Sensei Phipps visits Budapest
On October 10th–13th 2008, Sensei Malcolm Phipps 7th Dan and Chief Instructor to SSKI visited Budapest, Hungary. Sensei was met at the airport by the Chief Instructor of SSKI Hungary, Sensei Zohner Szilard 5th Dan and his lovely wife, Ildiko. Sensei arrived very late on the Friday evening and so he was taken straight to his hotel for the weekend, the Hotel Matus.
It was up early on the Saturday and off to the dojo and training. The first session started at 10am prompt and involved working on the three major stances (Zenkutsu, Kokutsu and Kiba Dachi) with Sensei Phipps giving the class exercises and routines to improve these stances. Most of these routines involved partner work and this lesson finished off with some very advanced Jiyu-Ippon Kumite techniques which went down extremely well with the class. There was then a break for nearly three hours for some extremely wonderful Hungarian Goulash. The second session was to be a Kata class and Sensei Phipps taught Kata Meikyo and Kata Tekki Nidan and again these were picked up extremely quickly by all of the students. Following this second session there was to be a nidan grading for just one student, Santa Tibor who passed this very gruelling examination, which was excellent especially after training on the two very tough sessions beforehand.
The students and Sensei Szilard thanked Sensei Phipps for the day’s training and presented him with a special bottle of red wine, which had the badge of the Association actually embossed on the bottle. In the evening there was a superb meal for all the students in honour of Sensei Phipps’ visit and Santa Tibor’s successful grading. Sensei Szilard and Ildiko were the perfect hosts and took Sensei Phipps to some beautiful spots in Hungary. They visited the beautiful one thousand year old Pannonhalma Benedictine Archabbey, the Balaton Lake (which is the largest lake in Central Europe) and on the last day they sat outside in the sunshine by the stunning River Danube having lunch. The weather was a wonderful 26 degrees Celsius for the whole weekend and made up for the extremely poor summer in England. Sensei Phipps was also interviewed by the head of the Hungarian, Budo Magazine on his Karate life in general and his expectations for SSKI worldwide in the future. The weekend sadly came to an end all too quickly and Sensei Phipps travelled back to England on the Monday evening and now looks forward to his next visit in 2009.
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| Seniors of SSKI Budapest, Hungary with Sensei Phipps | Sensei Zohner Szilard and Sensei Malcolm Phipps |