Wadokai Technical Seminar: 24-25 July

Peter Here:

Over 70 Wadokai dan grades and instructors attended the Wadokai Technical Seminar on the weekend of 24-25 July, held in the Chiba District of Tokyo. The purpose of the seminar was to maintain the high standard of Wado being taught by those present, and to introduce any changes to the kata or kihon kumite syllabus. The weekend was led by members of the Technical committee, chiefly Takagi Sensei and Hakoishi Sensei.

We were also lucky to have Aina Kobinata (JKFan Deputy Editor) on site as well to run a report on the day for the magazine, and of course talk to Fabian and myself in near-perfect English!



Saturday was a long day, with the course running from 9:00 to 16:00. Unfortunately due to ridiculous traffic Arakawa Sensei, Fabian Sensei and myself arrived at about 9:30, but thankfully the group had only just finished the warm up and were working on the kihon essentials of Juntsuki-no-tsukkomi / Gyakutsuki-no-tsukkomi. Because this was a technical seminar it was a much slower pace to the very driven style of Shirmamizu; the Sensei stop and discuss the movement, the principles behind the movement and show some (sometimes quite funny) examples.

Indeed, the attitude throughout the day was that of thorough analysis and explanation, with only a little emphasis on high performance. That said, as the day was a sweltering 36 degrees, any physical exertion that we did soon took it's toll!



After Kihon, several Kata were analysed: Pinan Godan, Chinto, Seishan, and Naihanchi (Kushanku, Rohai and Jitte were tackled on the Sunday), with bunkai given.

Fabian Sensei and I were noticed, and rather charmingly Hakoishi Sensei started to use English and German in his explanations (even to Arakawa Sensei, who had to remind him that he was Japanese, much to everyone's amusement!).

Regular liquid breaks were taken to help combat the searing heat, which kept everyone on a high morale level. What really impressed me however, is just how happy Hakoishi Sensei is at practising his karate. After so many years of training, he's still playing with it like a new toy. This enthusiasm is definitely infectious!

After the lunch break Kihon Kumite was addressed, running through 1-4 on Saturday and 5-10 on Sunday. The higher Dan grades were lined up as the lower Dan grades (everyone here was at least a shodan, quite possibly I was the youngest and lowest rank there) took turns to practice with them. Each Sensei had a different piece of advice to give and a different way of looking at and correcting my performances, so to get the most out of this session I trained with as many Sensei as possible!

Saturday's session finished at 4:00. There wasn't much time for speaking at the end as Arakawa Sensei had to get back for the evening session (he had thankfully given Fabian Sensei and I the evening off), and then head out for a meal. The reason? It was Arakawa Sensei's Birthday! All of that training on such a day just shows how dedicated he is to karate. Food, laughs and some beers were had (though not too much beer, we were training the next day after all).

Sunday was just as hot as Saturday, so we were thankful for training in just the morning (the afternoon was a dan grading). Kata was first, and unfortunately it was Kushanku first- unfortunately because it's very much my worst kata and it became victim to the scrutiny of the top Wado Practitioners of Japan. Oh my.



We ran through the other Kata, all of which were new to me. Thankfully all the other Sensei were aware of this and helped me through with both basic movements and the more essential details. I would've loved to have spent more time on the kata, but I appreciate it wasn't the time for learning.


Kihon Kumite 5-10 was also done a bit faster than I would have liked, but as we had to finish by 12pm the schedule was tight already. However this does not stop this weekend being an invaluable seminar that has helped improve my understanding of Kata and Kihon Kumite to no end, and maybe I have found a new favourite kata in Jitte!


After the Seminar: mini-post


As it was such a beautiful day, Arakawa Sensei thought it would be a shame to waste it- so he took Fabian Sensei and me to the Umihotaru on the Tokyo Aqua Line. Wikipedia can say much more about it than I can on this page, but the line itself is a very impressive structural achievement.

We all took this opportunity to put our feet up- of course, being karateka we took this a little literally...

