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_________________________________________________________ End
of Year Training Course & Christmas Party Every year we like to have a final get together, have a really tough training session and then finish off with a bit of a party/disco... but only if there's cake. The training session was free of charge to all students and it was great to have some of our After School Karate Kids turning up... and doing great!
Everyone who turned up for the training and/or the party was also given a small chocolate selection box from the club. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Club Grading Congratulations to everyone who passed the latest club grading, we had 16 students grading and we're pleased to say that they all passed, some with 1st class passes!
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_________________________________________________________ Typhoo
Disability Training The Hartlepool Sporting Association arranged this Typhoo Disability Training course. Lynne and Carl attended on behalf of the club and will shortly be working with fellow HSA member, Hartlepool Sportability Club to deliver some Disability Karate Sessions. |
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_________________________________________________________ HCFE
Girls Self Defence/Fitness Sessions The club was asked to run a number of sessions for the Hartlepool College of Further Education teenage girls. They were a tough crowd to start with but they soon warmed up to the idea and did very well over the course. |
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_________________________________________________________ Aiwakai
Way to Excellence Weekend Training Camp This weekend had the fantastic support of most Aiwakai clubs from across the country, despite the ‘worst weather in 30 years!’. The course was action packed with a Grass-Roots Kumite Squad with Sensei Keith Walker, Referee Training with Sensei Vince Parker and Traditional Karate training with Sakagami Sensei, Sensei Peter May & Sensei Lee Minion, and of course the Dan Test and Party/Social/Awards Evening.
At the awards evening 3 of the Hartlepool Wadokai instructors were presented with their 20 year Karate Service Awards by Sakagami Sensei (Sensei Lynne, Michael & Carl Jorgeson). Roy, Luke, Jas & Connor also passed their next Kyu Grades in front of Sensei Peter May over the weekend. On behalf of the club, I’d like to thank EVERYONE who made it through the snow for the weekend.
During the Awards evening, Sakagami Sensei presented Lewis Muldown with the Hartlepool Wadokai Student of the Year award. |
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_________________________________________________________ Corporate
Team Build The club was invited to run a short ice-breaker/team build session for A4E which consisted of pad-work and other Karate-related activities. Everyone was very positive and it was great to see the managers getting stuck in!
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_________________________________________________________ Karate
Course at Askam Karate Club Sensei Carl & Amy were once again invited to Askam-in-Furness to run a short course for the Askam Karate Club. This was the best attended event so far and everyone was great. Afterwards we had a tour of the lake district before heading back. |
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_________________________________________________________ EKF
Coaching Quals Course The club hosted this EKF Coaching Quals course for instructors to gain English Karate Federation coaching qualifications. The course was run by Sensei Harold Stephenson of TASK and is a requirement for ALL English Karate Federation registered Karate Instructors and is (as far as I’m aware) the only Karate specific coaching qualification available in England. All five club instructors passed the course as follows: Sensei
Vince Dawkins – Level 1 I’d like to thank Harold for a very good course, the other club instructors for turning up and of course the Hartlepool Wadokai students that supported it by turning up and letting us ‘practise our teaching’ on them. |
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_________________________________________________________ Okumachi
Sensei Shitei-Kata Course This was a last minute course arranged by Aiwakai since Okumachi Sensei was visiting friends in the UK before heading over to Germany for a course. Carl and Amy travelled down and managed to catch the last 90 mins of the Kata training. It was a good refresher and well worth battling through traffic and travelling so far for.
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_________________________________________________________ Wado-UK,
Hull & East Yorkshire Open Karate Championships We took a very small and relatively inexperienced squad to this competition to get some 'mat time'. The squad consisted of Carl Jorgeson - Coach, Amy Coulson, Rachael Iley, Connor Dougherty and Jasmin Langley.
Both Connor and Jasmin narrowly lost out in round 1 to the eventual finalists. Congratulations to Rachel who took a bronze medal in her first ever Open Championships after fighting a bunch of black belts! Sensei Amy brought home the Gold after defeating fellow team-mate Nicole in the final. |
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_________________________________________________________ October
School Holidays - Karate Taster Session The club was asked by the local authority to run some Karate Taster Sessions for children during the October school holidays. The children were all very positive and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Special thanks to our existing students who supported us. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Karate Championships 2010
In the end we had 51 competitors entered into this year’s annual club championships. We would have had a few more but as always, a few people pulled out due to last minute nerves, injuries… or football/rugby matches (!).
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_________________________________________________________ Throston
After School Karate Club Grading
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai PE Karate Classes We re-started our very successful P.E. Karate Classes at West Park Primary School. These are classes designed for their reception class (4-5yr olds). Despite the kids being so young, they are very well behaved and quite a few often graduate to our mainstream community clubs. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Club Grading Congratulations to everyone who passed the latest club grading, we had a record 38 students grading on the same day! Sensei Amy & Sensei Vince also got a chance to assess grading candidates for the first time too.
A special mention should also go to Sensei Vince & Beth, both will be attempting their black belts this time next year after successfully passing their 1st Kyu grade.
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_________________________________________________________ Continuous
Improvement You may remember from this time last year that Sensei Vince started a Foundation Degree in Sports Coaching & Exercise at HCFE. A lot of improvements to our club training routine (e.g. introduction of written lesson plans) have been rolled out due to studying on this course. Sensei Vince has continued into year two of his course and Sensei Carl has enrolled into year 1 of the same course. This is part of the club' instructors commitment to kaizen or continuous improvement. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai First Aid Course The club ran a first aid course for it's members and parents, once again run by Paul Suggit. |
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_________________________________________________________ TASK
Wayne Otton Kumite Seminar Sensei Amy & Carl took Harvey, Keith and Lewis to train with 9x World Champion Sensei Wayne Otto. The course was once again hosted by Mark Raistrick at TASK and we are very greatful.
