Canadian Visitors

On Friday 19th July we were joined by two Candaian visitors, Doug and Lucy,  who practice Seibukan Shorin Ryu Karate, under the tutelage of Sensei Dan Smith and Hanshi Zempo Shimabukuro from Chatan, Okinawa. 

We first met Doug and Lucy on Okinawa back in 2014 and we have kept in contact ever since. They are wonderful people, true budo-ka and it was fantastic that they kindly took a couple of days out from their U.K holiday to travel up to Cumbria in order to spend some time with us. They participated in Jenny's Thursday evening Enduro-Strike class, enjoyed some Cumbria fell walking and a trip to Keswick on Friday and then we finished off with a special karate session on Naihanchi Kata application before a nice meal together in the evening.

It was especially interesting to compare the Seibukan version of Naihanchi Kata with ours and to explore the differences of their performance in a pragmatic way. This helped to enrich everyone's understanding of the kata and indeed, some of the core principles found in karate, regardless of style. 

We'd like to thank Doug and Lucy for taking the time to visit us, to our members for making them feel so welcome and to St Benedict's School staff for the use of their wonderful facility.