Gneo Sensei (7th Dan, Belgium)

We were back at the Elmbridge Xcel Leisure Complex on Saturday 5th December 2009 for a JKAE Brown & Black belt course. We have attended various JKAE courses over the past 2.5 years but this is the first time that we have been available and eligible to attend a brown & black belt course. The course contents were not advertised so our expectation was for an Ohta Sensei led course, much like the All Grades Course we attended in October, with a focus on the 3 K’s (kihon, kata, & kumite) needed for those taking a dan grading after the course.

We arrived at the course very early (as usual!) to see quite a long queue at the registration desk but we quickly realised that this was the queue for those grading so we were able to jump directly to the course only registration. At this point I suddenly realised that we did not have our JKA licence’s because we had handed them over for a grading later in December. I had paid for this course sometime ago so I should have realised that we needed our licence’s and we could have held onto them before submitting our grading papers at our next club training session following the course. However, the JKAE committee members had no problems with us attending the course after I explained everything although things would have been different if we had forgotten our licence’s and we were planning to go through a dan grading… not that I would ever make that mistake!

We had some time to kill before the course started so we popped into the cafe area to grab a drink and snack for MiniMe then sat down and ate whilst watching everyone arrive for training. The queue for dan grading registration seemed to grow and grow, as did the queue for course only registration, so I was glad that we were early today. It was soon time to head into the main Hall and MiniMe kept himself busy running around following the tram lines set in the floor to mark out badminton courts. Ismail Sensei called everyone into line and with some people hesitant to move forward we found ourselves on the front of the line on the far left hand side. At this point I also noticed that we had some guest instructors for the course who I would later find out were Chubachi Sensei (2nd dan) from JKA Headquarters in Tokyo and Gneo Sensei (7th dan) from JKA Belgium.

Ismail Sensei led everyone through a vigorous warm-up and straight away we were split into 2 groups: dan grades on one side of a large sports hall dividing net and brown belts on the other. We were fortunate to have  Gneo Sensei for our first session and with a twinkle in his eye he told us that his aim was to make us all sweat until we could not stand up. It was apparently clear that Gneo Sensei had a great sense of humour about him and this was evident throughout the training he led.

Chubachi Sensei (2nd Dan, Japan)

Gneo Sensei led us through the kata Tekkei Shodan several times before a shift onto the emphasis of various applications of blocks / attacks taken from Tekkei Shodan. I have highlighted before that the brown belts always spend time on the kyu grade kata that will be requested in the later dan grading but it was very refreshing to have an application based approach to the kata rather than repeating the kata over and over. Gneo Sensei gave several demonstrations before we went off to practice in pairs but it was clear just how sharp and powerful Gneo Sensei is based on the way he showed each technique. I had a great time practising each technique with a partner but it was clear that MiniMe was struggling to understand some of the concepts being taught. It also did not help that he was partnered with someone so much taller; however, he was still giving his all and trying his best.

This session was now over and everyone went for a short break before heading back to their respective groups but with a switch of instructors. The brown belts were now being led by Ohta Sensei with Chubachi Sensei passing through the lines giving advice where he felt necessary. Sensei started on basics and we proceeded to run through the basics needed for those who were grading for shodan following the training session. We soon built up a head of steam as Sensei drove us on and on through each set before we then turned our focus to kumite. We partnered up to practice both the structured and freestyle kumite needed for those grading to shodan. Since there was an odd number of students it turned out that MiniMe had no partner for the freestyle practice so was partnered with Chubachi Sensei. I managed to glance over a few times to see MiniMe with a huge grin on his face launching himself at Chubachi Sensei, really trying to land some MiniMe sized blows.

Finally we split into groups for kata with the  majority of students being led through Bassai Dai by Chubachi Sensei while some much smaller groups went through some black belt kata with Ohta Sensei (these were people taking their shodan grading who had chosen a kata other than Bassai Dai). MiniMe was paying partcular attention to his new ‘kumite pal’ Chubachi Sensei and took great delight in translating Sensei’s Japanese into English for me. The training was soon over and all grades came back together to bow out.

Gneo Sensei (7th Dan, Belgium)

There was a further presentation of certificates to those who had completed a dan grading at previous courses before both Sensei Gary Stewart (5th dan) and Sensei Roy Tomlin (5th dan) both performed a kata in front of everyone. I couldn’t quite hear the explanation given before they each performed their kata thanks to the acoustics of the large hall but it sounded like they had both recently passed a grading examiners test at the JKA Honbu. I can’t remember the kata performed either so if anyone was there wants to jog my memory via the comments section of this post then please go ahead. Gneo Sensei presented both with a certificate before the final presentation was given for the 2009 JKA England Dylan Award. Again, it was hard to hear everything from where we were sitting but it sounded like there was a very worthy winner.

So that was our final karate course of 2009 and we look forward to the events 2010 will bring.