The cohort of students included beginners right through to senior black belts and the class had a very welcome international flavour to it! Jenny Madden 3rd dan had flown in from her home in the fair city of Dublin to train with us. Well, that’s not quite the full picture. On the previous day she had been refereeing at the KUGB National Youth Championship and that was her main reason for visiting England this weekend. That and to get away from the persistent rain the Irish have apparently had to put up with over the past few weeks. Unfortunately it was raining here; incessantly for the whole weekend!
We began with grade specific combinations. They were constructed meticulously and eventually repeated in their entirety once we had added the final special ingredient: spirit! Thereafter those below brown belt worked on their gohon and ippon kumite in preparation for the grading, which, at the end of July, is fast approaching. The brown and black belts worked on jiyu ippon kumite. The four basic kicks were delivered with the right and left legs. These had to be dealt with appropriately by the defender who had to fire a combination counter in riposte. The counters were prescribed, but only in a general sense: any two punches; or any two kicks. The two punches were relatively easy to deliver; the two kicks demanded great agility and nimbleness to execute.
At 11.00am the class divided into sub-groups for concentrated kata practise. The brown belts benefited from Jenny’s focussed tutelage on the kata Bassai Dai. The purple and white belts practised Tekki Shodan under Alan’s guidance; Josh analysed Heian Godan with the purple belts; whilst Tom Ludlow worked on Kihon and Heian Shodan with the white and orange belts.
The class finished as normal with the conventional mokuso and rei. Just when Jenny thought it was safe to leave the dojo there was one more conventional matter which needed to be addressed: the recital of the universally known story, nay legend, of how she used to cycle from Melton on a racer “sans gears”, train like a demon at the club, then cycle home again. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the A606 , but it’s a torturous route, up hill and down dale….
13 members trained in the session: Sam; Alex; Luke Cobb; George Coates; Bob Dainty; Frank Dennis; Miguel Dennis; Becky Cassapi; Steve Cassapi; Tom Ludlow; Josh Ludlow; Alan Lea; Jenny Madden.
SOUTH NOTTS KARATE 
Rob! Is that cycling story all over cyberspace now, as well as ubiquitous throughout the KUGB??!