Another term bites the dust and soon another year. It has been a good term with a lot of progress made by everyone.

On a health front, I found myself running on fumes again at the beginning of last term resulting in a visit to my specialist who revealed that I had had a full relapse of my lung disease, Sarcoidosis – a bit of a bummer.

The good news is that I was put back on to the strong medication (Prednisone) which immediately made me feel heaps better and I was able to resume some sort of normality regarding my own training.

This time, I have approached my treatment very differently and put myself on a very strict diet. Instead of going up 12kgs as I did as a side effect of my last course of treatment, I have managed to go down 5kgs (at the cost of feeling permanently ravenous). Fingers crossed that the disease burns itself out this time.

Last term we trialled a few of the older juniors for the Adults class. The age group early to mid teens is a problematic age for us. If we had more time, we would, and should, run an intermediate group to cater for this age group – but unfortunately time just does not permit!

The problems for this age group is that the Junior group finds it very hard to cater for their needs – they need to be challenged more physically as well as in terms of discipline and many older Juniors find that they aren’t actually getting much out of their training.

The jump from Junior to Adults group is a very big one: there is a very large self-defence component to the syllabus that they just don’t know, the training is very much harder, there is a far greater demand on the self-discipline part of training and psychologically, they go from being the biggest and the strongest to being the smallest and the weakest.

Having said this, the trials went very well last term and I am encouraged by this but there are a couple of things as parents (and prospective new adult members) that you need to be aware of:

Firstly: we have worked very hard to create the very good and hard working atmosphere that we enjoy in the adults group. Everyone is very motivated and put a lot of effort into their training. We are great believers in self-discipline rather than enforced discipline.

What we want to avoid at all costs is to be forced to reprimand and control the behaviour of young adults – any young adult that forces us to do this will be asked to leave and return when they have sufficient maturity. Based on our past experience, very few are able to make this transition, but I am sure you guys will.

As a parent, you also have to be aware of the fact that your young adult/children will be taught as adults and will learn self-defence techniques that are particularly nasty. Possessing this sort of knowledge demands a very advanced sense of responsibility and if you have any concerns or reservations as a parent, please let us know at the earliest possible opportunity.

On Saturday 11^th October, I have been asked to lead another seminar for Karate New Zealand member clubs. This seminar will be held at Robbie Smith’s club from 2.00 PM – 4.00 PM and is open to all adult members of member clubs – you are most welcome to attend. Robbie will also be leading part of the seminar and it is always fun to try out different styles and be exposed to different ways of thinking – Robbie, in my opinion, is one of the very best sports karate coaches in New Zealand. Please let me know if you are interested.

The other thing that we intend to do next term is to arrange a training weekend at Pukehina. Helena has some dates in mind and we have managed to locate a suitable training hall. There will also be opportunity to tell lots of lies as well as drink and eat lots of good food – it is not all work!

We had an injury on the very last bout of the junior sparring competition last term. One of the older girls received a punch to the throat which looked a lot worse that it actually was – but we took no chances and insisted on an immediate check up.

It is the first such injury that we have had in the junior club (in 15-year of running clubs) which is largely due to our insistence on the highest standards of control – especially regarding junior sparring. We will not hold any junior competitions where competitors are not fully protected with body armour.

I have received a little stick from other instructors who have said that we are being over-protective; that the odd injury will toughen up the kids etc etc.

I do not agree with this at all. Injuries to kids do nothing but put them off. Karate is very dangerous by design and even when sparring as adults we must learn control as a fine art.

We continually hear the argument that if you hold back too much during sparring then you will automatically hold back in a self-defence situation. 

This is simply not true. It requires far more skill to kick or strike with full-power and still retain the control necessary to pull back to light skin touch contact. Additionally, this control is absolutely vital for the development of pin-point accuracy.

Any one can throw a wild and uncontrolled punch. If as a student, you are worried by the possibility of getting hurt, then you will be less willing to try out some more complex techniques and it will be very hard practically to raise your fighting skills to more than a very basic level. 

We must have full trust of our sparring partners: otherwise they are no good to us at all.

The whole point of our style of karate is to learn to fight smarter. Without this, we resort to trading punches and in this scenario the biggest, strongest and fastest will always win. If this were always true then little runts like Helena and I would never stand a chance – I hope that those that know us will be able to testify that this is not the case.

Congratulations go to the following people who passed their grades last term:

Junior Red Belt

• Peter Longmire

• Connor Longmire

• Maysell Downey

Congratulations also go to the following juniors who won medals in the end of term kata competition:

Yellow belt & under

• Gold – Peter Longmire

• Silver – Maysell Downey

• Bronze – Connor Longmire

Purple belt & above

• Gold – Keegan Downey

• Silver – Rhea Petersen

• Bronze – Terri Hutton

• Bronze – Karina Nathan

 Seniors

Congratulations go to the following people who passed their grades last term:

7^th Kyu Orange Belt

•  Greg Jackson

• Grant van der Wettering

• Felix Rodriguez

5^th Kyu Blue Belt

·         Jack Akker

The dates for next term are:

Wednesday 8^th October – Wednesday 10^th December.

There will be an instructors meeting at our house on Monday 6^th October at 7.00 PM. Any blue belt or above interested in helping out as assistant instructors are welcome.

Please try to pay the term fees as soon as is humanly possible at the start of term – this saves us the hassle of having to chase people. If this is not possible, talk to us so that we can agree on another arrangement.

Cheers and see you all soon