Takagi Sensei`s Seminar

(Photo from Arakawa Sensei's blog)

Erica here!

Last Sunday, October 4 , Louise and I, along with a dozen or so other people, attended Dr. Hideho Takagi Sensei’s seminar held at the Ikebukuro Sports Centre (Takagi Sensei is the chair of the Wadokai's Central Technical Committee). It was a black belt event, but I was kindly invited to join as well. I was quite relieved to see another brown belt upon arriving and to Louise’s surprise; it was a fellow karateka from her dojo in New Zealand.

We started the 4 hour seminar with partner work where we would move up and down the room with one person punching and the other doing various blocks and counter attacks. Many times during these exercises, Louise and I had no clue what we were supposed to be doing so we did our best, occasionally mimicking Arakawa Sensei and/or making up our own drill. Afterwards, we moved on to ido kihon, kihon kumite and lastly kata.

As usual, Takagi Sensei was very instructive and humorous. During one of our many water breaks, Yoshinhara Sensei and Louise trotted towards Takagi Sensei for some pointers about the stance Naihanshi, upon spotting them, he proceeds to look around the room as if he hadn’t seen them and starts to jog away. Eventually, he let them catch up and gave some valuable advice on how the stance is supposed to feel.

During yet another water break, I was practicing with Yoshinhara Sensei my gyaku-tsuki (reverse punch). Takagi Sensei comes up to us and explains that I’m using too much of my upper body and that I should focus more on using the hips. I watched paying close attention when he was explaining it, showing us when out of nowhere he hits me with a chudan gyakutsuki. Obviously he held back and he had only lightly hit me but even so, I felt the force and could then imagine how it would feel to be behind a strike that had his full force.

Arakawa Sensei and Takagi Sensei (photo from Arakawa Sensei's blog)

Often, Takagi Sensei would enlist someone to assist him when he is demonstrating and most of the time; his uke would get attacked at the most unexpected times. It was quite funny for the rest of us, but a little unfortunate for whoever was his helper at the time. By the end of the seminar, my mind was brimming from everything we’ve done and desperately trying to retain everything. I’m sure I have forgotten some of it already, but it was a very enjoyable seminar and it went by really fast.

Wadokai Kanto Taikai

Carl here,

I’ve been looking forward to this competition for a while now; the last few competitions were only local events with relatively small categories, this one would be a real challenge. Also, this would be mine and Amy’s last competition during our internship in Japan. Naturally my ego wanted me to win my kumite division.

(editor's note: The Wadokai Kanto area Taikai has about 1600 Wadokai member only competitors from the 7 prefectures around and including Tokyo so it is one of the biggest tournaments of any style in the region.)




We all had an early start from Tobudobutsu-koen station to get to....



....The Komazawa Olympic Park sports arena near Shibuya for 8:30.

The venue had 13 area mats set up and most categories were big. My kumite category (none university student adult men only) had 54 people in but I was feeling confident. My category was one of the first to start, Arakawa Sensei came over to help me warm up and I was ready to go.



Kumite

I won my first fight 6-0 with three punches and a head kick. It was a straight forward fight.

I had a long wait for my next fight, but just as I was about to go on the mat, one of the officials came over to tell me that I was wearing the wrong colour so I had to change. After changing colour, I walked to the edge of the mat and the same guy came back over and said he’d made a mistake and I now had the wrong colour on. So, after changing my belt and gloves again, I walked to the edge of the mat.

The fight was terrible, I fumbled my way through to a 1-0 win but I wasn’t comfortable in the fight at all. I had obviously let the fussing about at the start throw my focus. What made it worse was that the area was directly in front of were Takagi Sensei and various other important Wadokai Sensei were sat, so they had a great view of my terrible performance.

My third and last fight was even worse than the last one. I was up against a big guy who came in immediately with an unanswered body kick to my back to get 2 points. He then proceeded to pound my face a couple of times to get another 2 points and a contact warning. I didn’t really answer any of it, I kept chasing but my reverse punches were nonexistent and my lead hand was moving in a very obvious circular movement rather than a straight line to the target. Without my hand techniques to open up the opponent, my leg techniques were all but useless. To add to this, my distancing was way off! All in all, probably one of the worse performances I’ve ever had in kumite. I lost the fight 4-0 finishing I believe in the ‘best 16’.

