April 10, 2010
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South Island Shodan Grading & Camp

Congratulations is due to Sensei Mark Doudle from Timaru Dojo for running a very smooth black belt grading and camp in ChCh over Easter.  It was no small task organising a camp in a remote city over Easter.  For example all the food had to travel from Timaru for Friday because the shops were all shut! 

Sensei’s volunteers worked tirelessly to support the campers, rising before we did to prepare food and getting to bed well after the rest of us the whole weekend.  It’s a real reflection on the strength of Sensei’s dojo that he could call on a team to do that for him and we all really appreciated the hard work!  It was also exciting to see there is a strong core of hard boys who will undoubtedly bring each other on in leaps and bounds.  More strength to the South Island!

I’ve just read the feedback from participants which was overwhelmingly positive.  It’s normal to aim to get at least 75% of participants registering that they were satisfied or better but that target was blitzed with 100% of participants satisfied or (considerably) better with EVERY aspect of the camp apart from the timing (Easter is not a great time for parents to be away from their kids!) 

By far the majority of folk were better than or extremely satisfied with most aspects of the camp from the variety and quality of teaching right through to the catering.  Several created their own category somewhere above extremely satisfied!!  In good Kyokushin spirit there were a few suggestions there could have been more sparring… hopefully some of the keen fighters will be inspired to make it to the High Performance Squad Training in Ruatahuna in May!!!

The highlight of the first day had to be the black belt grading.  Congrats to all the candidates and huge respect to those who did their grading and still participated in MOST of the sessions over the next 2 days!!!  I tried my darndest to beat Sean in a few exercises on Monday morning (thinking he’d be well worn out) but he was still running rings around everybody!  I must do more training… or, give up competing with 20 year olds… nah, not yet!

In the absence of Shihan Takiwa who unfortunately (perhaps not from his perspective!) got a great new job in Perth and couldn’t make it, most of the general sessions were taken by our own Shihan Alex and Chris.  Sensei Diane took advanced kata sessions for the blackbelts at the crack of dawn and managed sessions for the people not grading during the grading.  This was great because it allowed everyone to maximise their training time! 

It was a whole lot of fun seeing Shihan Alex and Chris tag team the rest of the sessions and share some of the unique training we do at Poneke Dojo!  Attending sessions by both, I was really impressed what a cohesive team they formed and how consistent and complementary their messages were. 

The sessions included conditioning (including swiss ball and primal stuff we do), self defence / weapons defence and fight training.  In the session I did with Shihan Alex he touched on specificity and intensity.  Shihan Chris made a clear distinction between training for novice fighters (defence and distancing) versus experienced fighters (shifting and timing).  He gave everybody some super simple grappling drills for use as warm ups / kids games which, if used regularly, will develop our guy’s comfort/instincts ‘touching’.   

He related some of the close in stuff other dojos are less familiar/comfortable with to kata bunka, remembering that, historically, karate encompassed a whole lot more than the competition style fighting we predominantly concentrate on nowadays. 

Honestly, both Shihans gave us a sniff of several years worth of training/seminars and it was mind boggling.  I hope everyone picked up at least one or two things they can work into their training from now forward… I know I did and have already!  It made me appreciate, again, how lucky we are to be in this place at this moment in time!  Awesome weekend!