Saturday the 4th of February marked the first Funakoshi Karate International South Africa beach training session for the year, and as it turned out, we got a lucky break in that the gale force wind that had been pumping through Gordon’s Bay for the last couple of days, and indeed, the entire morning of the beach training day, all of a sudden halted completely, leaving a breathless, sunny and hot afternoon, the perfect conditions for the 30 or so karateka that descended upon Gordon’s Bay main beach in front of Sunset Spur to partake in a special hour long beach training session.
The afternoon kicked off with a long set of basics, done in a big circle, before moving on to some fitness training in the form of various running styles between two laid out lines. Some kihon was done, as well as fun group exercises to improve explosive power, before finishing off with a kicking session designed to ensure that by the end of a sweaty afternoon, everyone would have been sufficiently cooled down by the raining sea water and mud!
(Needless to say, plenty of gi washing would have to follow)
After the final bow was done and the karateka dispersed, a group of the senior members then decided to take further advantage of the great weather, not by doing more training, no, but rather by grabbing a refreshing round of beer at the conveniently close by Spur.
Ah, life in sunny old South Africa truly is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? :)
Not actually a video mind you. Just a screenshot of the video. This might have been done entirely to annoy you. Anyway, the actual video is up on Facebook.
Sensei Birgit’s son Wickus Smit went ahead and compiled the photos of the session into this fun little video, which is available on Facebook in case you’re interested in seeing what we got up to, and as always, if you’re keen on finding out more about what we do or perhaps even signing up, feel free to contact Sensei Birgit Smit at dojo13@gmail.com.