Carmarthenshire Karate

It’s been challenging at times, but great to see so many people joining us for the online training sessions over the last few weeks. Keep up the good work everyone – we might be able to get through this even fitter than when we started!

Given the current advice, restrictions, and closures as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, all of our clubs are now closed. We don’t yet know how long these closures will last but we’ll endeavour to reopen as soon as it is safe and practical to do so. In the meantime, we encourage everyone to follow the latest recommendations from Public Health Wales.

We also encourage all of our members to join our Carmarthenshire Karate Members Facebook Group, in order to keep informed about any potential outdoor training that we might be able to arrange over the coming weeks.

Carmarthenshire Karate’s chief instructor, Mair Phillips and her son and fellow instructor Dan Phillips have been putting the county and country on the world karate map once again this year, with success at the recent WKF (World Karate Federation) referee course and examination in Dubai. Already at the top of their refereeing qualifications in Europe, Mair and Dan took the next step on the international stage by completing fives days of theory and practical instruction and examination, before progressing to three days of competition at the Karate1 Premier League event with their new world judging qualifications. The pressure was intense and standards set particularly high in this, the year that karate makes its debut at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

They both head to Baku, Azerbaijan later this month, for the Senior European Championships – the last qualification event for athletes hunting for points before the summer games, so pressure will be high once again. Over the last ten years, Mair and Dan have been able to bring all of this international refereeing experience back to Carmarthenshire Karate’s five clubs, for the benefit of its competition squad, some of whom also represent Wales in the national squad.

Congratulations to Nia Thomas and Mina Cook for their success at the Carmarthen Town Sports Awards. Nia retained her title with first place in the Junior Female (U13) category, while Mina was joint second in the Youth Female (U18) category. Special mention to fellow squad members Max Ryan-Davies and Ben Williams, who were also nominated but not successful this time.

In this year’s 100 Kata Challenge, we took on Rohai. Young and old, high and low grade, everyone took on the challenge with enthusiasm, and were just about getting it by the end!