2019 Summary

2019 : a surprising year  !

I should have never expected to achieve all the things I’ve done : French Shodan, Uechi Ryu French Cup (5th in Kyu Kata), and the great honor to have been promoted Jun Shihan by sensei George Mattson.

The most exciting for me were not all these achievements of course these ones are great but the most exciting were all the people I met this year sharing the same passion.

After the French Cup organized by Shimabukuro sensei & Didier Lorho, we got the visit of Sadanao & Kanyu Uechi I really enjoyed  have time with them and to speak with them despite my very poor level in Japanese.

Sadanao Uechi & Gregory Burgel

 

In june just after my Shodan we had the pleasure to train with Shimabukuro sensei and I was his uke to celebrate my Shodan. It’s always fantastic to train with Shimabukuro sensei a man who dedicate his life to support Uechi-Ryu growth. Now Uechi-Ryu is well know in Europe and Russia … it is a tremendous achievement.

In june with Shimabukuro Sensei

 

In october we had Kinjo sensei and Masami sensei seminars sharing their knowledge in Karate & Kobudo they are kind & fascinating sensei the 2 weeks with them were fantastic ones.

Kinjo Sensei teaching Okinawa Kobudo

During all these seminars I had the luck to meet fantastic and passionating Martial Artists such as Terry Donoghue (Scotland), Paquita Garcia (Spain), Jose Ferreira (Portugal) but also French people such as Guy Sauvin (former world Champion), Lionel Froidure (sensei & Imagin Arts Producer), Gregory Burgel (Bugei Kenkyukai), Didier Lorho (Uechi-Ryu Europe), Damia Lay (UNESCO Teacher), Lazare Pouchard (Kobukai sensei), …

As already said, Karate is a great family and it is always interesting to share with other practitioners!

 

Let’s speak training

If I have a look on my 2019 training diary I cumulated 731 hours of training

• 531 hours of Uechi-Ryu 
  In these hours I include the Circuit and the Kata Circuit training.
  The numbers of hours is quite impressive if I consider all the travels I have performed for my Job.
  It’s true that July and August were hard months to prepare the Jun Shihan Certification.
• 150 hours of Trekking
  I have the luck to live in a fantastic area so it is always good to go outside
• 50 hours of Cycling
  Mainly in November – December with the Tour of London
  I planned to perform more bike training but the Uechi-Ryu French Cup was initially not planned in my schedule

 

2019 was a huge work in ter of training and once more I want to thank my teacher for their support and patience (George Mattson , Jean Smith , Sebastien Langlais).

2020 will be an exciting year; my challenge will be to step back a little bit to prepare carefully the next steps of my karate Path.

Thanks for reading.