoping to raise some money through her house at school, more details to follow.

If you can think of any other ways that between us we can help, please drop me an e mail.

During the year we would like to raise enough money to cover the cost of two major reconstructive surgeries. The £135 is a great start, many thanks.

More details about Facing Africa can be viewed in the sidebar.

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Monday, February 18, 2008

The Shotokan Way Article

I had a mail from Ian Culpan yesterday saying congratulations on getting my article published in the above publication.
I had submitted it last year and had not thought any more about it.
The article was posted on this blog first some time ago, if you didn't read it please follow the link below:

http://www.theshotokanway.com/ourmastersvoice.html
The Article was Kato Shihan's comments on respect for our western instructors.

There is always the link in the sidebar to the shotokan way, it is worth checking the site out regularly.

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Sunday, February 17, 2008

Kato Shihan Course and Grading - York

I always say, "What a brilliant Course", but this weekend surpassed many others. Between the three clubs, Haxby, Selby and York we had 43 students grading and had about 60 karateka attending the training course.

A few quick thank yous, firstly Sensei, thank you again for visiting York and passing on a little of your knowledge.

Sensei Paul (from the Whitchurch mafia) for teaching at Haxby on Thursday night and entertaining us on the course and Saturday night.

Shihan Keith and Sensei Mike for supporting the course and grading, a special mention for Sensei Ian Shaw without whom these weekends would not take place.

Sensei Melina from Bulgaria, as Sensei's uke and our teacher of Heian Yondan.

To our visiting Karateka from other asscociations and Jordon who travelled 200 miles to train with sensei.

Last but not least thank you to all our karateka, especially our junior members, we had quite a few 6 to 8 year olds grading for the first time, you were all very well behaved.



Above: The Course Photo

If you trained this weekend you will know what a great course it was. Please pass this on to your fellow karateka who missed out. We are so fortunate to have Sensei teach, three or four times a year and every effort should be made to train whether grading or not.



Above: Kihon Training

The lower grades are partnered with the higher grades, Sensei casts a critical eye across the class. It is amazing how you loose any ability to tell left from right when Sensei is standing close to you.

Above: Sensei Kato - food with friends

There is a time for training and a time for socialising, a bite to eat and a few beers......and a few beers more........


Above: Sensei Paul enjoyed a good night out!


Following demonstrations of ushiro geri in the pub to the delight of a captive audience and the dismay of some OAP's trying to eat their lunch, Sensei Paul kept up his light hearted instruction well into the evening.......not sure why he didn't make training on the Sunday? Sensei I hope we made you feel welcome, please come back soon.

At Haxby on Thursday there were a few of us from Selby, the like of Claire, Emma and Phoebe had never seen this style of teaching before...I think you have a fan club in Yorkshire Sensei Paul.

Above: Haxby Karateka Belt training

Sensei had the belts off for this part of the session, with the youngsters it was a little more timid than usual. I had a little trouble with the drop down and mawashi geri jodan from the crouched position. No standing up first...direct route...No Scotland...York...London...direct express!

Above: Sensei Kato - attacking with the heel

Sensei instruction included the importance of correct path for the attack and using all parts of the body / foot to attack. Heel, sole of the foot, ball.....

Above: Sensei Kato - Usherio Mawashi-geri

Above: Sensei kato blocks befor Yoko Geri

Many students tried to short cut yoko geri, this MUST follow the correct route, knee up to the front and thrust to target.


Above: Yoko geri attack

Above: Emma - Yoko Empi

Emma demonstrates Zanshin with her attack during her kihon combination

Above: Claire during Kumite Exam

Claire puts an awkward karateka in his place during the kumite phase


Above: Josh attacks Simon from Haxby club

Josh, what can I say! Josh came a very close second in the Trevor Jinks cup last year, and wow did you prove us right in ackowledging your commitment. We have seen such a marked improvement in the past 6 months, unbelievable.

Josh was partnered with Simon from Haxby who came away with a commended pass from Sensei Kato, a real achievement. I am sure that Simon helped to lift Josh's game.

I was so proud of Josh, during his kata exam he made a mistake and frooze right in front of the grading desk with Kato Shihan 8th Dan IJKA World Chief instructor looking over the top of his glasses at him......

Josh took one step back ..rei.. and said "can I start again please Sensei"...Sensei nodded...

Josh took 3 or 4 paces back... rei and then performed Heian Godan as strong and as well as I have ever seen him perform it before..

Not taking anything away from Josh, but my thanks also to Sensei Andy Denby your work with our students over the last few months was evident in their gradings, Osu!

Above: Dom and Dan

Dom progressed to temp 1st kyu and Dan and Sam had theit temp 3rd Kyu removed and became full 3rd kyu. This is a half grade for all three of you but let me put this in perspective.

Dom has progressed to his current grade in record time, I think he has never missed a grading. Rebecca has trained since she was five, she had a couple of years off, so lets say she has trained for eight years to reach 1st Kyu and you have reached 1st Kyu in less than half of that time, this is achievement indeed.

Dan and Sam, at twelve and just turned eleven you have both now completed all your junior grades and have completed seven adult gradings. You are both well on the way to adult Shodan in your early teens.

Enjoy your time as a brown belt, these are good times, relax and broarden your foundations, most importantly enjoy your karate. Think ahead to B&B belt training at Whitchurch and may be a competition later in the year.

Above: Georgia and Kato Shihan

Shihan had a special mention for Simon from Haxby and Georgia and Michael from Selby, all had strong gradings.

