Saturday 5th March
The training began at 10am with Sempai Boughey’s lesson, which started with using the different striking
areas of the hand that are not frequently used as some of the others. The lesson included attacks with
Ox jaw, Bear hand, Tiger mouth, Eagle hand and Thumb hand. The lesson continued with pre-empting an attack
from an aggressor by using a defensive posture and controlling your adrenaline rush. The second session was
taken by Sensei Edwards and he chose to take us through our 2nd kyu grading kata Bassai Dai. The kata was
broken down into a few moves at a time until the whole kata was able to practised to count. Sensei Edwards
then paired us up to work on a selection of applications that he had devised for the kata, this took us up
to a 15-minute break. The third session was taken by Sensei Ayres, who took us through a physical lesson in
one step sparring, in basic and free style stances. This included blocks and counters from kicks and punches
in a street-style theme and controlling and restraining techniques including chokes, neck cranks, throws and
foot sweeps. This took us to Sensei Dewson’s lesson of our basic 1, 3 and 5 step sparring drills, those of
us who thought our last session of the day of ‘basic moves’ was going to be easy, were soon to realise they
were wrong. Sensei Dewson demonstrated the importance of correct stances, distance, and technique before
getting the group to practise, first at medium speed and then at full speed and power until he was satisfied
with the results, this was repeated for the 3 drills with different training partners. With the time now at
2pm, Sensei Pell took the class slowly through the Heian Kata’s to cool down, before stretching out their
tired muscles. Some of the class were now longing to sink into the hot Jacuzzi and make the most of the hotels
health Spa facilities; others wanted to walk by the sea, in the fresh air. Dinner was in the hotel this evening
and most people had decided to stay in to relax after the day’s training sessions.
