England call up for World Cup
2015 is Wado World Cup year, this championship only comes around every 5 years and is held in Japan.
The 2010 event saw both Sensei Amy & Sensei Carl compete as part of the Wadokai England squad. Sensei Amy brought back two very well deserved BRONZE medals for her efforts, and thus helped England place a respectable 4th (if I remember correctly) in the medal tally. (Carl ended up pulling out of both Kata & Kumite events through injury).
This time around we have one of our students competing with the Wadokai England squad, Lewis Muldown was pre-selected for the WWC Squad just before Christmas and it looks like he will be joining one of the biggest Wadokai England team’s to visit Japan in recent history.
The Wado World Cup will once again take place in Nagoya city on 14th & 15th August and some athletes choosing to stay on for the JKF-Wadokai National Championships two weeks later in Tokyo. This is a huge competition with over 2000 athletes competing over two days.
Realistically, the cost per athlete for this event will be circa £2000 factoring in flights, hotels in two different cities, JR pass (cheapest & quickest option for travelling between the two cities) and sustenance whilst there. For the vast majority of athletes this will be entirely self funded, this doesn’t even consider the preparatory training costs, equipment & costs of chaperones! – This is a considerable amount when you think that the athletes are representing their country!
Sport England doesn’t really sponsor Karate athletes and even if they did, this is a single style (Wado) event so it would be unlikely to qualify for funding anyway. The NGB only funds a very small number of elite athletes and again, not for single style events.
The club will be doing what it can to sponsor Lewis and we would like to ask local businesses and friends to help if they can. The club is a registered Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC) so any donations are entirely tax deductable and we can also claim gift aid (meaning that your contribution is further increased by the tax man).
Please contact the club for more information (Tel: 07984 798634, Email: carl@hartlepoolwadokai.com).
Update:
This article was amended on 3rd Feb 2015 at 16:30. The original article stated that the JKF-Wadokai Nationals would take place the week after the WWC, this has been changed to state that the event will take place two weeks later. CJ
Upcoming events
It’s been a busy year so far at the club but we’ve got loads of events coming up for you to enjoy.
Saturday 15th November – EKF Northern Regional Squad Training, Dojo HQ, Hartlepool
This is competition fight training for anyone 10 years & above, the course needs to be booked on to in advance. Please visit the EKF website to download the form. Note the form must be submitted by 5pm on Tuesday 11th November.
Saturday 20th November – Wadokai England Squad Training, Leicester
This training course is only suitable for selected students and is compulsory for all athletes wishing to be selected to the Wadokai England team. Please speak to Sensei Amy or Sensei Carl if you are interested in attending.
Sunday 21st November – Hartlepool Wadokai club-only championships, Dojo HQ, Hartlepool
This is our annual club-only competition. This is a perfect chance for students to try out Karate competition as it’s a really small, friendly competition – and it’s only our club. Categories are typically split by age/grade so that it’s fair. Please sign up at the club no later than Wednesday 19th November.
Sunday 30th November – Sensei Keith Walker Masters Course, Dojo HQ, Hartlepool
This will be a fantastic training opportunity for all of our students. We’ll be splitting juniors and senior sections so that the course can be specifically tailored to each group. The times & costs are to be confirmed but it is likely to be 12-5pm, 12-2pm 13 years & under, 2-5pm 14 years & above. The course fee will also be subsidised from the club fundraising pot to help keep the cost down (we know that a lot of events are going on!).
Wednesday 3rd December – CLUB CLOSED
This is just a reminder that ALL Little Ninja & Karate classes are cancelled for Wed 3rd Dec only.
Saturday 6th & Sunday 7th December – Hartlepool Wadokai Grading, Dojo HQ, Hartlepool
Full details are available at the club. Please look at out for your letter this coming week…
Saturday 13th December – Wadokai England Squad Training, Dojo HQ, Hartlepool
We are really pleased to be hosting this course, which forms part of the 2015 competition season and the build up to both the Wado World Cup (Japan, August 2015) and the Wadokai European Championships (Oct/Nov 2015). We would like to invite ALL students interested in competition to this course. Again, this is a fantastic opportunity for our students to train with some of the best Wado instructors in the UK – without having to travel!
Saturday 13th December – Hartlepool Wadokai Adult Meal & Social
Full details and menus are available at the club but we would like to invite all of our parents, students & friends (14 years+) to join us for a bite to eat and a bit of a social.
Saturday 20th December – Hartlepool Wadokai End of Year Course & Christmas Party, Dojo HQ
Once again we are running a FREE end of year training course for ALL of our Karate students 12-2pm.
Our Christmas party is 3-6pm and tickets are just £3 each or £10 per family (same household). As usual we will have a buffet, disco and more importantly a ‘best decorated cake’ competition. The entries last year were fantastic & delicious!!!
