WKU chairman Dave Wheatley, Chief Instructor Alan Flook and Kevin Barrett flew to Jersey to take a weekend course for WKU affiliated club Jersey Wado Ryu (JWR). Click here to download a full report of the weekend. Here is a summary.

Many thanks to JWR for their generous hospitality and fantastic accommodation during our stay on the island.

Friday evening session was a small class made up of mainly senior grades with many familiar faces. Amongst those there were Senior Instructor Steven Ahearne, Instructors Graeme Le Feuvre and Ben Hall, not to mention Francesca Loguellou (1st Kyu Student) and many others. As always we were pleased to see Dave Louis, former president of the Jersey Karate Federation.

Ryan Lambotte, Chief Instructor of JWR led the Friday training with the visiting instructors working with groups. The commitment and effort of those training was second to none. For the second half of the training intensity was increased with students working in pairs. Even Graeme was sweating!

After a good night’s sleep the Saturday morning session began, Ben taking the initial warm up before handing over to Steve. Dave Wheatley then took over to continue focussing on the basics, after which we broke down into groups.

The formalities of the weekend ended with presentations made to the 2011 students of the year, Ciaron McCutcheon (Senior) and Max Mghee (Junior). JWR also presented a Shield to WKU to be awarded annually to someone who has shown outstanding sporting endeavour. Graeme Le Feuvre was shocked to be told he had been promoted to Sandan, just in time for his 60th birthday. Ryan and Steve were both promoted to Yondan in appreciation for their work and continued loyalty to the WKU.

In summary we would like to thank all those on the island who yet again made our stay so enjoyable, we look forward to our next meeting and hope some of you may be able to make it over to the mainland so we may return the hospitality.