Sensei Kitigawa Course 13th November 2012

In November Sensei Tahashi Kitigawa 6th Dan JKS came to England for a week. Sensei Kitigawa usually instructs in New York and we were offered to opportunity to host him in York for an evening’s training. Understandably we jumped at the chance and decided to focus the course on the higher grades so we could pick up some more advanced techniques and ideas from this very experienced instructor.

The course was held at Scarcroft School (which proved quite challenging to find!) as none of the normal training venues were available that night. We knew that it would be a small course, but saw this as an opportunity to get more personal instruction, still four clubs were represented, with our friends from Kaizen No-Michi making the trip over from Grimsby.

The course was excellent, Sensei Kitigawa particularly impressed with his ability to deliver multiple kicks in quick succession, the secret to which he quickly demonstrated was to ensure that the initial knee position was correct and the knee did not drop after delivering the first kick. Another focus of the course was about keeping relaxed when punching and punch from the elbow not the fist, and kick with the knee and not the foot.

We finished off then excellent and memorable evening with an informal meal which gave us the chance to get to now Sensei Kitigawa in a more informal atmosphere.

Thank you to Sensei Paul for handling all the arrangements with JKS England, Sensei Mike for hosting Sensei Kitigawa during his stay in York and Brenda for making all the arrangements for the course and the meal.

For those of us who journeyed to Nottingham for the Black and Brown Belt course the weekend after, we had another opportunity to train with Sensei Kitigawa, and he was the guest instructor on the course. This helped to reinforce the key messages and to start working on some new ones, like correct use of hips and ensuring you get maximum hips twist.

visit www.haxbykarate.co.uk to receive a free training session. For more information email info@haxbykarate.co.uk