JKF-Wadokai Dan Grade Information (for September 2013, UK)
Here is the latest (I believe) update from the JKF-Wadokai hombu for the upcoming UK JKF-Wadokai Master’s course with Takagi Sensei et al. (We haven’t modified any of the files from the original email sent to us).
Not everyone can open the MS Excel folder with the Dan Grade syllabus info so I’ve included it (Here – JKF-Wadokai Dan Grade September 2013) in an MS word file.
Please contact us if you can’t open any of the above files and we’ll do our best to help. Good Luck to all those who will be grading at the end of the month.
Japan Nationals Results – Japanese only
I’ve been looking long and hard for an online list of the Japan National results and have finally found them:
http://www.karatedo.co.jp/wado/taikai/46taikai/index.html
They are mostly in Japanese, but you can pick out the occasional foreign name.
Also, the following two downloadable documents may be of interest:
http://wado-kyouka.sakura.ne.jp/tournament2010kata.xls
&
http://wado-kyouka.sakura.ne.jp/tournament2010kumite.xls
These are downloadable MS EXCEL documents with the Kata & Kumite draws from the Wado World Cup 2010, as listed in the official programs. If I get chance I’ll highlight them so that it shows who won and how… enjoy.
Japan Nationals Results
I’ve had a few emails asking for a list of the Japan Nationals Results for 2010. Most of the names were written in Kanji and my Japanese isn’t good enough to translate them. I took photos of the final results but when I checked them a few minutes ago, it looks like I may have missed some of the categories, and some of the pictures are blurry but they’re better than nothing.
I’ve posted the pictures on my Facebook page (Carl Jorgeson) and I believe anyone can view the album.
When I get chance, I’ll try to find out the full results and get them typed up.
Wadokai Nationals, running order…
Arakawa Sensei (Shiramizu) photo copied this running order schedule for me for Saturday’s JKF-Wadokai National Champioonships.
– sorry, the paper was folded in my pocket but if you download the image you should be able to see all the categories ok…
Shiramizu
Shiramizu with Wadokai England members
from British Karate Academy – Sensei Lee Minion
& Traditional Karate-do Wadokai – Sensei Jamie Jewell
& Hartlepool Wadokai – our club!
Tonight Amy and I took 15 of the Wadokai England entourage up to Sugito to train at Shiramizu with Takamasa Arakawa Sensei. We had to take the train in two waves because some of the guys were delayed getting to the hotel, I sent Amy on ahead and I brought the rest of them with me… By total chance, we all somehow ended up on EXACTLY the same train that pulled into KUKI station for the transfer on the Tobu line to WADO station.
It was a scary sight, and one that has never been seen in the sleepy Sugito town before – 15 foreigners strutting along… all heading in the same direction, to the Shiramizu dojo. We turned up just in time for the start of class and we were all greated like old friends, and some bemused smiles before the guys quickly got changed for the start of the class. The dojo isn’t very big so I was pleased with the warm welcome that we received. I must admit, I was embarrassed taking so many people at one time since we effectively took over the dojo.
I’m still out of commission with my knee, so I got to compare the English with the Japanese, I must say that there wasn’t much in it between the cadet/juniors in the kata. It was a really good session, led entirely by Arakawa Sensei himself. I think Arakawa Sensei spent sometime ‘sizing up’ the various cadets & juniors during the basics and foot work drills – because let’s not forget, they’ll be competing against each other at the weekend. The session moved quickly onto Kata, with groups of students performing a number of kata at a time. This quickly becomes a mental endurance game due to the heat and humidity. All the students fed off each others energy and it was great to see our Kata guys performing on par with Shiramizu. The session finished with line / partner fight drills against a partner.
The entourage on the platform at ‘Wado’ station after training
Arakawa Sensei’ great sense of humour and friendliness came across instantly in the class and as usual everyone worked very hard, but had a great time doing it. The Shiramizu team didn’t want to be out done by the English and vice versa, so the atmosphere was great with everyone working that little bit harder. Sensei also had a chance to practise his English too.
Arakawa Sensei said a few words and asked me to translate, I paraphrased and thanked the England Team for training at Shiramizu and said something like ‘it’s good practise for everyone who’ll be competing at the Wadokai Nationals at the weekend’ and wished everyone luck. Sensei cracked a small joke at my expense explaining that Amy studied tons of Japanese whilst on the internship whereas I didn’t… I explained in my best Japanese that I was very busy… 🙂
After the session everyone was presented with a special ‘Wado’ face towel and keyring, we took a couple of group shots and everyone hung about for a while practising their English and getting to know each others names. We them headed back to the station for an eventful trip back to Ikebukuro where I got to practise (and totally blag!) a number of conversations in Japanese with the station ticket masters.
