Good news! Adult Karate sessions are up and running starting on May 20th , the children’s training sessions restarted on the 20th April. It’s been a long and challenging time and I’m hopeful that the reopening of the adult training sessions is permanent. The online live training sessions where extremely successful for adult and child students and in fact I will keep a couple of these sessions running for students who may still want to continue. All sessions were live and not pre-recorded with students just copying a video; our sessions were full on interactive and informative training sessions. Questions and request from students were answered with a training response just like a club training session. We had students logging on from Spain and Germany on a weekly basis such is the strength and power of the zoom platform, making new friends and enabling these students to experience our art.
We set up a Balintawak stick and knife training class on Friday evening, this training session is still on going, it went so well we also set up a children’s Balinatwak stick training session. All three katas were taught from this system, and some of the adults and children can now preform these.
We arranged knife courses training covering both the balingtawak and the shizendo knife, use of the straight blade and the karambit.
Over the last year we have covered a number of training concepts in the katas and pairs work, studying in-depth body mechanics and alignment for flow of power. Checking on key points of kata and pairs work coupled with body balance to associated postures, strategic movement and positioning focusing on timing and linking of techniques used in attack and defence.
So much has been covered and I sincerely hope students that attended these live online sessions gleamed so much from it. We didn’t sit on our backsides waiting for the go ahead to reopen, we didn’t complain about not been able to train as before, we made it work. We kept the association going with twenty two zoom sessions per week with most of the association training on a weekly basis until government’s guidelines enabled a full reopening. I know it wasn’t the same as club training, But it wouldn’t be, and cannot be compared as so, it has its limitations but it also had its strengths. The thing is, we made it work, and we adapted and kept going and in some areas of our training actually progressed as a result of a new approach to teaching and training. This was a whole new learning curve personally for me and I have learnt so much on how to adapt and deliver another type of session.
But full credit has to go to each and every student who took up the challenge and made it work, particularly the children and the parents who made this possible for them. The children have had a tough time and the parents also, with home schooling etc. but if by offering these live online sessions helped to get them through this crisis then it was worth it.
The martial way has many ways, the lockdown presented a challenge, and it’s the fight within to make it work to survive as a group and the art of adapting to suit the conditions you may find yourself in.
You can now say WE MADE IT WORK through lockdown.
Thank you for your support and your dedication to the martial arts