The Great Northern International Festival of Martial Arts 10

This post is to plug a Martial Arts Festival that is taking place on May 8th 2010. The reason I’m plugging it is because it is aiming to raise money for Cancer Research UK. The festival will be in its 10th year this year and will be attracting clubs from all over the UK and China.

Its founder and organiser is Peter Seth (4th Dan) who runs the Sunderland University (Zanshin) Aikido club. According to Peter the aims of the festival are to:

• Raise much needed funds for Cancer Research UK as well as public awareness of the role the North East of England plays in international research into this disease which has now taken over from heart disease as the number one killer in this country.

• To bring together various Martial Arts groups from the local area, nationally and internationally, to, in a very positive way, demonstrate their arts and foster friendship and an awareness that they are part of a much larger Martial Arts ‘family’.

• Increase public awareness as to the variety and very high standards of Martial Arts practiced both locally and also in the wider arena.
(The North East of England has many Martial Artists who have attained national, international and world champion status),

• Provide a forum for young Martial Artists to display their skills and develop pride and confidence both in themselves and their respective arts. Also encourage people to become involved in the martial arts with its many positive benefits.

• Have an entertaining, educational, spectacular and fun day out for everyone.

The event will feature demonstrations from judo, jujitsu, karate (shotokan and wado ryu), taekwondo, aikido, kobudo, Awasa/Saburi/Kumitachi Waza, Capoeira, Taiji, Japanese Sword, Directional Fighting Method, kung fu, kick boxing, European (Historical) Fighting Systems and of course : Lion Dancers.

This year there will also be a variety of taster sessions for both martial artists and members of the general public.

I attended last year’s festival and had a thoroughly good time – the variety and quality of demonstrations was very high, I think there were four world champions there! I am hoping to be there again this year so if you can get to Sunderland why not come along as well?

Here are the essential details:
Title: The Great Northern International Festival of Martial Arts 10
Date: Saturday 8th May 2010
Venue: Seaburn Leisure Centre, Sunderland
Time: 10.00am – 4.30 pm
Cost: Adults £4.50, Under 14’s/Senior Citizen £3.00, Family (2+2) £12.00


For tickets or further information contact: Peter Seth
Email: pseth@yahoo.co.uk

To raise money for Cancer research this festival needs as much publicity as possible so remember to tell your club about it – feel free to copy and print the poster at the top of this post.

 

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Karate Party

My karate club held an early Xmas party on Saturday in a small, local brewery. Yes, that's right, we had a p---up in a brewery! Adults only of course.

This is the second year running we've held our xmas party at this venue. Lucky for us the brewery (The Sheffield Brewery Co. Ltd) is part owned by one of our club members so we are always made to feel welcome. The bash included a pie and pea supper, beer on tap (wine for non-beer drinkers - not sure what tee-totallers had!) as well as a tour of the brewery, which is quite fascinating when you've no idea how beer is brewed - it's quite a scientific process really. Of course an evening like this is not complete without the proverbial pub quiz, with prizes - packets of crisps and pork scratchings of course!

The above picture shows my instructor Steve Hegarty pulling a pint with the owners of the brewery - he doesn't do all that training just to throw punches! The guy in the middle at the back is Pete - one of our karate members.

This is the karate girls! Katrine, Lucy and me









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As you can see the brewery is an interesting building - that's a beer cask in the background.


















More guests













Instructor Steve with our assistant instructor Paul Seamer







The Sheffield Brewery Company brews 10 beers currently and supplies both local and national pubs. It can be booked out for private parties, see it's website for more details: The Sheffield Brewery Company.




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.