It should be noted that Jamie Jewell Sensei & all his group had only just got back from climbing Mount Fuji – the biggest and most famous mountain in Japan when we set off for the Dojo. No rest for the wicked!
On Tuesday, Amy and I took Nicole, Abby & Aaron (Kobukan Darlington) but Sensei was running a pre-belt test examination straight after the lesson so we all forgot about the group shot BUT I did get this one:
Thank you Arakawa Sensei and Shiramizu for letting us all train… we’ve all had a great time!
The Shiramizu magic…
Amy and I spent a year living in Japan from July 1st 2008 until July 1st 2009. We worked as the shiramizu interns, I ran the English language classes at the dojo and we both taught English for other companies in saitama and Tokyo.
Sensei Takamasa Arakawa is the owner of the dojo and anyone that knows him, or even knows of him will tell you that he is a fantastic wadokai technician and he’s also a genuinely nice guy.
The reason for mentioning the dojo?
at the upcoming Wado World Cup there will be at three former shiramizu interns competing (Louise Fisk – New Zealand & myself and Amy – UK). there is also another WWC competitor from Germany who is currently training at the dojo in preparation for the competition. This shows how special shiramizu is and how highly regarded Arakawa Sensei is internationally.
At the JKF-Wadokai Nationals, Shiramizu will no doubt have a massive club presence alongside fellow Englishman Pete Williams (the current intern). Shiramizu are often asked to do demonstrations at the big Karate events so I’ll have my video camera on standby.
Needless to say that Amy and I, and no doubt Louise will be visiting Shiramizu when we get back to Japan. I’m hoping to get as many of our Wadokai England team there as possible so that they can experience the ‘shiramizu magic’…
Shiramizu Intern ‘Official’ Blog
Shiramizu Intern Website (Japanese)
Arakawa Sensei’ Blog (Japanese)
Hartlepool wadokai kata course
Yesterday our club ran a wado kata course with Sensei Peter May and Sensei Lee Minion at the Belle Vue sports centre in Hartlepool.
This was the first time that we’ve invited both instructors up at the same time so we wanted as many of our students as possible to train with them.
We split the course into three different sessions and students could choose to attend one, two or all three sessions. I think splitting the event like this helped because it fit into other peoples schedule better, this meant that we got 40 people to the course.
the non-camera shy from Session 1
Session 1 was a general training session, this allowed our younger and low grade students to train. The session covered various types of resistance training as a way of getting your stances right. Then it moved onto sparring. The session was a good warm up for the more experienced, and the younger kids loved every minute of it.
Sensei Minion explaining what not to do during kumite practise
Session 2 was a masterclass in Pinan Godan. This is the first round kata for the August JKF-Wadokai Nationals in Tokyo. A lot of our students also need this kata for their next belt test so this was a logical choice for this session. At the end of the session all the competitors demo’d Pinan Godan and got some more feedback.
The non camera shy from Session 3
In Session 3 we started off with Seishan, this is the compulsory Kata for the Wado World Cup in August. After a short break we moved onto Kushanku, this would be testing everyone’s endurance because at this point we’d all been training for over four hours! Once again, at the end of the session all the competitors heading out to Japan demo’d Kushanku, and once again got some much needed feedback.
I’d like to thank kobukan Darlington, Derby Karate Academy, Teesside, Lincs Aiwakai, and Carlisle for supporting the course.
Meet the competition…
There’s not many Wadokai kata videos to find on the internet, and the official DVD’s that are available tend to be focused on ‘instruction’ rather than ‘performance’. This makes it difficult to compare your own performance to a high quality benchmark outside of your own group. The following are two Wadokai videos available on youtube.
The video is of Takuya Furuhashi winning the men’s kata division at the JKF-Wadokai Nationals in 2007. Seishan, Chinto and then Wanshu in the finals. Furuhashi-san also went on to win the men’s kata division at the Wado World Championships in Vancouver, Canada in 2008 (see below).
There are a few differences between the way these kata are performed and the way my kata is performed. These are relatively slow kata, with lots of intentional pauses between techniques. This obviously means that the competitor is on the mat longer and therefore that the judges can spend more time appreciating the techniques. The pace of the Kata is a little different to my version.
It will be interesting to see what the judges make of my attempts at some of these kata in a few weeks time!
setting yourself up… big time
Imagine that you were a respected karate coach, with a rather successful and ever-growing karate club…
Now imagine that you were also going to be competing at the biggest competition of your tournament career in a few weeks time…
This bit is multiple choice…
A – would you keep your head down? concentrate on your training, hope & pray?
B – would you create a blog about the whole experience, and then promote it everywhere you can?
