11th FSKA World Championships, September 2009

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From 4th-6th September 2009, Sensei Debi took a team of 6 children and 4 adults to compete in the 11th FSKA World Championships, held in Sun City, South Africa. The competition comprised over 350 competitors ranging in age from 4 to over 60.  People attended from all over the world, including Kenya, India, France, Argentina, Poland, Russia, Kazahkstan and of course, South Africa.

The trip was the culmination of many months hard work fundraising and additional training by the team.

The championship started with a training session for all competitors with Shihan Funakoshi.  It was a real honour to have the chance to train with him and hear his thoughts on life and Karate.

The competition began successfully for our club with 2 gold medals on the first day.  Spike King and Thomas and Hannah Marwood won gold in the children's 6-8 years team kata and Sempai Lisa Coster, Jonathan Hubble and Eva West won the Mixed Adult intermediate group. The second day of the competition was the individual kata and our club's achievements continued with further golds for Thomas and Hannah Marwood and Eva West, silver for Ieuan Hamilton-Bass and Freya Thompson and bronze for Sempai Lisa and Jonthan Hubble.  Brown  belt Sempai Lisa did particularly well as she was competing against black belts and came within 0.1 points of the silver.

The final day was the day of the kumite competion and was another good one for us.  Eva West won another gold, Martin Bass and Hannah Marwood won silver medals and Sempai Lisa, Ieuan Hamilton-Bass, Freya Thompson, Jacopo Tibaldi and Thomas Marwood each won a bronze.

Altogether the club won 21 medals which is an outstanding achievement for such a small team  Our thanks go to Senseis Debi and Odile and to Lynda Hamilton for their efforts in helping us to train.

It was an incredible experience to be able to compete in such a large competition.  We saw some outstanding karate, the elite men's division is something we will always remember.  We met fellow karate enthusiasts from all over the world and the whole thing took place in an atmosphere of goodwill and good sportsmanship.  We are already planning to to the 12th FSKA World Championships in Poland next year, and we look forward to take a bigger and even more successful team!

Eva West