sensei Marc Stevens and sensei Derek Ridgway training weekend
Sensei Marc Stevens' course
As usual sensei Marc Stevens from the Kei Shin Kan dojo, Belgium had plenty in store this weekend!!
Friday night started with the basics of Tekki Shodan, which was then gradually combined with Marc's interpretation of the bunkai (application).
Saturday Morning was initially for the grading candidates to impress..
Well done to everyone who graded:
Callum Mcmillan graded to 3rd kyu
Martin Kavanagh graded to 2nd kyu
Debbie Kavanagh graded to 1st Dan
Dave Petrie graded to 1st Dan
Jo Alker graded to 2nd Dan
Saturday afternoon was used to continue applying the bunkai to tekki shodan, mixed in with various kihon, jiyu kumite and a healthy dose of heian kata's.
The entire weekend and continuing into Sunday was very energetic with the focus being on 'kime', breathing, distance and timing, this was applied by doing various jiyu kumite, all heian kata's Tekki Shodan and Bassai Dai.
Bassai Dai was then used to apply Marc's interpretation of the engi bunkai (kata & application), which was very impressive.
All in all it was a very tough and tiring weekend, but this is only what we expect from sensei Stevens and are more than happy to deliver that commitment back.
Looking forward to February.
Click here to view some photos from the weekends events.
Sensei Derek Ridgway's course
The training began with Sensei Derek Ridgway, 7th Dan of Kasoku Kai International, announcing he was to teach us a Shito-Ryu style Kata, ‘Juroku’, meaning sixteen.
From the start of this session Sensei Ridgway received the full attention of every student from the highest to lowest Kyu grade as move by move we all managed to complete this Kata with relative ease and speed due to our Shotokan training; Sensei Ridgeway said, he would often be “pulling out his hair” at this stage when attempting to teach the Kata on some courses.
The Kata was then broken into sections of 4/5 moves to gain better understanding of the ‘timing’.
Next was partner work to study the bunkai (application), comprising solid, no-nonsense techniques which we could all easily put into practice, whilst Sensei Ridgway moved around the hall offering students help and advice together with demonstrations in a quiet and approachable manner.
We were enjoying the training so much, that it felt like the course ended all too soon; with a couple of final repetitions of Juroku to ensure we had all grasped the Kata and Sensei Ridgway commenting how quickly we had picked up the Kata and how hard we had all worked.
We in turn expressed our gratitude and pleasure in sharing this gem of a Kata by a loud and well meant round of applause. Juroku is a joy of a Kata, similar in length to a Heian kata but with blissfully shorter stances than our usual Shotokan style and coming at the end of long, tiring but extremely enjoyable weekend, a very welcome kata!