Geoff Dixon Sensei visits us again

Geoff Sensei

It was one of the hottest nights of the year that Geoff Dixon Sensei 5^th Dan and Chief Referee for JKS England and Head of the Referee Development visited us once again. This is part of the ongoing Referee development that Mike and Paul Sensei have arranged for us, and preparation for Mike and Paul Sensei refereeing at the World Championships in Edinburgh in September.

This time Geoff Sensei packed his Gi so as well as running the refereeing session he took through some kumite exercises as a warm up (not that one was needed as we were all soon covered in sweat!) with a focus on what will score at competitions and working up to combinations and techniques that we could consider.

After a quick break to rehydrate Geoff rotated the senior members of the club (and our friends from Selby) through the judging and refereeing positions (corner judges, main referee, and shadow referee) with our club members providing the competition.

Geoff Sensei was impressed with the keenness and enthusiasm of our students to take part in the kumite, and recognised that our students were more relaxed and moving better then at his last visit. I must admit that I was very impressed with everyone who fought – there was good spirit throughout. Special mentions have to be made of our Yellow Belts – Evie, Oliver and Aiden all did brilliantly against older and higher graded opponents.

 

Geoff Sensei Supervising Ian's refereeing whilst Oliver battles Brenda!

Once again Geoff Sensei provided us with a wealth of advice and was only too happy to answer any questions that might we had. And everyone that I spoke to afterwards came away with something useful.

 

Adam and Alice provide the action whilst Paul sensei looks on

Geoff Sensei seemed to enjoy his visit to our dojo as much as we enjoyed training under him, and expressed a desired to be asked back, we need to make sure that we remind Mike Sensei periodically to invite Geoff Sensei to visit us again to strengthen our link with him and his club. This is one of the strengths of the JKS we are making connections with other karate-ka and other clubs to expand our ‘karate family’.

 

The two sides of Holly (C) - Don't make her angry!

I’d like to thank Geoff Sensei for visiting us again and giving so freely of his time and advice.  We will continue to run referee development sessions once a month which are open to all, and if you are interested in the formal JKS referee development programme please contact Geoff Sensei directly at jksreferees@btinternet.com

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

Demonstration and Mini Competition

Informal Club photo

Due to the rather wet weather we had on Saturday we had to cancel the demonstration and mini competition that we had planned for the Haxby Carnival. However, as everyone had worked so hard to put it together we felt that we needed to give the club members the chance to perform and compete as soon as possible.

 

Brenda leading the Kihon part of the demonstration

There was the added complication that we had to change the venue for training at the last minute, but we managed to get everyone together on Monday night. After some last minute practice, Brenda led the Karate Kids through their Kihon. Everyone performed brilliantly, and I was particularly impressed with their performance to the new Karate Kids Motto “Karate Kids punch – HARDER, Kick – HIGHER, Shout – LOUDER!”

 

Eive and Aiwin, and Edwin and William perform Gohon Kumite

Evie, William (V), Aiwin, and Edwin then stepped out to the front to perform Gohon (five step) Kumite with good technique and spirit. Olivia was up next, but as William (M) had not arrived yet she had to partner me (Jim) which she did with her usual spirit, not minding when I proceeded to sweep her with most of my counters!

 

Olivia seems to enjoy being swept far too much!

Evie, William (V), Aiwin, and Edwin stepped up again and put in a very strong performance of Heian Shodan. Olivia followed them, this time accompanied by William (M) who had literally just walked through the door. Despite this they did a very good team performance of Heian Sandan.

William and Evie at the end of Heian Shodan

After one final round of applause the Demonstration was over. Everyone who took part performed brilliantly and should be very proud of themselves. I would like to thank Brenda and Dael for all the hard work they put in getting everyone ready for the demonstration. They did an excellent job.

 ****

With a short break to brief the judges (Ian (T), Jim, Brenda and Helen) we were ready for the Mini Competition. We had never done one of these before so it was the first time for everyone. We had decided to focus on Kihon as the vast majority of the competitors were Orange Belts. There was a round of punching and kicking to check for targeting and correct technique, followed by punching and kicking to focus mitts to check targeting (again) and effectiveness. The final element of Kihon was moving in Zenkutsu Dachi – punching Oi Tzuki going forwards and blocking Gedan Bari going backwards, again checking for correct technique.

 

Helen and Ian put Stanish and Nixon through their paces!

We finished off (for almost everyone) with a kumite exercise – ‘grab the tags’ which is a favourite game of the Karate Kids. Each tag was worth one point, and you had to sit down if you lost your tag. To make it more interesting the higher grades (Evie, William (V), Aiwin, Edwin, Olivia and William (M)) were given a different coloured tag worth 2 points. I recruited some extra help to ensure that there were no injuries during the game and we were off! In a very short period of time there were very few Karate-ka left with a tag on their belt. The points for the tags were quickly added to the running totals.

 

Targeting was one of the key things that the judges were looking for

For the higher grades there was one final event – Kata. They all performed Heian Shodan together and then the judges convened for a brief conference to ensure that we had winners.

 

It was this level of focus that helped Aiwn secure a Silver Medal

Medals were going to be awarded in two categories – up to 8^th Kyu and above 8^th Kyu to make it a fairer competition for all. Luckily (for the judges!) the total scores provided us with a first, second and third in each category with no ties.

The results were as follows:

Up to 9^th Kyu.

8^th Kyu and above.

I would like to congratulate not only the winners, but everyone who took part, you all performed extremely well, were very well behaved and seemed to enjoy the competition. I would also like to thank my fellow judges – Ian, Brenda and Helen, who did an excellent job. Finally thank you to Lara for providing the photographs for this report – there are lots more on the group facebook page.

