On the weekend of 18/19th February at Petersfield's Love Lane Dojo, a large number of martial arts instructors and students attended the Zen Judo Spring Budo Course. This was the fourth time this event has been held and once again attracted a good cross section of martial arts practitioners from a number of disciplines and clubs across the UK.

Over the two day event we had fifteen instructors covering six martial arts with around twenty seven students taking part over the two day's. This included Instruction by Shihan's Val Churchill 7th Dan ZJF and Gordon Lawson 6th Dan BZJFA, Sensei Tony Richards 5th Dan and for the first time this year Sensei Joe Harbert 5th Dan Judo/Jujitsu from the Portsmouth TJUK Club.


Saturday

After a short warm up, Saturday started with a Zen Judo syllabus session by Shihan Val Churchill to get everyone use to the mats and find out who had done Judo/Jujitsu before. After the coffee break .........>

Sensei Jim Dart 4th Dan ran a session on Karate applications in the small hall and in the main hall Sensei Neil Kydd 3rd Dan and Jeremy Webber 1st Dan instructed in Akijitsu, this covered centering, projection and Jo staff applications.

After lunch there was a choice between Self Protection with Sensei Stuart Edwards 2nd Dan and Shihan Lawson's Seiryoku Zen'yo Kokumin Taiku Kata, (the last kata shown in Kodokan Judo book) with help from Sensei Anne Parker 4th Dan. This was followed by a quick session on Han-Sutemi (Half Sacrifice techniques) by John Robertson 2nd Dan.
After the afternoon break the main mat hosted a session of Kensekei Jujitsu with Sensei Tony Richards and Rob Jolly 2nd Dan and in the small hall Taekwon-Do with Matt Collins 2nd Dan ITF, which covered various kicking techniques and pad work.


Taikwon-Do

On Sunday we started with separate warm ups with Sensei Dart taking a session on Karate in the small hall and Shihan Gordon Lawson taking the warm up in the main hall with a reminder of the kata from the previous day, he then handed over to Sensei Graham Paget 4th Dan who took us through Zen Judo Counters, Technique three's, Randori positioning and Attacking and Evading throws in a Randori situation.


Sunday

After the morning break Sensei Matt Collins ran another session on Taekwon-Do sparring in the small hall, while in the main hall Sensei Joe Harbert assisted by his uke Chris, demonstrated a number of very impressive ground work skills, these covered arm locks and strangles one of which he had been taught by Brian Jacks the Olympic Bronze medal winner in 1972.

After lunch we managed to con Sensei Richards into taking a session on Iaido while in the main hall Sensei Tom Williams 3rd Dan took a session on Combat Judo. The last session of the weekend was taken by Sensei Tony Richards which covered a number of Jujitsu techniques, most of which as usual involved pain in some form.


Jujitsu Arm Lock

I would like to thank all the instructors and students for another very enjoyable weekend, I would also like to extend my thanks on behalf of everyone to Yvonne and her helpers for keeping us fed and watered over the weekend. See you all next year !