Chito-Ryu karate dojos have many events on the calendar that make it an interesting and fulfilling experience year after year, especially for the committed student. Events such as tournaments, gradings, beach training sessions, karate camps, guest instructors, specialty events and sometimes for the fortunate student, a trip to train at the Sohonbu in Japan. All of this is in store for 2018, so we should train hard and keep pushing towards being our best at these exciting times.
In 2017 there was a special event, being the Soke Cup, International Chito-ryu Karate Championship tournament that took place in Japan last year. This was an amazing experience for everyone who attended not only for the excellent karate competition between students from various nations, but to explore a beautiful country and its culture which I’m sure everyone appreciated very much. The next Soke Cup will be held in Canada in 2019 and it should be an equally spectacular time.
It is great to look forward to the highlights in the years to come for inspiration along the way, but it is the training in each class of the average week where we do the majority of the work. Without the hard work and commitment from all students of Chito-Ryu Karate, these events would not be feasible to run. So, if you don’t already, you should find an inspiration in every class you undertake, be excited and eager to learn as much as you can, we should be happy to push our bodies to new limits instead of thinking of it as work. Think of every class as a highlight in your journey to attain your next rank!
Week two of the intensive has begun, we started off in the morning with some jogging and sprints, kick combinations at jōdan, chūdan and gedan, and speed kata. The afternoon sessions I attended where challenging and fun, doing different sweeping kicks which were interesting to attempt! The final class held some general fitness and movement followed by more speed kata, some good rubber band analogies for increasing our kicking speed, accuracy and power, and ending with a kumite drill, it’s always fun when you get thrown during kumite/kumite drill!
P.S. I will be awarding someone who I personally think has put in a lot of effort and is showing improving teqniques across the board the Super Saiyan of the week award!! (For those that know dragon ball Z) this will be a special mention in my Friday blog, and will include a poor attempt of me trying to transform a picture of them into a Super Saiyan with blonde hair and glowing yellow energy around them haha with his/her permission of course.
