Happy birthday Soshihan

Today is Soke Takayuki Kubota's 77th birthday. I thought I'd mark the occasion as he was responsible for probably the most formative period of my karate training, from late 1985 to summer 1986, when I trained at the IKA headquarters dojo in Glendale, California, when I lived in the US. As a tribute to Soshihan (as he was then, now titled Soke) and to the brief yet important influence of Gosoku Ryu upon my karate training, I have decided to learn and add the kata Gosoku to my repertoire.

Catch-up

For various reasons it's been a while since I've been able to update here, but I thought I would return with a little catch-up. Seeing as I started this blog to record my thoughts and research into Kanku-sho for a kata test at our club, I should record the outcome of that ...

I was quite disappointed because in the two weeks running up to the day of my test I was ill and unable to practice. Consequently, on the day, my performance was not at all good from my own perspective. Still, I managed to come joint first with sensei (who did Hangetsu) so perhaps it wasn't as bad as I imagined. The main outcome of it is that I got to know Kanku-sho in much better detail. The kata is a real challenge for me, and will continue to be so!