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_________________________________________________________ Aiwakai
Way to Excellence None of our students attended this course however Carl had to travel down for a committee meeting. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Annual Sponsored Walk 2010
Every year we hold an annual sponsored walk to raise funds for our club-only championships. This event helps reduce the entry fees for the competition but more importantly its a great team building exercise. This
years sponsored walk was...read
the full article
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Sport & Physical Activity Strategy Meeting Carl & Amy will both attend this meeting to ensure that the Hartlepool Wadokai Development Plan is incorporated into the local authority sport & physical activity strategy for the next 3 years. |
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_________________________________________________________ Meeting
with Shaun Hope, HSA Catch up meeting over coffee to reinforce the partnership between the HCFE, the HSA and the club. We discussed various ideas and projects that the club will be involved in over the next few years that the HSA will be helping us deliver. The most exciting projects are at present TOP SECRET but watch this space for more information... |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Women's Keep Fit/Self Defence Class Last night we had our first ever Women’s Self Defence & Fitness Class at Owton Manor Primary School. Hartlepool Borough Council’ Sports... ...read the full article |
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_________________________________________________________ Learning
from the world's best...
If you ignore the fact that Danny boy has his eyes on the camera with his customary pose, the photo shows our students watching the Senior Women Individual Kata Semi Final matches from the Wado World Cup 2010. The challenge was to see if the students could pick the winner of each Semi Final, in the first match (Louise Fisk vs Nao Sekikawa), they couldn’t – I personally think this was a close match and If you asked both competitors, I’m sure they’d agree that the Kata were’nt the best they’re capable of. Most of our students picked Louise as the winner when in fact Nao Sekikawa took the win. The second match, the students did better with most correctly picking Emiri Iwamoto over Jessica Buschor. We then asked our students for feedback about why they chose who they did and what they liked/disliked from the performances. We then tried to explain why the competitors won/lost and more importantly what our students can learn from the videos. The main learning point is to slow the overall Kata down, our students tend to ‘blitz’ through the whole thing, trying to set a new land-speed record. The second point is not to ‘lift’ out of the stances and this comes from their basic/kihon. We put these learning points into practise and it was great to see such a significant improvement in performance with just a few minutes practise. |
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_________________________________________________________ JKF-Wadokai
registered branches in England The JKF-Wadokai is an internationally renowned Karate organization consisting of 1,350 branches within Japan and 250 groups outside Japan (including registered branches). The Wadokai has over 1,000,000 registered members worldwide making it one of the largest single-style karate groups in the world. The Wadokai Technical Department manages testing to obtain various qualifications, sets standards and implements planned seminars so that practitioners will meet these technical standards. In plain English, the JKF-Wadokai is the group in Japan that is responsible for Wadokai throughout the world and is the group that our club, Hartlepool Wadokai belongs to. England currently has 16 branches registered with the Wadokai HQ, of which Hartlepool Wadokai is number 4-17-007 – no really!
JKF-Wadokai
Branches in England - download the full list
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_________________________________________________________ 45th
Wado-Kai Karate-Do Championships (Japan Nationals) See blog for full details... |
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_________________________________________________________ Shiramizu
Shiramizu
with Wadokai England members Tonight Amy and I took 15 of the Wadokai England entourage up to Sugito to train at Shiramizu with Takamasa Arakawa Sensei. We had to take... read the FULL article... |
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_________________________________________________________ Wado
World Cup 2010 Sensei Amy took TWO BRONZE MEDALS at the Wado World Cup 2010. This is a fantastic achievement in her first outing at this level of competition. Read on...
Amy scrapping with Rie Hirai, another of the Shiramizu Alumni at the Wado World Cup 2010. Amy did very well at the Wado World Cup, we’ve had this friendly rivalry between us since Amy first began competing. Amy is natuarally competitive and her goal for a while now has been to win more medals than I’ve won in my competition career so far. Before the WWC we were pretty close but with the lastest addition of TWO bronze medals (Individual & Team Kumite) at the Wado World Cup, I think it’s fair to say that Amy has taken the lead!
Amy with Sakagami Sensei You’d think Amy would be particularly pleased with her performance and I’m sure deep down she is. The main thing that’s bringing smiles to her face is the fact that at the Japan Nationals which were held a week after the WWC, Amy scored with TWO HEAD KICKS in her first round fight, Amy wasn’t even upset at just missing out in this very close 8 points to 7 match. Head kicks are something that Amy has struggled with for a long time and she thinks this landmark achievement is more significant than winning medals at the Worlds. – This is clearly a result of having ‘Performance Related Goals’ rather than being focussed on medals! |
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_________________________________________________________ Wado
World Cup 2010 Women's Kata ...read the full article and see the videos
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_________________________________________________________ Wado
World Cup 2010 Been sightseeing in Kyoto today with Amy, on the way back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen I typed up the results. I’m not sure which Japanese Cadet won one of the events so I’ve listed ‘TBC’ next to their names. Also, the original number of competitors in most events was much higher but a lot of competitors didn’t get to Japan – I’m guessing that the current economic climate didn’t help… and some countries struggled to get Visa's for their athletes too. Please click on the link below to download the results… if there are any errors please let me know. |
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_________________________________________________________ Wado
World Cup 2010 Most of the video’s were recorded from the stadium seating and they aren’t very good for studying techniques etc… these are the few that I recorded myself from the side of the mat:
Vid: Senior Men, Individual Kata Quarter Finals – RED – Regis Perez (France) vs BLUE – Kosei Yuda (Japan) RESULT – 5 flags to Japan.
