Members Seminar Oct 2016

A great turn out for our members seminar!

Earlier today we held our third and final members seminar of 2016. Over thirty dojo members from our Whitehaven, Workington, Moor Row, Gosforth and Cleator clubs gathered together to train and support each other on their karate journey.

The topics presented during our members seminars are chosen based on general grading observations and individual requests, in order to help raise the quality ans standards in our group.

Chris teaching some sparring drills.

The morning session was devoted to sparring techniques and tactics, which covered everything from footwork drills, individual technique development, combining techniques using smooth transitions and then onto exploring a range of sparring principles such as controlling range, distance perception, changing levels, breaking rhythm, feinting, drawing and maintaining pressure. The final part of the session was devoted to some free sparring to encourage participants to try out some of the learning covered in a controlled environment.

After lunch, the seniors and teens stayed behind for a special session on our close-range limb control drills from Naihanchi Kata. We broke away from the framework of the drills in order to emphasise the ability to flow and make smooth transitions. Some of the principles covered during the morning session were re-visited here in a more practical perspective and again, we finished off the session with some free practice so that participants could experiment with the techniques covered.

It was clear to see that by the end of the seminar, both sessions had made a huge difference to everyone's ability and understanding, which led us to the confident conclusion that the event had been a success! We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all those members who gave up their Sunday to take part and share a few hours training hard with their dojo family. It is our plan to continue running these seminars in 2017, with our first to be scheduled in February.

​Here are a few pictures from the day - thanks again for everyone's support and see you back in the dojo :-)

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