I walked away from the area to cool off and watch my fight which Amy had recorded. Once I’d watched it a few times, I was ready for human contact and I found Arakawa Sensei to apologise for fighting so badly. He laughed and we had a talk about the way I fought and what I did wrong, we both concluded that my ‘head’ just wasn’t in the fight!

I didn’t get to see Amy fight in her kumite division because I was called for kata, she didn’t make it through her first round which she wasn’t particularly happy about.

Team Guseikai



Arakawa Sensei taking a break from his warm up

Arakawa Sensei was fighting as part of Takagi Sensei’ Guseikai Kumite Team. I’ve never seen Sensei perform in a competition so naturally I stuck around to watch, with almost everyone else in the venue including the free officials!

Guseikai did well in their first round, winning easily. Arakawa Sensei in particular was in total control of his fight. The next round wasn’t so great, they changed the fight order around and the first two guys lost and the next one after won. Arakawa Sensei was up next and despite fighting well, he ended up running out of time being one point down. The next Guseikai guy also lost, though barely.

Lunch Break


Kids in action
Photo from the blog of Arakawa Sensei

During the scheduled lunch break, all the kids were lined up and put through some basics and kata by Shiramizu’ Arakawa Sensei.


Chihiro from Shiramizu giving out presents

Then all the Shiramizu adults helped the other officials give a small present (Wadokai branded Chopsticks!) to every child competitor. Whilst this was happening there was a number of demonstrations held for the crowd.

Kata
Amy’s kata category was called up whilst I was fighting but I did see her first kata performance from across the hall. She did really well, getting all 5 flags in her first round. I didn’t get to see any of her other kata performances though. Amy ended up finishing in the top 8 of the category. This is a great result for her, especially considering her set back over the Dan grading! Also, the trophy she got is great, it’s probably one of the most stylish trophies either of us has ever won, and it was for an 8th place!

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have any hope in kata! I was fairly sure that I wasn’t going to get past the first round but I still had my objectives. The first time I competed in kata was 9 months ago and I was very nervous, my only objective for this competition was to perform with no tension and not be nervous. My Pinan Godan wasn’t perfect, but it was ok, I slipped slightly in the last move which I believe lost me the round (5 flags to 0!). I was still happy though because I wasn’t nervous during the performance and there was very little tension. Mission accomplished.

Lawrence gave a good performance of Pinan Godan but the decision went to the other guy. For the life of me I couldn’t see the difference between the two kata!


The Shiramizu squad!
Photo from the blog of Arakawa Sensei

Summary
This wasn’t the best result that Team Gaijin has achieved at a competition, but I’m really pleased for Amy and her kata placing. I don’t suppose ‘best 16’ in kumite is too bad, but it’s 15 places from where I wanted to be!

Shiramizu did well with the medal haul, I don’t have exact numbers but a large number of Shiramizu people were in the finals.

A special mention should go out to all the Shiramizu instructors, they were either helping at the competition as officials or they were competing. Iwasaki Sensei got 2nd Place in the over 40’s Kata, he smiled when he said he got zero flags for his Kushanku kata in the final. Also Yoshihara Sensei, who just so happens to be one of the nicest ladies you’ll ever meet, got two silver medals, one in Kumite and the other in Kata. I think Yamazaki Sensei would have placed in her Kata category but she was struggling with a back injury so her kata was pretty tense.

Even though I came away from the competition empty handed, I’ve still learned loads. Also, I got some great feedback from Hideo Takagi Sensei about my fighting which I very much appreciate! Also, it was great fun to hang out with friends who all love karate as much as me, make new friends, flirt with all the cute girls – the usual!

By my calculations, I have 22 weeks to train for the JKF-Wadokai Nationals in August which I’m planning to fly back to Japan for.