Vid: Senior Women, Individual Kata Round 1 – RED – Zoe Hartmann (Switzerland) vs BLUE Louise Fisk* (NewZealand) RESULT – 5 flags to NewZealand. *Louise is last year’s Shiramizu Intern & my Karate Sister Tomorrow is the Semi Final through to the final rounds. In Kata this generally means that the performances get better and better. In Kumite however, it generally means that the bouts get less and less interesting to watch because the fighters become more ‘cagey’ – more aware of messing up at this late stage and missing out on the glory. See
more Hartlepool Wadokai Video Clips at our YouTube
Channel |
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_________________________________________________________ Sensei
Carl & Amy return to Japan Back to School... After taking a few days to get over the jet-lag and re-orientate ourselves to life in Japan (after spending 12 months back in England), we headed back to Shiramizu for a much needed Karate check-up… We’ll be heading back their as much as possible but we also want to chill-out a bit with some sightseeing.
Over the past few days we’ve hit Ikebukuro (where we’re staying), Shinjuku, Tsukiji, Ginza, The Imperial Palace and Asakusa – all in Tokyo. Today Amy and I took a 1200km round trip to Kyoto on the Shinkansen (Bullet train) to visit some places we’ve not been to before. (We visited Kyoto back in Jan 2009 but didn’t have a lot of time). Namely the Nijo-jo – a massive and very impressive castle built by Ieyasu Tokugawa, the Shogun to remind the puppet emperor who was the real boss in Japan. It’s actually built over the road from the Kyoto Imperial Palace too! The Emperor’ descendants got the last laugh a mere 200 years later when the last Tokugawa Shogun formally resigned to the Emperor Meiji at the Nijo-jo.
We head to Nagoya tomorrow morning, and we’ve got the weigh in on the afternoon, we’ll be chill-axing before the big event. A
busy week planned for next week, I’ll try and keep you updated. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Tall Ships / Hartlepool Sporting Association Karate Taster The club was invited to take part in the Hartlepool Sporting Association taster/demo event at the Hartlepool Tall Ships Weekend - the UK's biggest FREE event of 2010. Naturally we accepted and ran a morning session on Saturday. (we would have ran a number of sessions but the Tall Ships weekend was the same weekend that Carl & Amy were flying out to Japan for the World Cup, so everyone was a little busy!) |
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_________________________________________________________ The
use of YouTube in Karate Clubs Our Karate club recently purchased a really cool new Sony Handycam (Camcorder). It’s really compact, meaning that it fits easily into our kit bag and totally idiot proof, meaning that even I can operate it and make it do what it’s supposed to… One of the reasons for this purchase is to use it to record our performances in Kata / Kumite etc… (And our students) on a more frequent basis. Sites like YouTube allows us to post instructional videos for our members to see, and also our student’s performances… then give the students private access to the video’s for them to study – perfect for during the holidays! During the Wado World Cup & Japan Nationals, we’ll be recording a lot of JKF-Wadokai kata and posted the videos online as their is a big shortage of footage available. After the Wado World Cup*, we’ll be posting Kata videos performed by Amy and I for our students to study. *We’re not posting them BEFORE the WWC because we can’t let our competition see how good/bad we are |
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_________________________________________________________ South
Yorkshire Open Championships
This short video in the Men’s Open Weight shows how my first ever entry into the Wado World Cup may have come to a startling halt before it even begins due to this short fight. It took place yesterday at the South Yorkshire Open Championships. This competition was supposed to be a last minute ‘check up’ competition to see how the final preparations for Japan are going, and to get some ‘builds’ to work on for the big event in two weeks time. I didn’t expect a trip to A & E (Accident & Emergency). I can’t actually straighten my leg at the minute and I’m on crutches, but I’m feeling optimistic. I’ve got a great team of physio’s behind me and Amy is making me cups of tea so I’ll be fighting fit in a few days… …now for the fight analysis. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Fun Day
This was the first ever FUN DAY that our club has ever organised and it was a great success. Tons of club members brought their families & friends along for a day of activities. The weather was gloriously sunny all day, perfect weather for games of Rounders & Football and of course putting Sensei Michael & Carl in the stocks to throw wet sponges at them!
Special thanks to Julie Salmons for organising everything, George Gowland for the music, Debbie and Bethany Muldown & the Belle Vue Centre for the Bouncy Castle & Face Painting, Liz Gray for the great snacks, PC Keith Robinson for the Police Support Unit, Hartlepool Coastguard and everyone else who helped to make the day a success. |
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_________________________________________________________ Sports
Personality of the Year
11 year old Lewis was recently awarded the Sports Personality of the Year award for his achievements in karate at St Aidens Primary School in Hartlepool. Lewis has worked hard for this award and his dedication to karate is inspiring. Just last week he wanted to pull out of his end of year school concert because the performance clashed with training. I’m pleased that his mother didn’t let him! keep up the good work Lewis…. |
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_________________________________________________________ Wado
Kata Seminar Peter May, 6th Dan & Lee Minion, 5th Dan Wado Kata Seminar Yesterday our club ran a wado kata course with Sensei Peter May and Sensei Lee Minion at the Belle Vue sports centre in Hartlepool. This was the first time that we’ve invited both instructors up at the same time so we wanted as many of our students as possible to train with them. We split the course into three different sessions and students could choose to attend one, two or all three sessions. I think splitting the event like this helped because it fit into other peoples schedule better, this meant that we got 40 people to the course.
the non-camera shy from Session 1
Sensei Minion explaining what not to do during kumite practise Session 2 was a masterclass in Pinan Godan. This is the first round kata for the August JKF-Wadokai Nationals in Tokyo. A lot of our students also need this kata for their next belt test so this was a logical choice for this session. At the end of the session all the competitors demo’d Pinan Godan and got some more feedback.
