We had a great time on Saturday down at the Brampston Sports Centre in Witham, where GKR held their Christmas Party this year.

It was brilliant!

The session was in three parts; a kata seminar, a kumite seminar and a fun session with party food and demonstrations of various martial arts extras.

As per the grading, there were plenty of senseis around to guide and advise, and the massive group of a couple of hundred students were split up by grade and given very focused attention on fine tuning their techniques. I particularly enjoyed the kata session and learned a few pointers to help me progress. The kumite training was limited by our lack of mits and pads.

The highlight, of course, were the demonstrations where we saw classic displays of tile breaking with the fist, bunkai, staffs, and other demonstrations of conditioning. The eye-watering conditioning demonstrations were the ones that had the biggest audience attention, particularly where one chap invited another to kick him in the groin area as hard as he could! My favorite was the demonstrations of using the staff ( bo? ).

We will be definitely be going to other special events. Great fun.