REPORT: The 27th JKA India National Training Camp in Goa with Imura Takenori Shihan

The Japan Karate Association of India started by Sasaki Shoichi Sensei nearly 3 and half decades ago held its 27th Annual National Program in the International holiday resort city of Goa from 28th Jan. to 2nd Feb. 2010. The week long Annual Program consists of a 3 day training Camp, Technical Qualification Seminar, Dan Grading, the National Body’s Annual General Meeting and culminates in the All India JKA Tournament.

The Guest Instructor from the JKA Headquarters for this year’s program was Takenori Imura Shihan. On his fourth visit to India, he quickly acclimatized to the tropical weather of this ex-Portugese colony. His growing popularity among the members of JKA India can be gauged by the tremendous response for his camp this year. A total of 247 members registered for the training camp.

January 28th - For the first session of the gasshuku, Imura Shihan had the participants do basic kihon with the emphasis on form, kicks, and open-hand striking techniques - shuto uchi and haito uchi. The participants were asked to execute these strikes with the waist in hanmi, shoumen and gyaku-hanmi position. This training was followed by partner drills with the same techniques using the waist in the 3 positions. The session ended with yakusoku kumite being performed with one hand bound behind and using the other to score on the opponent with the open handed strikes. The second training session of the day was devoted to kicking techniques- hundreds of repetitions of maegeri, yoko geri, mawashi geri and ushiro geri initially as kihon and progressing to using the kicks against two partners.

January 29th -The second day’s session gave the participants of the training camp a very different perspective of Imura Shihan’s training. Most people know him as a superb kata exponent as he was JKA World Kata Champion but are unaware of his fantastic competence and deep knowledge of kumite. We became aware of this aspect when he made us train in jiyu ippon & jiyu kumite. He was constantly correcting participants for their distancing or their footwork or showing them how to focus on target, (mokuhyou), and advising them on the intention to score. The second session of the day was focused on the training of the various dan grade syllabi from shodan to yondan grade. After this Imura Shihan obliged the senior dan group who had earlier requested him to teach them Kata Souchin. Hence the whole group was then taught kihon movement in Souchin Dachi after which the Kata was taught.

January 30th - On the final day of the gasshuku, the morning session was dedicated to training of Katas Bassai Dai, Jion and Jutte which were covered in minute detail. A great deal of attention was paid to developing technique by using isometric exercises and drills to build muscle memory and make the form permanent. After the kata training, there was a continuation of the earlier days kumite training with all the participants being made aware of the emphasis on intention, target, timing, distancing and zanshin.

The Technical qualification seminar was held in the afternoon session and was followed by Dan & Qualification Examination.

Because of the large number of participants, Imura Shihan was assisted by Sensei Anand Ratna who trained the Junior and Children’s groups during the camp’s advanced training sessions.

The absolute passion with which Imura Shihan trained everyone during the three days spoke volumes for the methodology used by him to teach. It was an extremely exhausted but content group of participants when the last training session concluded. Everyone was delighted with the training camp where not only did they learn pure JKA karate-do but also built closer relationships with each other as a part of the JKA Family in India.

The 27th All India JKA Tournament had 432 members participating in the 3-days long event which commenced on the 31st January & concluded on 2nd February 2010. Details of the results of tournament can be viewed shortly on the JKAI website: http://www.jkaindia.org

Oss,
Anand Ratna
JKA India.