In Session 3 we started off with Seishan, this is the compulsory Kata for the Wado World Cup in August. After a short break we moved onto Kushanku, this would be testing everyone’s endurance because at this point we’d all been training for over four hours! Once again, at the end of the session all the competitors heading out to Japan demo’d Kushanku, and once again got some much needed feedback. I’d
like to thank kobukan Darlington, Derby Karate Academy, Teesside, Lincs
Aiwakai, and Carlisle for supporting the course. |
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_________________________________________________________ New
Hartlepool Wadokai Blog There's only 4 weeks to go until Sensei Carl & Amy return to Japan for the Wado World Karate Championships. To ensure that the club members are kept up to date, we've created a new blog: http://hartlepoolwadokai.wordpress.com/ . This blog will feature all the latest news from Carl & Amy's build up to the competition, and maybe some karate hints & tips along the way too. The
club is also online with |
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_________________________________________________________ British
Karate Federation Championships Sensei Amy travelled up to Glasgow to compete in the BKF Championships. Unfortunately she struggled to place in Kata or Kumite this time around. |
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_________________________________________________________ Throston
Primary School Fun Day
Group shot of some of the kids at their last After School karate class today before breaking up for the summer holidays. We usually have about 20 in the first class, and 7 or 8 in the second but with it being so close to the official school summer break, a lot of kids have already gone on holiday.
The
kids at Throston School are great, they range from 5 years up to about
8 and we’ve been teaching the same group of kids since September
last year. I think what is really great is that they are all still white
belts, and they are still training just as hard as when they first started!
How many kids do you know that would be happy staying a white belt for
a year? Anyways, we’ll be having belt tests in September ready for
the massive influx of new kids to the classes. Good times… |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Newsletter JUNE 2010 Now
available for download |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Club Grading 9 students from the club recently passed their belt tests. As usual, the students were put through an hour training session and then the belt test followed.
The successful students are as follows:
Congratulations to everyone for passing. We know that there are some students who have missed this grading who were eligible to grade. We will be taking a look at the instructors rota and seeing when we can arrange the next test.
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_________________________________________________________ Becca's
21st Birthday Bash To finish off a very busy day that saw the club attending two large events in different parts of the country, some of the club instructors attended Becca's 21st Birthday Bash in Hartlepool.
Left to right: Becca (kicking) her way to first place at the All-England Championships, Leeds; European Medal (2006), Most Successful Competitor (2006), Enjoying soft drinks at her birthday bash (2010) To those of you who don't know, Becca started training at the club year's ago and at one point was our most successful competitor. Becca even competed, and took medals at the Wadokai European Championships. Becca has recently graduated from Northumbria University with a Degree in Physiotherapy. She is now looking for a real job in the local area so that she can become the club's on-call physio (no really!). We've agreed to pay her in Haribo! Well done on the degree Becca and Happy Birthday from everyone at the club. |
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_________________________________________________________ Aiwakai
Wayne Otto Kumite Seminar
Left to Right: Nicole & Little Amy (Kobukan Darlo), Slightly bigger Amy, Wayne Otto Sensei, Lewis M, Connor D, Luke D & Carl On the same day that three of the club instructors were running a Karate taster for Hartlepool College (in fantastic weather I might add!) Sensei Carl & Amy took Luke, Lewis & Connor down to Alfreton Leisure centre to attend Aiwakai' first ever Kumite course with Sensei Wayne Otto, 9x world champion and the most successful Karate competitor in the world. Otto Sensei is also the EKF national squad coach for a gruelling 5 hour training course on the finer points of fighting. All part of Carl & Amy's training for this years Wado World Cup in Japan.
Top left: Connor vs Otto; Centre: group shot; Top right: Carl vs Otto It was a really good course, and the second time in as many months that some of us have trained with Wayne Otto Sensei. Once again, we got a lot of direct feedback on our fighting and were given a lot to take away and work on. ...All in all, a much more productive day than sunning it up at a Fun Day.... maybe...! |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
College of Further Education / HSA Fun Day Sensei Lynne, Michael & Vince attended this years annual HCFE fun day which was held at Hartlepool Rovers Rugby club in Hartlepool. They were accompanied by Jasmin, Phil, Daniel, Paul, Harvey and some of the club committee. The club, as members of the college ran Hartlepool Sporting Association (HSA) were invited to put on a Karate taster session for staff, family & friends of the college during the fun day. The event also had taster sessions with the other HSA member sports clubs and other activities on offer for attendees including a climbing wall and tons of inflated activities. |
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_________________________________________________________ Fundraising Sensey Lynne and Debi Robinson attended Sedgefield Car Boot Sale to get rid of some of the club members unwanted items.... all to help raise funds for the club. |
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_________________________________________________________ Fens
After School Club - Class cancelled this week only This weeks After School Karate class has been cancelled due to the England Football team World Cup game. (I'm pleased to say that they managed to win this match!) |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai White & Red Belt Championships
