On days like this, you have that famous splinter in your eye that makes everything look ugly and you wish you were the mayor of Berlin, being sped around the city in a limousine without seeing anything. Instead, you trundle to the Banzai sports school on Kottbusser Damm in the rail replacement bus service.
When you get there, the world is immediately different: shiny gold and silver trophies everywhere and, above all, familiar, friendly smiling faces.
A squad special was planned for SC Berlin today. Julien Tieke made two of his in-house judo trainers available to the Berlin state squad. However, since the planned hall was occupied elsewhere at short notice, Veysel Bugur jumped in with the rooms of his sports school SC Banzai and thus saved the event.
What karate and judo trainers at SC Berlin occasionally practice together, namely cross-sport training, was shown in this squad offer for all kumite and kata athletes. The two judo trainers, Hendrik Haase and Björn Vor der Wösten, were no stranger to going into the different and perhaps connecting elements of the two martial arts.
Quite early on, falling was learned. As has been observed, this cannot be practiced enough, as the participants often tend to have counterproductive reactions. Fear of falling leads to improper bracing and can cause nasty injuries. The sensible thing to do seems to be to crouch down, squat down, duck your head and roll, roll, roll.
Leg techniques and sweeping techniques are known in both sports. One learns to sweep the leg that is loaded and one pulls the opponents in the direction where the load is desired. While staying up after using such a technique in karate, the judokas go down with them to dominate the opponent. All this was not easy to train and required high concentration on the part of the young karatekas. So a drinking break was requested. In fact, everyone dutifully grabbed their bottles and then the colorful life began. After a good hour of training, the entire group raged through the room unchecked. What do we learn from this?
Children need exercise. What does such a burst of energy that gets trapped do? I don’t like to imagine; In any case, it makes sense to offer children the opportunity to exercise and to channel this power a little.
When I asked if the judo trainers could already recognize movement patterns in our young karate kids that point to their sport, the answer was yes. If basic positions are desired, the judokas stand in a firm, wide stance. The karatekas, on the other hand, position their feet more behind each other and their bodies are turned sideways away from the opponent in order to offer little surface to attack. In free play, the karatekas tend to keep their distance and observe their counterparts from a certain distance, while judokas make more direct contact.
In a later training session, the older members of the squad were also able to benefit from the judo offer.
Junis Nassar initiated the cross-sport training for our squad and would like to
expand such offers in the future. He finds it helpful to occasionally stray off the beaten track and learn from others. He sees the resources for this in many Berlin clubs, since not only one martial art is often offered. He would also like to see the Berlin kata and kumite athletes grow closer together, as well as the various clubs that are invited to contribute their cross-sport qualities to the state squad and thus participate in a constructive exchange.
Our Vice President Boris Mahn wanted to see for himself this Sunday that this squad special would be accepted and there was a good opportunity to thank Veysel Bugur personally for opening his rooms for today’s BKV training.
Author: Brigitte Benjes
