This year I had the holiday of a lifetime I went to Australia a place that I have always wanted to go to and being a good Karateka I took my Gi with me as I thought that I’d get a bit of training in. After the first four days in Sydney I hired a car and then proceeded to drive up towards Brisbane stopping where and when a place took my (and my wifes) fancy and we found some fantastic beaches with golden sand and blue water with nobody on them.
Anyway getting back to the important stuff, after looking in many phone books for karate classes I had quite a few numbers. However, the distances involved did not make it viable for me to get to them and not really knowing the place I didn’t want to drive some 30 to 50 kilometres and get lost.
So one morning after driving to a place called Mooloolaba in Queensland and staying the night in a motel we got up for some brekkie (an Aussie term for breakfast) and went to a café on the beach front and whilst eating and people watching Georgia (my daughter) said “Look dad that mans got a Karate T shirt on” I turned around and saw the T shirt which had World Taekwondo championships 2005 on the back, so finishing off my food I went over and introduced myself to the man wearing it who invited me to sit down and chat. I mentioned that I did Karate and asked if he knew of any local clubs nearby. He knew of one or two but didn’t know what they were like or who the instructors were and suggested that I look in the phone book. After explaning that I had and without much joy, I then asked him where he trained (and this is when you know fate can be a funny thing) because he was no other than Jamie Moore 7th Degree the National Taekwondo coach for Australia and had organised the World Championships in Australia for the I.T.F. (International Taekwondo Federation). He had a club 5 kilometres up the road and said that if I wanted to I’d be more than welcome to come along and train with them, well I didn’t need a second invitation and said yes please and got some directions.
So that night at 5.30 I turned up at a local community centre in Sunshine Plazza and enjoyed throwing loads of kicks and a few punches and then sparred with a few of the students. Many years ago I did a bit of Taekwondo with my mate Ronnie Willcocks who was the English lightweight champion so I had an idea as to what to expect and there are differences in the way Karate people fight. I was tempted to sweep as this is accepted within Karate sparring, but in Taekwondo its not and I respected their rules and enjoyed the experience.
After the class I chatted with Jamie and he was impressed that I kicked as much as I did but I then informed him of the changes in Karate competition and that you have to be good at both kicking and punching to have a chance of winning he said that a lot the Karate people that he had had at his classes were all hands and couldn’t kick very well and were still using the old Ippon rules which explaned a lot. So after exchanging e-mail addresses and phone numbers I said that if he ever comes to England to look me up and come and train at my club, it was good to meet such a nice bloke who was very good at what he done and was not involved in any politics and just liked to train and if your reading this Jamie thanks and do visit England.
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