In April 2017 Mike Coakham graded to 3rd dan at the JKA international course in Crawley.
At the same course, Ashley Conlan and Craig Phillips graded to 1st dan.
In Dec 2016 Davied Bath graded to 2nd dan at a JKAE course. Ben Coakham and Luke Phillips also graded to 1st dan.
CRAWLEY 2016
Several club members trained at this years Autumn international course in Crawley with sensei Osaka 8th dan
Immamura and Ohta 7th dan.
In November 2015 several club members attended a special course with sensei Ohta in Glastonbury that focused on the main areas to be considered in order to be able to pass a Dan grading.
The following month, John and Mike travelled to Weston to train with Sensei Ogane, a visiting JKA instructor from Japan.
Abergavenny SKC were fortunate to have 2 visits from JKAE Cheif instructor sensei Ohta in 2015.
In March, sensei took us through Nijushiho kata in fine detail. In June, sensei visited us again and took us through
Gangaku ( Crane on a rock ). Most of us had never attempted this kata before so we resembled a group of drunken
cranes as we negotiated the tricky spins and balancing movements of this kata. Karate is truly a lifelong practice !!
Once again we were pleased to welcome as guests, sensei Ralph and Sensei Trevor ( newly promoted to 5th dan JKA !! ).
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A 2 hour training session with Sensei Glyn Morgan 5th Dan JKAE. 20th Nov 2014.
We were delighted to welcome Sensei Glyn who had travelled all the way from the south Dorset coast. Also sensei's Ralph ( Glastonbury club ) and Trevor ( Weston club ).
The session started with basic punches and blocking from Shizentai stance. Lower grades were advised to make arm movements only, higher grades could use subtle hip vibration but to make sure they kept facing the front at all times.
We then did an interesting punching combination that involved changing direction after each technique. We then did a kicking combination also with quick changes of direction after each kick. We then got into groups of 4 so that we could each in turn have a go at directing these attacks at opponents.
A very challenging oi zuki excercise was next with each of us having to change direction after each punch. The theme of this was that the "front foot points to the direction of the punch" before you start to move.
Distancing during pre arranged sparring was discussed. During 5 step, 1 step and jyu kihon ippon kumite, the ATTACKER must judge the distance. With jyu ippon and jyu kumite then distancing is decided by both partners.
The main difference between jyu ippon and jyu kumite is that with jyu ippon, you need to work together. In jyu kumite,
you are against each other.
Kata was next with emphasis on correct kata counts. the reason for this is that if you know the count for each kata, then you will understand the flow and timing much better.
Finally, Jitte kata was covered in detail.
In all an excellent training session in which sensei Glyn gave us the benefit of not just his 40 yrs karate experience but also his in depth knowledge of current JKA thinking and training methods, gained from training in japan and on recent JKA coaching courses.