We hope you will jump, block, kick and punch at the chance to support us in raising money for The Camrose Centre Basingstoke and SHELTER.

The Camrose Centre supports homeless and vulnerably housed people in Basingstoke. The provide breakfast and a cooked meal as well as a place to shelter and access support for two days a week. We want to help them to be able to add another day. For some people the food they are cooked and packs they are given from The Camrose Centre may be the only food they receive. People die on the streets every winter in England and we can help to stop this happening.

Sometimes as a coach in any sport it’s easy to feel like a nag, constantly reminding students to ‘bend their knee’ or ‘pull their hand back’ or ‘grip the uniform differently’ or whatever is specific to a particular sport.

The focus of Sunday’s monthly coaching meeting  was how to create effective and fun new ways to develop skills without seeming like we are nagging. Sharing experiences and knowledge of Gymnastics, Judo, Tennis, Karate, Tai Chi, Teaching in academic situations and discussing how we can relate this experience to Andragogy and Pedagogy.

Members of our Basingstoke Martial Arts club made the trip to Dundee on the Banks of the River Tay in Scotland for the World Union of Karate-Do Federations biennial World Championships. This event is always a highlight in the calendar, with over 2600 competitors from 74 different federations taking part, this year was no different.

Competitors, officials and coaches came from Countries diverse as Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt, Switzerland all adding a truly international feel to the event.

Just asked the kids at the end of one of the Karate classes, in Basingstoke, if they had any questions and was asked “what did we learn today cause I just had fun.” We discussed it as a group and this is what they learnt.

Our drills warm up was team oriented and included a class discussion on how we deal well with winning and losing.