Fight­ing tech­niques were on the menu as the Shotokan Karate-do In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion Kanaza­wa Group T&T (SKIF KG TT), host­ed a ku­mite coach­ing sem­i­nar with An­tho­ny Bap­tiste on Sat­ur­day at the La Joya Sport­ing Com­plex in St Joseph.

The sem­i­nar, which fea­tured Bap­tiste, a lo­cal in­struc­tor who taught Go­ju-ryu karate in Venezuela for some 40 years, in­clud­ed ad­vanced and black belt stu­dents who are cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for grad­ing ex­am­i­na­tions and over­seas com­pe­ti­tions.

The sem­i­nar, which ran for an hour, honed the skills of stu­dents hop­ing to com­pete with the sole fo­cus on ku­mite or spar­ring, bring­ing them up to speed with the cur­rent rule-set in the sports karate world.

The gru­elling work­out was just the be­gin­ning of an event­ful year, as SKIF is aim­ing to par­tic­i­pate at its or­gan­i­sa­tion’s World Cham­pi­onships in Hun­gary, and the SKIF Venezuela Con­ti­nen­tal Camp lat­er this year, mean­while round­ing off 2023 with host­ing Japan­ese in­struc­tor Hi­roshi Ishikawa and his Venezue­lan pro­tege, and na­tion­al coach, Ale­jan­dro Cas­tro.

SKIF KG TT is the lo­cal branch of SKIF, the in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion which has mem­ber­ship in some 100 coun­tries. Their lo­cal home base is at the La Joya Sport­ing Com­plex.