This was our first ever competition exclusively for our White & Red belts. The event was held in direct response to the recent increase in the size of the club and feedback from parents and students from our last two competitions. The competition was designed to be a low key affair, with none of the bells and whistles that we usually have at our events. We didn’t want to intimidate our inexperienced competitors. The event was also used as a training opportunity for our cadets too and they were feeling the pressure of being an official for the first time. They all worked hard throughout the day and we’d like to thank them once again for their efforts. The event started at 10am with Sensei Amy putting all the competitors through their paces for a 1 hour lesson, going over the kata moves they would need during the day. The competition started at 11am and ran very well throughout the day, and finished on schedule at 3pm. The whole event went very well and everyone enjoyed themselves, including the competitors and spectators. I’m particularly impressed at the fact that EVERY competitor chose to enter both Kata and Kumite events. The cadets worked very well as officials making some great calls and all their hard work over the past few weeks definitely paid off. This sort of training will help them understand what officials look for and help them to become even better competitors themselves. Thank you to all the parents, students and officials who helped make this event possible. Download the full results & report here in PDF format (327kb)
Note about the competition |
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_________________________________________________________ Aiwakai
Summer Course, Way to Excellence & Dan Grade
This weekend was the annual Aiwakai Summer Course held at Alfreton Leisure Centre in Derbyshire. This weekend forms part of Aiwakai' innovative Dan Grading (Black Belt) program of continuous assessment. Sensei Amy and Nicole (Kobukan Darlington) have been working flat out to get ready for next belt and after attending tons of national 'Way to Excellence' courses and a gruelling weekend course, passed their 2nd Dan's with flying colours - well done to both of you! |
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_________________________________________________________ Central
England Wado Kata Championships This was just a small Wado only competition run by Wadokai England coach Stennet Harvey. Carl, Amy and Nicole (Kobukan Darlington) travelled down to Birmingham to get some much needed 'mat time'. We managed to hit every bit of traffic on the 200 mile journey which meant that we got to the venue an hour later than planned. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not but Stennet managed to stall the competition by giving the officials a lunch break which allowed us to turn up without missing our events (Thanks Stennet!). Needless to say, within 10 minutes of us arriving we were called up to compete. Results are as follows: Amy
& Nicole - Pairs Kata, 3rd Place |
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_________________________________________________________ Belle
Vue 'This is your Life' The Belle Vue Sports Centre is this year celebrating it's 25th birthday with a series of fundraising events. The majority of the Hartlepool Wadokai Committee attended this social event, along with some of the parents. |
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_________________________________________________________ Aiwakai
Invitational National Championships The club entered 22 competitors and did very well at these championships! Everyone met ridiculously early (6.30am) at the Belle Vue Centre carpark to load up on the coach and then we set off for Derbyshire. A few miles into the journey it was obvious that we were having some problems because the coach never went past 50mph. We ended up having to stop at Ferrybridge services so the driver could check out the engine. Needless to say the engine had died, so we had an hour wait until another coach could be sent for us. Not to be disheartened, Sensei Amy got the entourage together for a group shot....
...and then Sensei Carl got all the junior competitors together for an impromptu Karate lesson in front of the service station. Once the kids were suitably warmed up and embarrassed, we let them go.
After an hour or so, the replacement coach arrived and we managed to get to the venue by 10.30am, at this point we'd been on the road for 4 hours!!!
This year, the club insisted that ALL competitors enter both Kata AND Kumite divisions, with NO exceptions. The decision paid off with the club bringing back 27 medals from 22 competitors (20 medals from 32 competitors last year!), we beat our objective of getting equal medals in Kata & Kumite -this is a great result for the club as it shows that we are now a KATA & KUMITE club!
The competition was well set up, and ran very well throughout the day. As usual with these sorts of events there were some inconsistent decisions by the referee's, though I think this is always going to happen to some degree. You've just got to learn to take the good calls with the bad, and occasionally offer feedback. Entries Alana
Albrighton Kata Results Lynne
Jorgeson, 3rd Place, Veteran's Kumite Results Michael
Jorgeson, 2nd Place, Veteran's Download the FULL results here |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Sporting Association (HSA) Meeting Carl attended this meeting on behalf of the club as the other instructors were either busy teaching or else at work. We'll post the minutes online once we have them. Hartlepool Wadokai & Sportability were welcomed warmly by the HSA members. Amongst other things, we discussed preparations for the Hartlepool Tall Ships event in August and the HSA' involvement in that. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai AGM This year's AGM was held at Owton Manor Primary School. The full minutes are available to members upon request. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Seminar @ Askam Karate Club
The class had just over a dozen students of mixed age and grade. We took the class through some basics, Kata, fight drills and pad work and then moved them onto (for some) their first taste of competition fighting/sparring. The students were all enthusiastic and seemed to enjoy themselves. We really enjoyed the course, and we tried to give the students enough to work on until next time. After the course, we were treated to some gorgeous cake and snacks. I'd like to thank Sensei Matt Graham for inviting us to his dojo.
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_________________________________________________________ Wayne
Otto Seminar, hosted by Task, Stockton Sensei Carl & Amy took a small squad consisting of Lewis Muldown, Roy Salmons, Phil Salmons, Luke Dawkins and Harvey Kerridge to Stockton to train with Sensei Wayne Otto, 9x World Champion and EKF National Coach.
