Club Karateka training with Sensei Lucy Marsh..........
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| Left to Right- Gary Morton, Jon Wills, Jenny Walton, Lucy Marsh, Kevin Berry, Kevin Crichton and Dom Mancini. Photo by James Berry |
The session started at 7.30pm where the focus was on a thorough warm up.
This was followed by projecting four kicks from the Shotokan system, concentrating at all times on a raised knee and body core to execute a slow projection.
Once the kick was executed, the Karateka returned the kick back to its raised knee position before doing it again several more times.
The object of the exercise was in balancing and using the bodies core strength to project the kick slowly but with perfect projection.
The class moved onto five step Kumite looking at Kihon when executing any strike or blocks. The emphasis of this session was on distance, correct body position and strong stances.
This was followed by pad work, which was based on semi freestyle.
The object of this session was for your opponent to randomly offer a pad for a strike or kick, who would them move quickly out of the way and offer a further opportunity.
At one point Sensei Jon Wills offered the perfect opportunity for a Jodan MaeGeri kick, which almost resulted in his palm pad in leaving the dojo via an open first floor window!!
The next session was Kata, which started with Heian Shodan, where Sensei Lucy concentrated again on basics and correct form, stating that if you got this basic Kata correct, the rest would fall easily into place.
This was followed by a session on Tekki Shodan where good use of the dojo's mirrors were utilised to check on your own personal form as you progressed through each stage of the Kata.
The last session prior to 9pm was a warm down involving stretching techniques which felt really good and relaxing.
I would like to thank Sensei Lucy Marsh and her club members for making us feel truly welcome at her Dojo, which is well worth a visit and a great session to be enjoyed.
