Once
again instructors from Canada were
invited to participate in the
Annual European Kyokushin Karate
Summer School held in the
Netherlands at the national sports
centre, Papendal.
This
year Sensei Brad Gillespie and
Stuart Corrigal attended. As in
past years our reception was warm
and the hospitality given us was
absolutely tremendous. The camp
ran for one full week and
included over 18 training sessions
covering all aspects of Kyokushin
Karate. Additionally, the annual
European Black Belt grading was
held at this camp.
Kyokushin Karate in Europe has a
great tradition for "tough
spirited training". This year
was no exception as a great panel
of Kyokushin instructors from
across Europe were divided into
eight teams to share the
instructional duties and oversee
all the training. Shihan Loek
Hollander, of course provided
great leadership and watched
diligently all camp events and
training.
A
particular highlight of the camp
for me was the training sessions
led by Sensei Paul Lorist, 4th
Dan. Sensei Lorist is a
"Battalion Commander" in the Dutch
military. There are many
similarities to Kyokushin and the
Dutch Armed Forces! Sensei Lorist
led several classes that truly
challenged every student and
instructor in the camp. The bar
was set extremely high and all
camp participants and instructors
worked extremely hard to meet or
exceeded the expectation Sensei
Lorist placed upon everyone. I
was glad that I was a senior
instructor and one from overseas
in that I had the opportunity to
participate in the training, yet
observe as required. Summer Camp
in Canada is looming in a few
short weeks, look out as I am sure
some of the drills I wittnessed at
Papendal will be incorporated in
the Canadian Camp this year.
The
camp was tremendous! Thank you to
the Dutch organizing committee,
all the instructors and the
students from Europe.
If you
get an opportunity to attended
this event in the future, I can
assure everyone you will not be
disappointed.
OSU,
Stuart@
@
On July 4th
Shihan Stuart Corrigal and I once
again made the long journey to the
Netherlands to attend the 42nd
annual European Summer School.
This was our third trip to the
camp, which was again held in the
National Sports training centre (Papendal)
and was hosted by International
committee member Shihan Loek
Hollander. This year due to the
world economic down turn there
unfortunately was a noticeable
decrease in participation, however
the spirit at this yearfs camp
seemed the greatest yet.
Arriving the day
before the Summer School began we
were greeted by many familiar
friendly faces and after a nice
dinner it was off to bed to catch
up on some much needed zeeeees.
Morning arrived extremely quickly
and before we knew it we were off
to our first of 18 training
sessions for the week (yes 18
sessions in 4 days). Shihan and I
were put on instructing team
number five along with Branch
Chief Sadok Kuka from Tunisia. Our
sessions mainly consisted of
instructing Kata (mainly Bo and
Tekki), Bo techniques, officiating
clinics and other various
Kyokushin gSubjectsh.
Anyone who has been
to the Netherlands before will
tell you that it is a very lush
green country. There is a reason
why. RAIN. This year the weather
was less cooperative than in the
last few years. In fact I think
there were only two sessions where
it didnft rain during training.
This I think was one of the
reasons why the spirit was so high
during the week. Another reason
why, was the first session that
was held. Shihan Hollander
stressed that he wanted the week
to start off with a bang and
wanted it to be a very difficult
session, he wanted it to be as
when he trained with Sosai. It
was. Five teams each took 30
minutes to do their best to
completely exhaust the
participants. By the time the
participants hit instruction team
4 they were done, unfortunately or
fortunately for them team four had
something gdifferenth waiting for
them. Essentially the leader of
instruction team 4 works for the
Military in the Netherlands and
had prepared a military work out
which best can be described as a
LOT of crawling in the dirt in the
rain, needless to say Shihan
Hollander got his wish and by the
end of the first session everyone
was completely exhausted. This set
the pace for a great spirited
week, and because of this first
training session everyone just
didnft care if they got dirty,
soaked or whatever, they just
wanted to train hard - really hard
- and they did, throughout the
entire week.
The week went very
fast and was filled with many
exceptional sessions including one
hard session held by Shihan
Drevniak and his group of
extremely talented Polish
instructors, the military work
out, and of course the work out
that involved dancing and singing
Kyokushin Style.
The European Summer
School concluded very very late on
the Thursday evening after all
promotions were given out. This
year 45 people took on the
challenge to test for grades from
1st kyu to 5th
dan. Though not everyone was
successful in passing their test,
after the week I believe all camp
participants whether they graded
or not left with an enormous sense
of accomplishment and pride for
not just making it through the
week but for tackling it head on.
Great job everyone I canft wait
for next year.
A huge thanks you
to Shihan Hollander and his
Organization for hosting such
another incredible Summer School.
Thank you also goes out to the
IKOK-C and Shihan Corrigal for
making this opportunity available.
Osu!
Brad Gillespie
@