Hartlepool Wadokai & Kobukan Darlington members with Sensei Wayne Otto Otto
Sensei started out with basic stuff, explaining and demonstrating very
well so that even the youngest students could manage. Throughout the course,
he added to what we'd previously done so that you could easily memorise
the set drills and put them into practise. The session was split into 3x 2 hours training slots, with the last session for the advanced students & seniors. It was a good way of splitting the day so that the students survived the 6 hours of intense training. I'd like to thank Mark Raistrick from TASK for the invite. Aiwakai are hosting a Seminar at Alfreton Leisure Centre with Wayne Otto on Saturday 26th June. See the Aiwakai website for more information. TASK are hosting another Seminar with Wayne Otto on Saturday 25th September. See the TASK website for more information. |
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_________________________________________________________ Shingo
Ohgami Sensei
Training Course, Stockton
The course was hosted by our JKF-Wadokai friends on Teesside and we were very grateful for the invite. Ohgami Sensei, infected the whole seminar with his good humour and great way of explaining, often with himself demonstrating every Kata we performed. The course covered all the basics and tons of Kata and touched on Kihon Kumite, but it was all taught in such a way that it didn't become stale. It was like being back in Japan! |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai / Hartlepool School Sport Partnership Meeting Carl had a short meeting with Mr John Hewitson of the Hartlepool School Sport Partnership. The meeting was a chance to put faces to names and for Hartlepool Wadokai to be introduced to the Hartlepool SSP. Carl invited Mr Hewitson to the club to see for himself the work that we do on a daily basis. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai / HSA informal Meeting Sensei Lynne, Carl and Vince attended an informal business lunch with Mr Shaun Hope of the Hartlepool Sporting Association (HSA) at the Hartlepool Sixth Form College bistro. Amongst other things, the club instructors were there to sign the HSA constitution on behalf of Hartlepool Wadokai and to discuss how the club and the HSA/College of FE can work together in the future. |
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_________________________________________________________ PC
Kieth Robinson visits the club PC Kieth Robinson, Police Officer for Hartlepool’ Elwick ward recently made a visit to the Hartlepool Wadokai Karate Club at the Belle Vue Sports Centre.
PC Robinson asked the kids a lot of questions throughout the talk and built on what the students already knew. He followed this up by explaining what to do if they or someone they knew was getting bullied and who ‘safe adults’ were who they could talk to. With the advanced kid’s class, PC Robinson went into more detail and talked about the importance of being safe on the internet and the reasons why you should never post personal information on sites like Bebo or Facebook.
'PC Robinson was great at engaging with the kids, some of whom were only 5 years old and got them all to interact and answer questions. PC Robinson's experience as a Police Officer really came across as he managed to explain what a stranger is and how dangerous they can be - all without scaring the kids'. Carl followed on by explaining why these types of talks are so important: ‘We (Hartlepool Wadokai) take our social responsibility very seriously and we understand that we've got to arm our students mentally and physically for the challenges they could face in their day-to-day lives. These challenges could be as simple as standing up to the neighbourhood/school yard bully to getting away from a dangerous situation; it’s all a part of their training in Karate’. ‘We would like to thank PC Kieth Robinson for his continued support of the club'. |
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_________________________________________________________ Aiwakai
Way to Excellence Course
Sensei' Lynne, Michael and Amy all attended this Aiwakai Way to Excellence course in Derbyshire. These courses make up the Aiwakai Dan grading program, but they are open to everyone regardless of age or experience. This course as usual was led by Sensei Sakagami, Sensei Peter May and Sensei Keith Walker. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Club Grading 5 students from the club recently passed their 9th Kyu (Red Belt) test and 1 student passed his 7th kyu (Orange Belt). As usual, the students were put through an hour training session and then the belt test followed. The successful students are as follows:
See the gallery (link on the right) for more pictures of the grade. |
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_________________________________________________________ Wadokai
England Squad Training & Selections for the Wadokai World Cup
Sensei' Carl and Sensei' Amy once again hit the road south to Birmingham for a Wadokai England Squad Training with a difference. This time they would be fighting for their places on Team England that would be attending the Wadokai World Cup in Japan this coming August. I'm pleased to report that they were both selected for the Kata AND Kumite team's. They'll be flying out to Japan in early August for two weeks to compete in the Wado World Cup (Nagoya, Japan) and the JKF-Wadokai National Championships (Tokyo, Japan). |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Executive Committee Meeting / Pre-AGM
Due to a crazy-busy club schedule that's been almost non-stop since September last year, the club has struggled to hold a full committee meeting since the EGM last year. Therefore the decision was made to combine this Exec Comm meeting with the Pre-AGM to save time for everyone. The minutes from the meeting will be available for download once they have been ratified. The next scheduled meeting is the Club' Annual General Meeting (AGM) which has been set for Monday 17th May 2010, starting at 6pm. It will be held at Owton Manor Primary School, Eskdale Road. All members welcome to attend. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Newsletter - March 2010
Now available for download: Click
here
to download a printable version. Click
here
to download the version that was emailed out to members. - BE
WARNED, it's 24 pages long! |
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_________________________________________________________ Wadokai
England Squad Training Sensei' Carl and Sensei Amy travelled down to Birmingham for an action packed weekend of Alton Towers on Good Friday and a Wadokai England Squad Training session on the Saturday. Due to the holidays, the session wasn't particularly well attended but it meant that the competitors got more specific tuition - great for getting ready for selections on the 18th! |
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_________________________________________________________ Easter
Holidays All classes are closed during the above times due to the Easter Holidays, the After School clubs resume from Monday 12th April. |
