REPORT: JKA Belgium International Training Camp 2010
Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium).

Some call it "Gasshuku", "spring training camp" or "international training camp", it is foremost an opportunity to meet and share our art. Over the years our reputation has grown and many karatekas from all over Europe (France, Germany, Luxembourg, Holland, Denmark, Monaco, Italy) join us. It is above all a big event of the karate in Belgium, JKA Karate in particular. Here, you will find no borders, no linguistic communities, just friends who want to train hard, learn and share, sweat and have fun together/just friends who want to train hard, sweat, learn and share together, all in good spirits. After all this is the essence of our practice. A great venue, an efficient staff and exceptional instructors of high quality make up a great formula for this yearly event. Nearly 800 practitioners took part in the training, a record broken again.

There was unanimity on the Sensei. Mori Sensei who was both impressive and friendly, delivering highly efficient and powerful applications. You had better not to be his training partner for the "deai" demonstrations.

Sensei Kawawada, Sensei Nakayama's training partner in the "Best karate" series, demonstrated the importance of fixing points, how to develop power from the hips and how to attain kime in strikes and blocks beyond "kentos".

Sensei Bura, returning to us in great shape, and showed us the importance of kime and the application of power.

Another international guest-instructor and actual JKA champion in kumité, Sensei Inokoshi, on one of his first passages in Europe, was appreciated by all. He belongs to a new generation of instructors, with a high technical quality, incredibly dynamic but above all friendly and willing to share his knowledge, be it with children, colored belts and or graduate black belts.

Our national instructors completed the list, adding their own technical abilities, personalities and enthusiasm to the mix. All you could see were happy, smiling faces at the end of these three days of training, and the highlight was when "Jeannot Bunny" came in person, accompanied by the Japanese guest instructors, to give Easter eggs to all the children present.

Our mission has been completed, to gather young and old, beginners and more advanced practitioners in one great karate event. That's JKA Belgium! At the end I would like to thank Sensei Sergio Gneo for his great support and dedication to our organization. Even though the challenge seems great, we promise you more of the same for next year. Let's meet again on the 23rd, 24th and 25th of April 2011 for the next JKA-Belgium karate camp!

Please check http://www.jka-f.be for more information and pictures.

Philippe Wattieaux,
JKA-Belgium Académy Chairman
http://www.jka-f.be