National course yesterday with Sensei Ernie Molyneux in Rotherham, England. The course was conducted at Sensei Andy Bluck's Nishimon Dojo - a very nice facility with great foam matting, ideal for doing throws and sweeps.

The course started at 10am with several high grade karate instructors from the EGKA karate association traveling from across England to take part. It was great to see everyone training together once again. Sensei Ernie began the class with junbi-undo (Goju-Ryu warm-up exercises) and also a brief amount of stancework and moving basics exercises. The remainder of the session then focused on Goju-Ryu kata.

We began with Sanchin kata practice with assistance from a training partner. Ernie Sensei explained how a training partner should help correct your kata, especially posture and keep the back straight during the actual performance of the kata. Sensei also demonstrated how we can help to restrict a person's technique during Sanchin kata to make performing the kata more difficult (difficult but not impossible). After practicing performing Sanchin kata with a training partner restricting arm movement and correcting posture, Ernie Sensei demonstrated how to correctly apply shime waza (focus slaps) during Sanchin kata. We then practiced the kata again, this time with continual shime testing from a training partner.

After Sanchin kata, we moved on to practiced "open handed" Goju-Ryu kata. Kata covered during this class: Gekisai Dai Ichi, Gekisai Dai Ni, Saifa, Shisochin and Sesan. Toward the end of the class, when Sensei split everyone into differing groups based on grade, we also practiced Kururufa kata bunkai (kata applications).

Sensei went to great lengths to stress the timing for kata, especially for the two Gekisai kata. Ernie Sensei told us that, when grading, if someone should make a mistake in the first few kata then the grading panel will invariably watch that person's kata for further mistakes in the higher kata. So it is very important not to neglect practicing the "beginner" kata, as some people might be inclined to do (in order to concentrate on senior kata) when preparing for a senior dan grading.