Wen Hsiu Quan

I like my routine. I'd lie if I say that it has never been disturbed. One group of people with whom I have grown more and more comfortable giving a Saturday to every once in a while is my karate school.  I have noticed that I don't find Sensei John on the internet if I search WSKF South Africa, but definitely when I search "Shotokan Karate South Africa". Yesterday's year end training for brown and black belts was at Hazyview's dojo. This awesome class room is situated on the farm of Sensei Danie Janse van Vuuren and his wife Sensei Sandra. It was once a tobacco shed.  Sensei Danie told me that the mats and equipment you see on the walls were donated by one of the students- Vincent Galaca. He has recently passed his Shodan Grading. Due to the rubber pistols being there we got treated to a gun disarming demonstration from Sensei John. That was after an intense kihon session with Sensei John (still stiff!), a really harrowing...

Hi, Everyone Last night I got a group of four kids to teach for the very first time. Ages were 13, 11, 10 and 5. Because it was a self defense class I did not intend to give too much attention to strict karate basics. As the students struggled to make their techniques work, however, we realised that a good grasp of the basics is necessary- especially with regard to stances. What never gets old with teaching kids throws is when they start with "But he's too big!" and later on end up with that excited look when they realise they have just done that throw. Those are the bigger kids. As for the 5 year old boy we started with basic stances and blocks. A fun thing to do with kungfu is to teach them the different animals found in the movements. I prefer not to teach fighting to kids at such a young age, but the basic movements do wonders for their development. You all know Mahiro, right? I wonder what she and those other kids get taught...     ...

Who's that handsome judge on the left? :D I'm back from my first karate tournament in more than a decade and got something to take home from it- besides medals... For one thing- I have learnt anew what perseverence means and how it gets tested.  I participated in both a kata and kumite event- and judged for a while. I enjoyed doing my kata and can say in all honesty that the kumite was actually fun- even though my endurance got pushed to a new limit... About that- I have often said that I don't get why we were made to do all those fitness exercises and running if your time on the floor is only a minute at most and then it's done... Well- the WKF rules have done something about that- Now we have a 3 minute bout. (Okay MMA people! I know you are used to fighting for longer times in the cage, but bear with me here...) In the first couple of seconds it was all well as reflexes got a jump start and we found that all systems ar...