Sensei's general comments on the whole of the gradings was that some elements of kata were poor...stances were not as strong as they should be. We must all try hard and strive to maintain the high standards of the IJKA.


Above: Sensei Mike,Melina and Shihan Keith


The above photo was spoilt by the two old grey haired blokes, but I thought I would post it anyway....more press-ups for me next week I think?


Above: SSKC Karateka with Sensei Kato


Selby had twenty two students grade, nineteen to full grade and three temporary passes, an excellent result considering the limited preparation because of Christmas and the early date of the course, well done to you all.Osu!


The Table of kyu grades has been updated in the sidebar, just click on your name to go to your individual member page. Please check that the link and post is correct, please e mail me with any up-dates.

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Sunday, February 10, 2008

Rebecca set for European Championships 2008

Above: Rebecca in Budapest in 2007

Rebecca has her sights on Italy in August and the IJKA European karate championships and has received a tremendous boost this weekend when a cheque for £550 arrrived in the post.

The Cheque was from the Goodricke Appeal Fund; that supports deaf young people inYork and North Yorkshire. Rebecca had sent details to The Goodricke Appeal fund via the hearing support team at Selby, they not only met the full projected cost, but also provide a little extra for some spending money.

Rebecca has to carefully balance studying for her exams in the summer and preparing for the championships. In preparation Rebecca hopes to compete in the Irish open Shotokan Championships on the 27th April 2008, because of school requirements it will have to be a flying visit flying to Cork on the Saturday and back early Monday morning. Rebecca will have just turned sixteen and will have to compete in the under 19 catogries, this may prove to be a big step up.

Rebecca would like to publicaly thank the Goodricke Appeal Fund and the support that she has recieved from Pauline Leddy from the Hearing Support Team at Selby over the last Seven years.

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Saturday, February 09, 2008

Bassai-Dai - Penetrate a fortress?

Simon from Haxby asked me last week how does Bassai-Dai translate to "penetrate the fortress", where does it come from?

Above : Sensei Alan Stanley penetrates the fortress for England.

Are we getting too carried away with being karate spotters?
It is great to have a keen interest, but do we always have to take things to the nth degree? Should we spend more time doing Karate and less time thinking about it?

A couple of years ago Kato Shihan taught us six different versions of Bassai Dai in an hour, he spent about 20 seconds telling us where each one came from and who had developed it. I don't think Sensei wanted us to remember the versions but have an awareness of the bigger picture and this hightened awarness would improve our own Bassai-Dai. I can't remember the names of which kata Sensei taught but they were likely to have included Matsumura Bassai, Tomari Bassai, Oyadomari Bassai and Ishimine Bassai.

If we micro analyise are we like the mathmaticians that look at Da Vinci's last supper and find all kinds of theories, or is it just a nice picture of Jesus Shihan having a meal with his kohai?


Above : Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper

I think in the West we are more tied up with trivia, Sensei spends a lot of time explaining technique, demonstrating application to improve understanding, but his focus always seems to be spent on us doing kata not watching him demonstrating. You really only learn when you imitate and practice.

Anyway coming back to Simon's question, Bassai appears in a lot of different styles, just go to you tube and type in bassai or pasai and you will see how diverse they are from our IJKA style Bassai-Dai. Versions of Pasai include: Matsumura-passai and Oyadomari-passai. Bushi Matsumura may have created his kata from earlier kata from Yara and Sakugawa.

The penetrate the fortress translation comes from Nakayama's translator, this has to be thought of as one mans translation of one set of Kanji, Rob Redmond in his Kata book states that Bassai can be written with six different characters. All will have different translations.

So what does Bassai mean then? Well take your pick from:

Penetrates the fortress
To breach or break through the fortress
Extract from the fortress
Rescue from the fortress

Anyway Dia means large and Sho means small.

I think I'll stop writting now and just go and practise both the Big and Little versions, who cares what it means.

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

York Shotokan Karate Club - Web site

Just to let you all know York club has at last got its new web site up and running. I have updated the link in the sidebar, but be sure to add it to your favourites, http://www.yorkkarateclub.co.uk/

There is still a few pages to complete so make sure that you make regular visits.

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Saturday, February 02, 2008

Dom's Mail

(Archive Photo)


I would like to say thank you for persuading me to go to Whitchurch, because if you had not kept asking me, I would never have known what an experience this course was. As it was my first time, I was a little nervous and apprehensive, but once I had met everyone, I felt very welcome and more relaxed.
It was good to meet and train with other members and be able to see Sensei in his home environment, this for me has taken that nervous edge off the whole grading experience.

Training for me was brilliant, I enjoyed the various activities that took place and particularly enjoyed triangle-training, where we followed an attack-block combination around in a circle.

I have learnt a new kata, Gojushiho Dai , this kata was very intresting to learn, difficult at times, but fun! We also learned the bunkai for parts of this kata in pairs. (One attacks whilst the other defends)

I would recommend this course to any brown belt karateka as it is both useful and enjoyable. I thought that I would be nervous and under-perform but after relaxing, I was able to enjoy myself and also gain useful advice from other Black belts.
Regards,

Dom.

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Friday, February 01, 2008

Blog Stats

Jan 08 was a record month for our blog, 729 visits and some 1380 pages viewed.
Hope you enjoy your visits.
After gradings in a couple of weeks I will try and get all our new Kyu grades set up in the Kyu grade table in the side bar and the links to their own personal members pages.

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Martial Arts Video

I don't think this is Shotokan but still very impressive


Enjoy,Osu!

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