Karate camp at Picton

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32322, 13 June 1970, Page 9

Karate camp at Picton

piCTON reverberated to the kias (shout) of more than 90 members of the New Zealand Kyokushinkai Association when it held its first national training camp during Queen's Birthday week-end.

The camp, which was organised by two members of Canterbury’s Josaikan Karate Club, W. Wendelken and R. Tullich, proved a great success. Members attended from as far north as Palmerston North and as far south as Invercargill.

Instruction for the three days was shared among J. Jarvis (four dan) and J. Gibbons, both black belts from Wellington, and A. Barber (second dan), who is the present national champion, T. Trainor and R. Hanham, all members of the Christchurch club.

Training started at 6 a.m. with meditation, followed by a four-mile run and a three-hour session after breakfast. Another threehour session was held after lunch and a lecture was held in the evening. Members of the camp completed about eight hours’ training each day. On the Monday a tournament was held with Christchurch competitors taking the major share of honours. J. Bryce (Josai) won the light-weight division, W. Boyles (Josai) won the middle-weight and P. Murphy (Wellington) won the heavy-weight. P. McNeil (Josai), the New Zealand Universities champion, was unable to compete in the heavy-weight division because of injury. It is planned to make the camp and tournament an annual event. The photograph shows Barber (left) and Jarvis doing a kata (form) called selnchin at the Picton camp.