Sun, Sand and Karate

The time had come around again for our annual summer trip to Cleethorpes for bears on the beach with kaizen no-michi and Selby Shotokan Karate Club.  For a change we had a nice lie in before a long drive over to the coast thanks to a later start we could happily leave York at 9.30 for the smooth drive through. We had a fantastic turn out of 10 karate-ka this year who all had a fantastic day on the beach with some quality training lead by Andre Sensei from KNM and Paul sensei from SSKC as well as some fun and games on the beach.

A quick Photo before we started the day.

Arriving at 11 o’clock promptly we set up base on the beach and awaited the arrival of all who would participate in the day, for a prompt start at around 11.30. To begin we went through so light stretches but nothing to heating as the weather was already pushing a lovely 24 degrees, followed by a hips exercise lead by a young member of KNM called “the Floss” which proved difficult for adult members to get the grips off the all the youngsters seemed to excel at it.

Running through JONO kata

The first session lead by Andy Sensei saw us going through a simple but testing round of gyaku tsuki, this exercise leads on to some pairs work to practise the combination of attack front turn and attack rear then front attack again, attacking 3 different opponents. The last part of this exercise we split up and had mini competitions between 2 lines to see who could react the fastest to the combination. 

The final part of the session we went through JONO kata (beginners Kata) followed by a look at the application of the kata and how it is more advanced than it appears.

Andy Sensei demonstrating a take down
making Ben eat sand.

After a break for lunch and some playing in the sea and sand we had our second session this time lead by Paul Sensei, to begin we ran through Heian Shodan but after a couple slow run throughs Paul sensei added a twist and had us run through facing 4 different directions doing a directional team kata style go through. This proved that it doesn’t matter what way you face while doing a kata no matter where you are doing it the kata will always start and end the same and every step in-between does not change. 

Practising the take down.

After practising Heian Shodan, we moved on to Meikyo (polished mirror) fortunately for HSKC some of the seniors had had a brief run through of the kata the Thursday so we could look in to more of the detail of the kata, but for many it was their first try at it. Meikyo is a symmetrical kata that branches out to envelop a lot of basic khion to create a fantastic kata. Finally, some of the more complicated moves Paul sensei described and demonstrated so we would properly understand what was happening in them rather than us just washing through the kata and running through the motions without thought for what was happening.

What bears on the beach is about!!! fun in the sea.

Ending our day on a high we packed up base and headed up to the kiosk to get our last ice-creams and gather ourselves before our  journey home after a very warm extremely fun day on the beach, really couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend a Sunday than with great company and friend and a whole lot of karate, and maybe an apple juice or two for the adults.

So on behalf of HSKC I'd like to thank Andrew Sensei for inviting us to join KNM on the beach and for his expert instruction and Paul Sensei for his thorough instruction of Meikyo.

Oss

Ben

visit www.haxbykarate.co.uk to find out more about our Club. For more information email info@haxbykarate.co.uk