Sensei Peter Spanton Seminar - Sept 21st 2008

Course Black Belts - Russell, James, Jeff, Hiroko, Alex, John and Sue

Once again the Luton Lunatics had the pleasure of having Sensei Spanton and Sensei Sue Skinner in our Luton Dojo. A chance for all of us to polish our Kata, work on basics, bunkai and press-ups!! There was a good turnout of the club's higher grades and plenty of enthusiasm. The lesson started with warm-up punch sets which always gets the arms ready to work, we then moved onto a simple stretch session which involves flexibility and balance.

A few basics and numbered combinations guaranteed to confuse any grade, hard work both in body and mind!! This is why our resident Taekwondo black belt Russell opted to do press ups instead!!

Above - Luton girls: Enrico, Karen, Hayley and Jenny. Enrico's not a girl though

Then in to single moves Kata where it was fun for the lower grades to watch the dan grades twitch if Sensei Spanton is near, makes them realise how we feel when they are around us!! The class was split into groups so we could work on grade relevant Katas.

John and Sue working on advanced Kata

After a short break we moved on to some ippon kumite with Sensei Spanton showing us some very effective take-downs. Our special thanks go to Jeff Archer who kindly volunteered to be demonstrated on every time so he could personally feel the power of these techniques. The club enjoyed watching poor Jeff's cheek get redder and redder, as the slaps went in, not to mention the interesting sound he made when Sensei Spanton completed the combination with gyakuzuki to the ribs.

Above - Jeff having an ill-timed snooze

There was more Kata towards the end of the session and to finish everything off we did our usual fun Katas, starting the other way adding extra techniques in, where the black belts that are normally so accurate, totally lost it and were rewarded with dozens of press-ups. Well there was a lot to take in!!

Above - Blackbelts congratulating Hiroko on her grading!

Once again our thanks go to Sensei Spanton and Sensei Skinner for coming to the Luton Dojo and for another fantastic session and we will look forward to next year!

Report by Alex Buxton and Karen Tomkins