Well, finally finding time to update my web page.
2016, What a year it was.
In April I got the clearance to get back into training, being two years (April 2014) since getting two vertebrae fused together (L4 and L5). I have slowly been increasing training, just wasn’t allowed to twist or bend forward too vigorously. This wasn’t a big issue doing karate as I very rarely have my wheelchair brakes on. Whereas when I play table tennis I have one wheel locked so the twist was too vigorous and so had to put table tennis on hold for nearly two years.
I celebrated my 60th birthday in July then two days later traveled to Naha, Okinawa for the 7th World Budosai. I travelled with Adele Sinclair, Lee Hart and Brendon Rae from my karate club and Chris Rae from the Queenstown karate club.
What a great event this was. The Budosai started on 25th July and finished on the 31st July. Over 1200 karateka attended representing clubs from all parts of the world.
When we first arrived we did visited and trained at Higaonna Sensei’s dojo. This is always something special. We also called into the Shureido shop to pick up gi’s etc. and visited Shuri castle, Fukushu-en gardens and the nearby Chojun Miyagi memorial.
The training event was held in the impressive Okinawa Budokan.
While at the Budosai, Lee and Chris passed their grading to 2nd dan and Brendon to shodan. It was also an honour to present myself for 6th dan under the watchful eyes of Higaonna Sensei and Bakkies Sensei.
2016 ended with me teaching at the annual Karyuka Karate club in Melbourne. Sensei Natsuko Mineghishi, a Japanese female Shotokan Karate-ka and a renowned soprano, had invited me to be their guest instructor when we had met in 2016. She is an excellent karate-ka,teacher and singer and has trained numerous times with the head of IOGKF karate.
2017
The year started with our National training camp in Auckland, training under Nakamura Sensei. As usual the training under Nakamura Sensei was excellent.