Junior Le Fevre Sensei Course write up by Leesa Sensei

Junior LeFevre Sensei Kata Course and Kumite CourseSunday 29^th November 2020 We would like to say a massive thank you to all the students and instructors who supported either or both the courses on Sunday.  There was a massive turnout and I think we managed to impress Junior LeFevre Sensei with our talent. Junior Sensei is a Belgian Karate-ka with an impressive track record in Kumite including WKF World Champion 1996 and 2000, WKF Silver Medal in the World Championships in 2002 and EKF European Champion in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 1999.  He has also had massive success in Kata being European Champion in 1995 and 1996.  He is now the Head Coach for Kumite in the EKF. The first hour was advertised as a Kata Course, however, Sensei explained that it was the first time he had taught Red Tiger Karate and he was not sure of what grades would attend and in particular he did not want to cover (for example) a 4^th Dan kata if the majority were lower grades. Therefore it was an amazing well taught technical seminar instead. He worked on our flexibility and speed.  He focused on the use of our hips and using your breathing to make your techniques faster.  As we all know Kihon is the base to all karate.  He used simple Oi tsuki, Gyaku-zuki punches combined with Maegeri kicks, along with an interesting shiko dachi stance to show how important hips can be to improve movement.  He took the opportunity of looking at our many members on zoom and some were lucky enough to be praised on their punches / kicks / stances with some personal one to one feedback on how they can improve.  The final workout involved using your inner core stability to ground your stance by turning your head and arms away from the direction you were going, that was a tough one! As Paul Sensei and Junior Sensei said everything that was worked on in that session can only make our Kata better, faster and stronger. The second hour was Kumite hour.  In this section, we again used a simple Oi tsuki, Gyaku tsuki and Mae Geri combination. We were encouraged to make use of the returning arm which assisted in the changing of legs due to the backwards propulsion.  Again, Junior Sensei watched very closely and you could see he was impressed with the high standard of participants.  We were then treated to the Molly Austin high knees stepping combination, thank goodness we had recently been exposed to this technique as it was raised to another level.  By using light feet Junior Sensei seemed to almost move without touching the floor. After a quick drink we were back up, this time using the trusty Oi tsuki, Gyaku tsuki combination with the added challenge of stepping off and using the Ura Mawashi whilst moving back into stance.  To finish was everybody's favourite (well mine really) Oi tsuki, Gyaku tsuki then stepping through with a lovely Jodan Oi tsuki. The two hours flew by, everybody seemed to understand his English which is better than my Danish, everybody trained hard and exceedingly well, at the end of the session Junior Sensei promised that he will travel to England in the future to teach us face to face.  If we can impress him over Zoom, he will be blown away when he sees us in person. Massive thank you as always goes towards Paul Wolstencroft Sensei and Rachael Wolstencroft Sensei for organising this, once more showcasing just how amazing our Club and our members are.Thank you for reading!Sensei Leesa x