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_________________________________________________________ Harvey,
Superstar Fighter
Well done Harvey! |
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_________________________________________________________ English
Karate Federation (EKF) EGM & AGM Sensei' Carl & Michael both attended these meetings as representatives of the Wado Aiwakai Karate-Do Federation. They attended to ensure that the Aiwakai voice was heard and that the members interests were looked after. The official minutes haven't been released as yet. |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Annual General Meeting (AGM) The Club' Annual General Meeting (AGM) has been set for Monday 17th May 2010, starting at 6pm. It will be held at Owton Manor Primary School, Eskdale Road. Please Note: There will be no Karate classes at Owton Manor on this date only. The
following posts are up for election:
Guidelines All nominations for posts must be supported by another (un-related) member over 16 years of age or a parent of a member under 16 years. Items
for meeting |
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Club Grading 6 students from the club recently passed their 9th Kyu (Red Belt) test and 3 students passed their 7th kyu (Orange Belt). As usual, the students were put through an hour training session and then the belt test followed. The successful students are as follows: Jake
Kitching, 9th Kyu
Caitlin
Wormald, 9th Kyu
Harvey
Weegram, 9th Kyu
Jaxon
Bartle, 9th Kyu
Amber
Hearn, 9th Kyu
Luca
Hearn, 9th Kyu
Connor
Butterfield, 7th Kyu
Graham
Hind, 7th Kyu
Rachel
Iley, 7th Kyu
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_________________________________________________________ 1st
Hartlepool Wadokai Inter-Club Invitational Championships This was the first inter-club competition that our club had ever held and it’s hoped that this event will inspire other clubs to run their own versions of it. This will hopefully lead to a national network of Inter-Club competitions just for Wadokai Karate. Because of these high hopes, the pressure was on the club to make sure the event was a success – both in terms of entries from other clubs and perhaps more importantly how well the event was organised. We invited 15 other clubs and 9 submitted entries making a total of 10 clubs. There were 159 individual entries, and with most entries in two or more individual categories we knew that the competition was big, bigger than some national championships we’ve been to! The event started on time at 10am and was ran as well as humanly possible, but the sheer number of entries meant that we were always going to struggle to meet our guesstimated finish time. The Men’s Team Kumite was the last event of the day and finished at 8pm. I’d like to personally thank all of the volunteers that helped at the competition – far too many of you to mention, it’s the simple truth that our club is able to run events such as this because of the fantastic team of people behind the scenes, doing often thankless jobs and having to put up with me trying to whip them to work faster and longer. Our support team is the envy of many clubs and you should all be proud of the great job you all do. Thank you. Carl UNCLAIMED RAFFLE PRIZE: BLUE TICKET 136-140, please speak to a club official to claim the prize |
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_________________________________________________________ Bridging
the Gap This was the third in a row of courses ran by Sensei’ Peter May & Sensei Lee Minion designed as the name suggests to ‘bridge the gap’ between what you know and do in the dojo, and what may happen in the street. The tag line for these courses is ‘add to what you know to make it really count’. This is really appropriate as the courses do exactly what they say on the tin! Despite being held on mother’s day, the attendance was still ok with a mixed ability class from 9th kyu juniors right up to ‘old boy’ Dan grades. Sensei Michael and Sensei Carl attended from Hartlepool Wadokai. The session was started with some light jogging and quickly went to the subject matter including some interesting uses of those giant balls you often see if gyms. Lots of methods of insertion and separation, Pad work, Tie-ups, Takedowns and Groundwork and all encompassing the close quarter distancing you would expect from a ‘street’ situation. The session was enjoyed by everyone, and you could tell that people had a great time whilst working hard and challenging themselves. The session overran by about 30mins because the instructors were trying to cover as much as possible. With this sort of course, one topic naturally leads to another and I personally can’t wait to get to the dojo to practise some of those finer points learned. |
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_________________________________________________________ Taisho-Do
Karate Association Inter-Club Championships A small contingent of the Aiwakai Squad consisting of Nicole Wardell (Kobukan Darlington), Amy Coulson (Hartlepool Wadokai) and Carl Jorgeson (Hartlepool Wadokai) attended this local competition run by our friends at Taisho-Do (TASK). It was a very successful day, with the trio bringing back trophies in every category they entered! The results were as follows: Amy
Coulson Nicole
Wardell Carl
Jorgeson |
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_________________________________________________________ Sports
Coach UK Coaching Qualifications 9th March 2010, Sensei Lynne and Carl attended a SCUK Working with Disabled performers training course at Teesside University. 10th March 2010, Sensei Michael and Vince attended the same SCUK Working with Disabled performers training course this time at Hartlepool College of FE, provided by the Hartlepool Sporting Association (HSA). This
qualification forms part of the Hartlepool Wadokai coaching program. |
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_________________________________________________________ Tyne
& Wear Open Karate Championships
To finish off another full weekend of Karate, Sensei Amy and Sensei Carl
entered this year’s Tyne & Wear open championships which were
held at the Crowtree Leisure Centre in Sunderland. Amy Coulson 3rd
Senior Ladies Kata
3rd
Senior Ladies Kumite -60kg
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_________________________________________________________ Aiwakai
Winter Course & AGM Sensei Lynne, Carl & Amy attended the Saturday of the Aiwakai Winter Course held at Alfreton Leisure Centre. Sensei Lynne, still being injured was taking notes throughout the session and occasionally laughing at our misfortune during the more strenuous parts of the course. It was another good course, with lots of topics covered by Sensei Sakagami, Sensei Peter May and Sensei Keith Walker. It was also great to catch up with some of our Karate friends that we hadn’t seen for some time. The
Aiwakai Annual General Meeting (AGM) followed the training session and
was chaired by Hartlepool Wadokai’ Carl Jorgeson. The full minutes
can be downloaded from the Aiwakai website www.aiwakaikarate.co.uk.
