Matsuba Kai were invited to Moncloa, Madrid to train with Kancho Kanazawa hosted by SKIE.
The course was held in the INEF ………… which is a large sporting facility in Madrid.
Kancho entered to 4 lines of eager Spanish students along with a few English aliens. 
At this point is was nice to see some friendly faces in the crowd our good friends from Thames Karate. Kancho delivered the instruction in English, which was then translated by Jesus for the rest of the class.

The course started with the obligatory warm up and then we were straight into basics, which were broken down into three steps to demonstrate footwork and harmony of movement. Each technique was then carried out at full speed with maximum power.
This section seemed to flash by, which is the usual phenomena with Kancho, because there is so much to take in. 
Following a 3 minute break we were back at it, with some basic Kata: Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan and Heian Sandan each broken down in Sensei’s special way. We then moved on to Enpi.

This was followed by Sensei stopping the class and taking a question session with regard to the kata that we had just studied. During this session we were really honoured that Sensei stopped to acknowledge the Matsuba Kai Members. Sensei then wrapped the session up with a few basics and it was lunch time.
 
Following lunch the class was once again lined ready for Kancho, this time Kumite was the theme, with some 4-man exercises for jiyu ippon and concluding with the Nidan kata, Kanku Sho. This session was concluded with a photo session with Kancho.

Sunday saw the beginning of a new day and equally ready 4 lines of students. This session again started with kumite as the theme, but this time, the basic Sanbon kumite. We then had a short break which was followed by Sensei going over Kanku Sho once more and then Ni Ju Hatchi ho, his now famous kata. He went through this a number of times and it was nice to see others struggling with it as we were.
Sensei demonstrated application of this kata on various members of the class where necessary to emphasise a particular move.

This session ended all too soon for everybody, it seemed that we had only just completed the warm up. We now all sat around Sensei whilst various students performed the elements of the class, starting with the kumite and ending with kata. At this point David and Jesus performed a very good Ni Ju Hatchi Ho under the careful guidance and pleasure of Kancho.
 
  Left to right: Enricke, Geoff Mitchell, Kancho Kanazawa, Paul Willmott
 
All too soon we were lined up to end the class. We were then both surprised and honoured by the Spanish instructors who called us out to the front of the class and thanked us for travelling to their dojo.

We were made to feel welcome at all times in Spain, for which we are grateful. We would like to give special thanks to David for really looking after us, especially at dinner, without him I don’t know what we would have eaten! David can be seen in the photo at the top of teh page surrounded by the “Thames boys” and us. See you all in march for the Kanch Kanazawa course
 

 
Home