Congratulations - 25 years, not out

Cutting of the neck... I mean, cake!!!

Yesterday, a lot of the Hartlepool Wadokai seniors descended upon Hartlepool Divers Club for the 25th anniversary of two of our Executive Committee. Those being Mrs Diane Wilmot, who is one half of our Club Welfare Officer, and Mr Steven Wilmot, otherwise known as 'The Godfather', a man of many talents who not only designed our great club badge, but is also the club press officer, editor of our newsletter AND webmaster of the specially designed 'kids section' of the club website.

The party was a great success, with a great crowd (courtesy of the family), great food (courtesy of Trio Catering) and great music (courtesy of Alan Turner aka Taffy! http://www.taffysdiscotech.co.uk/).

Congratulations on surviving 25 years of marraige from everyone at Hartlepool Wadokai.

Japan - The Return...

This is Sensei Carl with Masatoshi Arakawa,

the youngest son of Takamasa Arakawa Sensei.

It may just be a coincidence, but Carl had to leave the country

shortly after this picture was taken... :-)

Yes that's right, Sensei Carl has been back in the UK for less than 6 weeks but he's getting ready to fly back on Monday 10th August (until the 20th).

He's returning for the 45th JKF-Wadokai All-Japan National Championships were he'll be competing against the best of the best from Japan in Kata (pre-arranged form) and Kumite (fighting). To prepare for the competition, Carl will be returning to Sensei Takamasa Arakawa' (6th Dan JKF-Wadokai) Shiramizu Dojo where he'll be training daily.

Carl also competed at last year's event where he placed in the 'best 16' for Kumite, though didn't get through the first round of Kata. This was still quite a good result considering it was his first ever competition in Japan, and the first time he'd ever competed in Kata in anything bigger than a club-only event.

Whilst there, Carl will also be taking part in an International Expedition to climb all 3776 metres of Mount Fuji, the largest mountain in Japan. He'll be climbing the mountain the day after the Japan Nationals alongside his adopted Karate Sister, Louise Fisk (from New Zealand) and Chris Heinmiller (from Canada) and hoping to reach the summit for sunrise of the 17th August.

We'll keep you informed of Carl's progress in Japan...

Vue Cinema Trip

During our Summer School, which runs from July 20th until August 7th, we managed to negotiate a special discount for our students at Vue Cinema. We all decided to head down to our local Vue Cinema on Wednesday 22nd July to see Ice Age 3 - 3D, which was fantastic...!

Special thanks to the Vue Hartlepool Management for making the trip possible...

Click on the LOGO for the Hartlepool VUE Cinema Website

Stranton Primary School

For the last few months, the club has been running a conditioning class every Saturday morning at Stranton Primary School. Since Amy and I have been back, we've turned this into a two hour Karate class.

The attendance hasn't been particularly inspiring, but every student that turns up has worked really hard and had a great time doing it - what more can you want?

We started out with some basics...

Also at today's class, we continued on with the a theme running through our Summer School - Tanto Dori, or knife defence. This stuff is usually not taught until a student reaches black belt, in fact in Aiwakai (our association) it's not needed until a student tries for 3rd Dan, so it's very advanced stuff.

Despite the advanced nature, and the fact that we had a mix of grades from yellow (8th Kyu) through to purple belt (4th Kyu), the kids did great.

We worked through the first 3 knife defences which in Japanese are called

No1:　 うでがらみどり (pronounciation = u-de-ga-ra-mi-do-ri) Udegarami-dori

No 2:　こてなげどり　 (pronounciation = ko-te-na-ge-do-ri) Kotenage-dori

No 3: うんがどり (pronounciation = u-n-ga-do-ri) Unga-dori

We also made sure they all knew how to breakfall correctly, with amusing results...

Sensei Peter May Training Course

Saturday 11th July 2009, Belle Vue Sports Centre.

Today we had yet another great training course with Sensei Peter May, 6th Dan who was as usual assisted by Sensei Mairi Kerin.

The kids trained first with Sensei putting everyone through the basics, including some simple but effective reaction training.