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_________________________________________________________ Hartlepool
Wadokai Club Grading 18 students from the club recently passed their 9th Kyu (Red Belt) test. The students were put through an hour training session and then the belt test followed. Despite the students getting tired as the night wore on, they all performed admirably with some even managing to get a 1st class pass! The successful students are as follows:
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_________________________________________________________ Wadokai
England Squad Training
Sensei Carl & Sensei Amy spent their valentine’s day at the
Ikon Centre in Wolverhampton with the Wadokai England Squad. The attendance
wasn’t great at this training session but those there were worked
hard by the squad coaches. | |
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Kumite Squad Training Hartlepool Wadokai hosted the first Aiwakai Kumite Squad Training of 2010 at the Belle Vue Sports Centre. Sensei Keith Walker, 5th Dan was eager to put everyone through their paces and as always, ensure that students felt as though they’d just done 12 rounds with Tyson! – only kidding!! The course was well attended with over 30 students, though the majority were juniors, it was only reasonable that the session should be mostly geared towards this younger age group. Sensei Walker led the warm up himself, putting students half his age to shame with his stamina. He had some great warm ideas such as team leapfrog - which soon got everyone buzzing (and cheating!) to win and avoid the prize! Through the session we worked on different ways of moving to close the distance with an opponent, various fighting drills and combinations that got the mind and body working well, various take downs and pad work to get those explosive shots out. The training was really good, with everyone working hard and learning loads. We would like to thank everyone from the club who turned up to support the training session. The club has some exciting plans for rolling out its own regular Squad Training program from May 2010. | ||||
_________________________________________________________ Belle
Vue Sports Centre Fundraising Event, Since
before our Karate club even got started, the Belle Vue Sports Centre and
the great team there threw their support On
the 6th February members from Hartlepool Wadokai took part in the Belle
Vue centre’s ambitious fundraising scheme of rowing & cycling
all the way around Britain – in the middle of the Middleton Grange
Shopping Centre! The club could only be there on the morning as we were
hosting an Aiwakai Squad Training session on the afternoon. | ||||
_________________________________________________________ Sports
Coach UK Coaching Qualifications
4th February 2010, Sensei’ Michael, Carl, Amy, Vince all attended
a SCUK Equity in your coaching training course at Teesside University.
This qualification forms part of the Hartlepool Wadokai coaching program.
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_________________________________________________________ Fens
Primary School
Hartlepool Wadokai continues to go from strength to strength with the
addition of another After School Karate Club. Fens Primary School is the
latest club to sign up to the Hartlepool Wadokai After School Karate Program.
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Helen's Primary School
Sensei Lynne & Sensei Carl attended a school assembly at St Helen’s
Primary School on Hartlepool’s Headland. We’ve had after school
classes there since September and this assembly was organised to promote
the classes there. We talked briefly to the students, asking them what
they knew about Karate and then we called up a few of the students that
attend our class to demonstrate some pad work. A special mention must
go to Jake Norman who was the only student brave enough to wear his Karate
suit for the assembly? | |
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Aiwakai
Way to Excellence Course Finishing off a Karate training weekend with over 700 miles of travelling, Sensei Carl & Sensei Amy attended the first Aiwakai Way to Excellence of the year. The Way to Excellence program is an innovative and unique approach to Dan Grading in England. Students attend a number of national training courses where they are continually assessed to see if they are ready to attempt their next black belt grading. These courses are open to all ages and grades and students will learn a lot about their Karate and themselves by attending. Sensei Keith Walker kick started the session with one of his legendary warm-ups that had most people gasping for breath and wishing that they were chilling out at home instead. This baptism of fire is probably the best way of getting rid of the last of the Christmas cobwebs and we all definitely felt better for it… ok not straight away, but eventually! After the monster warm-up Sensei Sakagami, 7th Dan took the full class and had us work on tons of stuff. The thread throughout the session was getting the hips and shoulder to work correctly to maximise power. We worked through all the Pinan Kata, Kushanku and Seishan and then went onto partner drills. I can honestly say that I learned tons from this session and I think that most of our students would benefit from attending these sessions and training with Sensei Sakagami.
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 Sensei Sakagami 7th Dan Chief Instructor for Aiwakai |
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Kata Seminar Sensei Carl & Sensei Amy took Lewis Muldown and Bailey Reed to this Kata Seminar that was taught by Sensei Peter May, 6th Dan and Sensei Lee Minion, 5th Dan at the Cheslyn Hay Leisure Centre in Birmingham. It was a very good seminar, with everyone being put through the fundamentals of moving correctly. The instructors also worked on the dos and don’ts of Kata techniques, explaining what Kata judges look for in competition. I think this type of course is invaluable to students, especially those interested in competition! Hartlepool
Wadokai are hosting one of these courses on Saturday 17th July at the
Belle Vue Sports Centre – put it in your diary!!! | ||||
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Brougham
Primary School
Sensei Lynne & Sensei Carl attended an assembly at Brougham Primary
School. We were there to talk to the students about Karate and to promote
the After School club there. This was a success with the Brougham After
School Class almost tripling in size straight away! | |
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Hartlepool
Wadokai Start of Year Course Due to spell of truly rubbish weather, the club had to cancel its first Friday class of the year (9th) and its planned Start of Year Training course on Saturday 10th January. This was done with student safety foremost in our minds. |  |
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West
Park Primary School The club recently started running a 6 week trial for two PE Karate Classes for 4-5 year olds at West Park Primary School. This is the youngest age group that we’ve ever taught so we were a little nervous about it, though Sensei Carl & Amy helped teach kids from 3 years old in Japan! At
the end of the successful trial, Sensei Lynne & Sensei Carl attended
a full school assembly. The kids were then given a certificate of participation
& offered a free karate lesson at one of our community classes once
they turn 5 years old. | |
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Sensei
Carl, Lynne and Amy travelled to Askam-in-Furness to finish off a busy
weekend of training. The club was invited to Askam Karate Club by Sensei
Matt Graham to run a short Karate Course for them. Despite Askam being
a relatively small town, their Dojo is FANTASTIC! Take a look at the dojo
pic... (Didn't get a chance to take pics of the students)
PC
Robinson introduced himself to the students before giving a talk on Stranger
Danger & Bullying. 
Carl
Jorgeson the Development Officer for the club said 
After
finally recovering from running the Inter-club championships, the club
instructors got together and decided who should get the massive trophy
that we had lying around. Only one person' name was mentioned by ANY of
the instructors because we all agreed that his performance at the competition
was the best of the day, culimating in 'down to the wire' final between
two Hartlepool clubs. 
Hartlepool
