JKA Scotland’s first Course of the year is always an exciting start to the year for students attending, and what a great start to the new year it was. Brown and Black belt members from various dojo’s gathered at Dunfermline High School, and the excitement could be felt whilst everyone waited in anticipation to see what kata’s Sensei Ohta, 7th Dan JKA had planned for the next 3 hours.
From the start, everyone knew that this course was going to be another fantastic one and we would all slowly feel the cobwebs coming off after the festive break.
During the first hour all brown and black belts trained together under the watchful eye of Ohta Sensei on Kata Empi, before splitting for the next 2 hours training to start focusing on progressively higher-grade kata’s, all of which had similar themes running through them. Kata’s that were focused on were:
Dan Grades – Kanku Sho & Meikyo Brown Belts – Bassai Dai & Jion
The main focus of the course was vibration and rotation of Hips, not over emphasising movements and maintaining the same level of height.
Sensei explained to everyone about the speed of kata and that when training, performing movements with speed is easier to do than slow movements. Sensei emphasised that as students progress, it is really important to remember that the same techniques will also progress.
At the end of each kata, Sensei asked if the students had any questions and provided an explanation of each to make sure that all questions were answered and understood.
After a very quick 3 hours of fantastic training, everyone gave thanks to Ohta Sensei. All students from 3rd kyu to Roku Dan took something away from the course to focus on and practice.
We would also like to thank all the JKA Scotland members who supported this course, we hope you enjoyed it.
The next events on the JKA Scotland calendar are Squad Training and the Course and kyu gradings for all Regions in February, please contact your instructor or Regional Officers for more details.
