Montgenevre 2007
full Report
Day 1
What a week, myself, Ian and Rob arrived in the late hours of Sunday night 1.15am (making this early Monday I know) and where greeted by Shane, Lloyd and anya who all arrived the day before. had a quick chat and Shane showed us to our rooms, which where very nice indeed. Most of us being tried from travelling then hit the sack as we had a early start in the morning.
Day 2
8am start this morning for fitness, taken by myself, took the bunch of us on a run using a number system.
1 - walk
3 - slow jog
6 - fast jog
8 - sprint
This followed by different exercises taken in the local tennis courts.
9 - 10am Shane's session taken using the focus mitts with all sorts of punches worked on, and making sure students used their hips to generate power.
Next session 11am giving people a hour for some needed breakfast.
11 - 1pm Shane took the session, focusing on kicks, lots of yoko-Geri (side kick) using the correct hip thrust and not snapping, this followed by throwing yoko's from stances found in certain kata and really trying to improve from that stance. following on from yoko's came Ushiro-geri again using hips to thrust. It has been some time since I have thrown this many kick in one day and was glad when we stopped for lunch.
3pm- 5pm Shane's session and straight back into leg work, yoko-geris, mawashi-geris, jumping kicks, jumping spinning kicks. Again lots and lots of reps.
After this session was the first round of the yearly Sensei's cup, where students take on me and Shane. Tennis was this years chosen sport an the first round was played against Anya and Ian, 7 games each before we ran out of light. to be continued.
Day 3
7am start to today's running ran all the way to the bench and back to tennis courts taken around 30 minutes, this was followed by 100 press ups, 100 sit ups and 100 Squats.
8am - 9am Shane's session I arrived at 8am and no other student was in sight, Shane rightly so wasn't happy. Most of the other students turned up around 10 minutes late, so press ups where given and a quick talk about setting examples being senior grades they are setting the example.
The session carried on the work on the focus pad using hips to follow through with your punch.
Above: Pad work
9am - 10am was a chance to get some food down our necks a fuel up for the next session, as my legs where so stiff from the previous days training I used the chance to have a freezing cold bath, and believe me the water is straight from the mountains and boy is it cold. This seemed to help my recovery and I had a bath like this after most sessions.
10am - 12pm for me it was a gentle session as my legs where hurting me, I worked on jitte our Kata that Shane had set the group to learn for the week, We could only learn this by watching a DVD and trying to remember the movements. the rest of the class worked hard again on yoko-geris and ushrio-geris.
12pm - 5pm rest time, after eating lunch I caught up on some sleep which I seemed to do every chance I could. 3pm was tennis and we finished our match to Anya and Ian with Anya and Ian taking that game. After the lose we managed to save face and thrashed Rob and Lloyd. This left Anya and Ian to play Rob and Lloyd.
5pm - 6.30pm up until this point in training nobody had been wearing Gi's as the sessions where relaxed, Shane and myself wanted the evening session to in Gi's so we put our Gi's on, but forgot to tell everyone else. Press ups where given for not turning up in their Gi's (just a little joke between myself and Shane you should have seen the faces when I walked down in my Gi's priceless)
The session covered Kata Passi and Ni-si-she working them in depth.
finished the day off with a game of golf Shane won but managed to break a club with one tee shot, the club head went further than the ball. I have never laughed so hard whilst playing a game of golf.
Day 4
7am Hill sprint this morning using a great hill near to the chalets, when you are already at 1800 metres this is no easy task. Every one worked very hard and ran their hearts out.
Finished the sprints with exercises.
8am - 9am More work on the pads using lots of combinations
Also the black belts were tested on their physical fitness, Rokakai black belts should be able to do at least 50 press ups so they were tested on this. This followed by press ups on finger tips and then one handed press ups and Ian Daffern gave a great display of one handed one finger and one thumb press ups managing quite a few.
10am - 12pm Another great session, after warming up Shane took us through reps on basic blocking using 100's each side. One thing that stuck in my mind was the 250 stokas each side. These all followed with counter punches again 100's of reps.
We went into back kicks 100 each leg from fighting stance, 100 each leg from basic stance. Yoko-geris again 100's on each leg from different stances. After this we were all ready for lunch.
2pm Watched Lloyd and Rob lose their tennis match, hard luck lads! This left the finals for Myself and Shane v's Anya and Ian.
5pm - 6pm Started this session in the rain, Which I love as who else is mad enough to train in the rain at 1800 metres altitude? We worked through all are Kata at a quick pace to keep us all warm.
Into sparring and when I say sparring forget all this points rubbish I mean full on, at least for Lloyd anyway as he was readying for 3rd Dan. After dishing out a few beatings I happily jumped into another freezing bath to ease my aching legs.
Above: Sparring
Day 5
I myself learnt a very valuable lesson today and that is to never drink again on a karate course. After three hours sleep I Took the group up one of the steepest ski slopes, to make a change from running and boy was this hard my heart rate was pounding.
Shane could see that everyone was in need of a rest, so we had the day of to rest or head into the nearest town to have a look round and have lunch.
5pm Kata Jitte, Rohai and a run through the black belt syllabus.
All went into Italy for dinner tonight which was fun as we had to have the menu translated, the catch being that it was only translated into French. Good job we had Anya with us.
Day 6
I was Lloyds turn to take the run this morning I had left instructions for them to complete it within 35 minutes, I made my way to the finish to make sure the managed the task and all managed coming in at slightly different times.
Above: finishing their run Lloyd, Ian, Anya, Rob
Straight into Shane's morning session which was a tough session, lots of pad work and plenty of sparring (myself and Shane had a cunning plan)
11am - 1pm The group worked on ippons and strong basics taking up the whole two hours. the group managed some impressive sweeps and throws all preformed onto gravel making a hard landing each time.
3pm Sensei's Cup the much anticipated finals. Sensei's Balmer and Holland v's Anya and Ian this cup is fiercely fought for each year and this year was no different. I would like to say that it was a close fought match but with my fresh legs from not doing a thing all day and Shane's ace serve we where unstoppable. "Taking the cup was like taking candy from a baby" quoted Balmer.
Above: Winners and Losers Above: The Sensei's Cup 2007 Victors Balmer and Holland
5pm - 7pm A great kata session to finish the last day of training covering all are required Kata.
Day 7 Grading day
After a long week of training Lloyd and Ian decided to take their gradings, and they showed great spirit as this was a very tough grading. Ian looked ready to drop at one point but fought on and managed some good Karate.
Lloyd Penny 3rd Dan
Ian Daffern 2nd Dan
Well done lads!
A great trip this year and some great Karate taught, can't wait until next year.