Surely option B is setting yourself up big time. If I manage to crash out in the first round then I’ll be more than a little upset with myself…
The problem is, one of our parent’s asked, quite innocently if we’d be writing another blog to keep the club members updated on our progress at the Wado World Cup. At first I explained that we probably wouldn’t, but when I sat down with a nice cup of tea and thought about it, i realised that it was actually a great idea (Thanks Scotty).
Today’s Update
Amy is still out of action from an injury she picked up at the British Championships. The club seniors were shocked on Tuesday night to discover that the club’s very own Terminator was out of action. I had to explain that eBay doesn’t sell replacement mechanical body parts from the future…. yet. She’s got some magic pills from the doctor and she seems to be fixing well. Watch this space…
Personally, I’m getting more and more comfortable performing kata for competition. I’m currently trying to get over the urge of blitzing every move, in every kata. I attack every move and I personally think I perform kata like I fight – very aggressively.
Kumite – i’m starting to look forward to Japan now, once you’ve been competing for any length of time, i don’t think you have days were you’re 100% fit anymore, there’s always something that isn’t working as it was designed to. The average human body (i.e. everyone’s but Amy’s) isn’t supposed to operate at 110% for long periods of time. The trick is to peak at the right time, i.e. at the Wado World Cup & then again a week later at the Japan nationals.
Despite feeling the double pressure of competing in Kata & Kumite, I’m feeling relatively fit and healthy. My thoughts for the day… BRING IT ON!!!
There’s only 24 days until we fly out to Japan. I’ll try to get some karate pictures posted tomorrow because the blog is looking a little plain.
…Getting ready for Japan
For the last two year’s or so, long before we headed out to Japan for a year, Amy and I have been focussed, almost exclusively on being selected for the Wado World Cup. I’ve never been selected for this event, the first time around i’d only just started competing and in 2005 I just wasn’t good enough to make the final cut for the Wadokai England Team. Since then I’ve got a lot more experience, trained with some of the Karate greats and spent a year getting ‘good wado’ beaten into me in Japan. After all this i think I can now hold my own in most matches…
The big surprise obviously was getting selected for Kumite and Kata in the first place. We didn’t start competing in Kata until the 44th JKF-Wadokai Nationals in 2008. So, if you’re any good at maths, you’ll realise that come the World Cup, we’ll have been competing in Kata for only two year’s. Kumite, I’m ok with, I’ve always been comfortable fighting, but Kata…. that’s entirely a different story.
Anyway, because we head back to Japan in 4 weeks, I’ve found myself following the Shiramizu Japan Karate Intern Blog. The new Intern, Pete is English and he took over from Louise & Erica (who took over from Amy and me). I particularly like his personal blog which always gives a truer picture of what it’s really like over there because the main intern blog is censored to be politically correct.
I would definately recommend checking out both blog’s from time to time as they give a great insight into what it’s like to commit to a full year training intensively in Karate IN JAPAN. This is exactly what Amy and I did from July 1st 2008 – July 1st 2009.
Anyway, I’ve got to get back to training…. there’s a lot of work to be done before August!
Kata course this weekend in Hartlepool
As part of Carl & Amy’s prep for the Wado World Cup & Japan Nationals, Hartlepool Wadokai has arranged a special Kata training course with Sensei Peter May 6th Dan JKF-Wadokai & Sensei Lee Minion 5th Dan JKF-Wadokai.
Both instructors are the current Wadokai England National Kata Coaches and though both have visited the club before, this is the first time that they’ve ran a a course in Hartlepool together. Sensei Minion has also been selected to compete in the Senior Men’s Kata Division on behalf of England at the Wado World Cup (alongside Carl).
This is a fantastic opportunity for the club, and friends of the club to get some great training with two of the UK’s best Wado Kata coaches.
For more information, please download the PMay&LMinion Seminar Poster or contact Carl via email (carl at hartlepoolwadokai dot com) or tel 07984 798634.
4 week countdown…
there’s only 4 weeks to go until Carl & Amy head off to Japan for the Wado World Cup & the
Wadokai National Championships… Two MASSIVE competitions which are being held in two different cities in Japan.
14th & 15th August, Wado World Cup, Nagoya City
This comp is the highest level ‘single-style’ competition in our international organisation, the JKF-Wadokai. Each country will send their top two senior’s for each weight division in Kumite and only two senior’s for Kata.
21st & 22nd August, JKF-Wadokai National Championships, Tokyo
This comp will be bigger, and in some ways, tougher than the Wado World Cup. This competition allows unlimited entries into ALL categories. Carl has competed in this competition twice already, and Amy once.
This blog will cover some of the prep work that they are doing in the final few weeks and if they remember may also include some hints and tips to those of you interested in Karate…
Let us know what you think of the blog, and don’t forget to tell your friends all about it. This is just one more way for you to keep in touch with the latest at Hartlepool Wadokai Karate Club. Don’t forget that you can also follow us on twitter & facebook…
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