Then, everyone moved onto basics and Kata training. To finish off, Sensei and Mairi put the kids through their paces with some Grappling Drills which everyone of them loved.

The Seniors started with basics, and moved onto some great sparring drills and finished off with an indepth look at Seishan Kata - which was completely for Carl and Amy's benefit because it's the compulsory Kata for the European Championships in October.

A little bird told us that it was Sensei Peter May's birthday on the following Monday, so we got him a delicious chocolate cake after the kids session to make sure he was suitably embarrassed.

The Usual Suspects - (L-R) Sensei' Mairi, Lynne, Michael, Carl, Sensei Peter May, Vince, Amy

Thanks again to Sensei for another great course. The next one is booked for September 20th at the same venue.

National Wadokai Squad Selections - report

Despite only arriving back in the UK on Wednesday 1st July, Amy and I were eager to head on down to Birmingham for the Wadokai England Squad training session on Saturday 4th July.

The squad session was also selections for the 2009 FEW European Championships which will be held in Dublin, Ireland in October. The session was split into different time slots for Kata (12:00-14:00) & Kumite (14:00-16:00)

Kata
Amy and I decided to use the Kata session as a warm up for the Kumite. Sensei' Peter May & Lee Minion put us all through our paces in basics and Chinto. The instructors spent time going over the finer points of the WKF Kata rules and what the referees are looking for. Also, we were all asked to perform our favourite kata in front of everyone and some of us were also asked to perform Seishan which is the compulsory Kata for the European Championships.

After the individual training, we were put into teams of 3. I was paired up with two lads who are used to competing in Kata at a high level. We decided to do Seishan because the speed of the Kata gave us all chance to synchronise.

The Kata session was really good, and I personally felt that it was tailored completely to what I needed to make my Kata even better - this is obvioulsy the sign of a great coach!

Kumite
We had a few minutes and then we went straight into the Kumite session. We were put through a warm up by Sensei Andy Genery 7th Dan which included a few pairs drills. We then formed lines to do a few minutes of fight drills and then went onto the selections which basically meant that we were sat around for hours and then called up to fight. I remember thinking that the only two people I didn't want to fight were Matt and Dale...

My first fight was against Mat Hubber, a fellow Aiwakai guy who until very recently was training with Sensei Keith Walker, Matt also took the mens title at the Aiwakai National Championships in May. It was a good fight, but sometimes a little scrappy though I managed to secure the win.

My Second fight was against Dale from Sensei Lee Minions Derby Karate Academy. This was another close fight, Dale started well with a solid lead hand punch to my right eye socket. The fight went right down to the wire with me lagging by one point, I managed to equalise right on the buzzer. The fight then went to Sai Shiai which is a new change to the rules, all points and penalties are wiped from the board and a completely new fight takes place for one minute (the old rules was - first to score). This is was my first experience with this rule change and it certainly got the adrenalin going because you have to dominate for the full minute rather than simply getting a cheaky point in the first few seconds. I went onto win this fight though I can't remember the score.

Amy was moving well, but she needed to be more clear with her techniques. She ended up winning one fight and losing one fight, but her performances were good in both cases.

We were informed on Saturday (11th) that both Amy and I have been selected for the England Squad. I've been selected for Kumite and Kata (which was a huuuuge surprise!) and Amy has been selected for Kumite and is a reserve for the Kata team.

Overall not a bad result for the club...

Temporary Class Changes

Due to issues outside of our control, we have had to take the temporary step of relocating our 'Friday' class from the Belle Vue Sports Centre to Owton Manor Primary School. We have also slightly changed the times to 1830-1930 (Kids Beginner Class) & 1930-2030 (Intermediate & Advanced Kids Class) & 2030-2200 (Advanced Adult Class).

This is a temporary measure for the following dates only:

Friday 3rd July 2009

Friday 10th July 2009

As yet, we are not sure where the Friday class will be after these dates though the class will definitely continue at one of these sites.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and we will resolve this matter as soon as possible.