A junior’s experience of Kid’s Camp
By Samantha Greig

Kid’s camp isn’t just for the younger students to attend. It’s for black belts wanting to experience what it’s like to be an instructor, senior kids to learn to take charge and become good leaders, as well as a creating an opportunity for the kids to come to a Gasshuku, and not have the struggle to understand the technical karate points of a full Gasshuku.

It was an excellent opportunity for young students who hadn’t been training for very long to get some experience, particularly since the kids classes were getting bigger.

We would run through a number of different combinations of Kumite, Kata, games and mini competitions, you were never bored.

The kids were separated into two teams, the blues and the reds, each team had two senior females and two senior males as Group Leaders, and given a ribbon with their colour on it. They had to wear the ribbon over the entire weekend as part of a game.

Each team got points for things like helping the younger children, including one another in games, cleaning after themselves in the mess hall, coming to training on time and keeping their rooms tidy.

The seniors job was too keep the younger ones in line. They had to make sure their team was at dinner and training on time, playing nicely and cleaning up after them selves. If none of that was shown the whole team lost points.

After the days training’s the kids had a chance to play some competitive games to earn points for their teams and keep them occupied. We had nightly meetings to count the points for the teams and listen to the next day’s timetable.

But as mentioned before, this wasn’t just for the juniors. Many seniors and adults took a single training each day for two hours to experience what being an instructor is like. This was a great opportunity for them because it was only children and a few older people who wanted to come along they had to teach. So it wasn’t as if there was a lot expected of them.

By the end of the weekend we had had a number of successful training sessions. The kids had enjoyed it, the seniors had enjoyed and the parents had enjoyed their quiet weekend, everyone was happy.

Sensei Dion tallied up the team’s scores and red had won by twenty points, a close total for a first time kid’s Gasshuku.

I think that this was one of my favourite Gasshukus to go to, not because we played games and competitions. It was a chance to become a leader, to take responsibility and do more then just karate. If you didn’t go to last year’s then I recommend that people go to the next one. It is one of the best opportunity’s the kids will get.