Wantage Karate Club

We met in the main car park at 11am (what joy: normally courses seem to start at crack of sparrow fart, but this one had a much more sophisticated beginning) and had a light jog from there to the hill itself. The weather was looking beautiful – hot, tropical sunshine with just a faint wisp of clouds over the tranquil sea. Well ok, maybe not, but there was some sunshine and although it was bitterly cold, at least it wasn’t raining and the wind wasn’t too strong so all in all, I think we can count ourselves lucky for pursuing an outdoors activity at the end of December in England.

When we arrived at the Hill, after a very brief wait for a couple of stragglers the session commenced with sensei Paul standing in front of a very motley bunch of karateka wearing all manner of attire (including a rather fetching Santa hat).

One standing rei later we were off practising Sanchin Gojo-ryu style. I am not sure how far through this we got, but I found it quite a pleasant kata, it kata can ever be termed thus. Without going in to too much detail, the part we performed was in sanchin-dache (I assume) and consisted of some fairly unusual blocks and strikes, though all in the same direction and without any kicks, which helped. Fairly early on in this I found my hands turn white, then red, then blue, as if they were doing a grading all of their own, but it was find because I soon lost most feeling in them – just a dull throb to remind me that I still had hands. The wind and sun kept their same strength (reasonably strong and pathetically weak respectively).

To warm up, after this warm up, we paired up with kick shields and practised basic kicks and strikes. It is incredible how weak these can feel when outdoors, compared with the nice, controlled (and dare I say warm) environment of the dojo. The trick is to imagine that the strike you are doing is against you: although the noise isn’t as spectacular, it doesn’t take much imagination to realise that yes, karate blows are every bit as effective on the street as in the dojo.

After a few rounds of this we were all nicely warm (well, outside – breathing fiery cold air is not the most warming experience for inside your body … can you have fiery cold air?).

Next up was a simple line up with a poor victim standing at the front, holding a kick shield and preparing for the worst while a mob of cold karateka queue up to strike the pad with all their might. Hiding behind a kick shied isn’t too bad when single punches are being thrown at you, which is possibly why Sensei Paul decided on jumping kicks instead. When I became the lucky one to stand behind the shield, I noted one thing above all others: even though the kicks thrown at me varied in strength and technique, every single one of them would have hurt me very badly had I not been behind the shield. A real testament to the quality of the karate being hurled at me!

After a decent pounding behind the shield, we formed the vicious circle. Always a favourite, how lucky did I feel to be first in the centre? Fortunately, there was to be structure to this particular circle, and after a round of simple head strike / block and counter we moved on to body strike / block and counter. Since the students were choosing the block and counter I felt we would get off fairly lightly. Alas. Woe is me. It was not to be.

The suggested defence against the strike (oi-tsuki chudan) was uchi-uki followed by gyaku-tsuki. Good, classic moves. But then sensei decided that this defence should be enhanced with an ashi-barai and arm lock This is difficult to explain accurately so I shall post a photo of this as soon as I get some! For now, suffice to say the there followed a great deal of pain, sheep output (well, this is a family web site), tapping out and more sheep output. Whilst rolling around in a particularly wet pile of said output (whilst practising the techniques – I don’t roll around in it for fun, you know!) I noticed it starting to rain. Well, I guess we had been lucky … it had been pretty dry up until that point. Then came a defence against a swinging head punch that involved a simple block followed by a neck grab that, if performed correctly, could lift the opponent bodily off the ground. As this was demonstrated on me, I could feel my spine prepare to be stretched (though of course, it never was – always safety first). It did lead me to wonder though if our sensei has had training as an osteopath ... or a psychopath.

A few defences later, we finished with a standing rei.

One of our number had brought a flask of sweet coffee (thanks Cath!) and boy did a few sips of that feel good. Then we had a slow walk back to the car park, chatting happily about how the rain coming down was surely cold enough to be snow. On the way back, a question occurred to me that I cannot quite answer: if karate can be so enjoyable, outside, in wet, cold, windy sheep output, how is it more people don’t try it in the warmth of the dojo?

Dave Paine