I hope everyone enjoyed the demonstration and Mini Competition, if we receive positive feedback we will aim to repeat this next year – who knows, weather permitting, we might even be able to do them at the Haxby Carnival!

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

Bears on the Beach 2016

Bears on the Beach 2016

It was a much more reasonable hour that I got out of bed to begin my journey to Cleethorpes beach on Sunday. The sun was shining as Holly, Bethany and I picked up Helen from outside the dojo, and with a short detour to collect Olivia, it seemed to follow us all the way to the Seaside!

The Haxby crowd!

 In short order fellow karate-ka started to arrive. Nixon and Mary arrived shortly after we did (along with several other family members), and despite her protests Mary was soon convinced to join in.

 

Nixon demonstrating with Paul Sensei

Andrew Sensei welcomed us and then turned the training over to Paul Sensei for the first session. The focus was on Kihon, and Nixon did a brilliant job of demonstrating the techniques with Paul Sensei. The first session flew by and before we knew it was time for a group photograph and a quick break. We had brought the few left over cakes and chocolates from the Carnival and these went down very well with everyone.

 

Group photo after the first session - just before cake!

Andrew Sensei led the second session with a focus on Kumite, and as traditional we took full advantage of the soft(ish!) sand to focus on take downs. This is part of the training on the beach that everyone enjoys, and this session was no expectation. My partner, despite being a complete beginner did brilliantly, and I spent most the session face down in the Sand (again as is traditional!). At the end of the session we dusted ourselves off and took another group photo as people seemed to keep arriving all the time! Another quick break and we were ready for the last session.

 

Andrew Sensei demonstrating the art of putting my face in the sand!

Jackie Sensei took the training for last session and used Bunkai for Kihon Kata to get us to focus on who we might move when doing Kumite.  We then did some running games and competitions to warm down before splitting into two teams for a game of Rounders (something I had not played in years!) – great fun for all!

 

Everyone enjoyed the day (especially when Lynne Sensei is thrown into the sand!)

It was great to train with our friends at Kaizen and Selby again, and it was fantastic to see Nixon and Mary (who have only recently joined the club) enjoying themselves so much. There was a slight tinge of sadness to the day for me, as the last time I trained at Cleethorpes (during Kangeiko) Joe was with us, but I know how much he enjoyed his last visit and I know he would have wanted us to enjoy the day.

Holly successfully sweeping her opponent

I would like to say how impressed I was with Mary. She threw herself into everything with a huge smile on her face, and seemed to enjoy every single minute of the day. There is something for us all to learn here, karate training is about the journey, not the destination (Black Belt?). Training cannot always be fun and games, but you must enjoy the journey. If you do not you will never reach your goal. Judging by how much Mary enjoyed herself – she will outlast us all!

Jackie Sensei demonstrating one of the take downs on Olivia

As ever I would like to thank Andrew and Jackie Senseis for their kind invitation, and their very warm welcome. I cannot recommend Bears on the Beach enough – I strongly encourage everyone to join us next year – it is something not to be missed!

Bethany and Helen get ready to sweep their opponents

 

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

Change of venue - Monday 11th July 2016

Due to an unexpected visit by the Blood Donours Training will be moved to Ralph Butterfield School tonight:

Kids & early class 6pm - 7pm

Main class 7pm - 9pm. 

The demonstration and mini competition will go ahead as promised!

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

Haxby Carnival - Wet but successful!

Despite the rain the Gis gleamed!

It was not looking good yesterday morning as to whether the Haxby Carnival was going to go ahead. As I sat listening to the rain hammering against my window and waiting for the organisers to make a final decision I realised that it would not be safe to do the demonstration and the competition due to the grass being too wet and slippy, but hopefully the parade and the stall would still be on.

The decision was made, and we were on! We had a fun half hour putting up the event shelter in the pouring rain (thank you Cathy for borrowing from St Nicks – it was a godsend!). Then Brenda arrived with an endless supply of cake – thank you to all the bakers from the club – you really did us proud. In fact there was so much cake we had to quickly go and get another four tables to put them all on!

After some frantic Facebook messaging to inform everyone that the parade was taking place we started to gather at Grey Firs. There was even a break in the weather for the parade which allowed the club members to show off their gleaming white Gis. We will have to work on our marching and smiling as only the promise of cake at the end of the parade managed to get a smile out of some of us.

And we made it!

The parade over, and after a final photo opportunity our Karate Kids were rewarded with some chocolate for braving the weather, and we fell into the serious business of tombola and cake sales! We had a great team who manned the stall – Evie and Nixon in particular were brilliant – the tombola completely sold out and we had about half a dozen buns left over at the end, so well done to everyone who helped and who baked the delicious cakes - and they were good, I performed extensive ‘quality checks’ throughout the afternoon to ensure everything was up to standard and everything I tried was excellent! (I have not eaten since the carnival, and it might be several days until I am hungry again!).

I would like to thank all the Karate Kids and their families who ignored the weather, all the bakers, and the team who ran the stall. You all made this a very successful carnival for us – despite the weather and having to postpone the demonstration and mini competition.

Never fear the demonstration and mini competition will take place tomorrow (Monday 11^th July) at 6:15pm in place of normal training. Everyone has worked really hard on their routines and we wanted to give them the chance to show off all their hard work. So bring your cameras!

As to the left over buns – don’t worry they will not go to waste. I am taking them to Cleethorpes with me this morning for Bears on the Beach to be enjoyed as part of our picnic after training!

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