8th IKGA Europe Championships and 30th European Seminar

On 14th July, 2015 the 8th IKGA European Championships were held in England at Potters Resort on the beautiful English Norfolk coast. This was followed by the 30th IKGA European Training Seminar forthe rest of the week.

The event was honoured by the presence of Saiko Shihan Goshi Yamaguchi and his son Gohei Yamaguchi Shihan and Ingo De Jong Hanshi.

At the opening of the Seminar ceremony a presentation of Europe's first two women Shihan, Nicole Van Den Dries (Netherlands) and Doris Berger (Switzerland) was made. Other Shihan awards went to Vlastislav Mika (Czech Rep) and Szabó János (Hungary).

The championships were organised by Shihan Mark Adams and were attended by 174 competitors from 11 countries: England, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland. There were 16 categories of kata competition, including team kata and bunkai and 19 categories of kumite competition, including team kumite.

Saiko Shihan Goshi Yamaguchi asked that the competitors demonstrate their high-level techniques and excellent sportsmanship and Hanshi Shihan Ingo de Jong asked all competitors to demonstrate the correctattitude to competition: winning and losing should not be as important as enjoying karate and using your experiences to improve. The competitors took these important messages and all enjoyed the competition.

The final results were as follows: There are two tables, the first on accumulated medals the second on Gold positions.

Club	Competitor Count	Golds	Silvers	Bronzes	Points
England	49	9	14	23	78
Hungary	22	11	5	7	50
Sweden	35	6	6	8	38
Italy	14	7	5	6	37
Switzerland	20	1	6	7	22
Netherlands	18	3	1	10	21
Belgium	2	0	0	3	3
Slovakia	1	0	0	1	1
Romania	4	0	0	1	1
Norway	7	0	0	1	1
Czech Rep.	2	0	0	0	0

Club	Golds	Silvers	Bronzes	Total Medals
Hungary	11	5	7	23
England	9	14	23	46
Italy	7	5	6	18
Sweden	6	6	8	20
Netherlands	3	1	10	14
Switzerland	1	6	7	14
Belgium	0	0	3	3
Slovakia	0	0	1	1
Romania	0	0	1	1
Norway	0	0	1	1
Czech Rep.	0	0	0	0

The competition was followed by the 30th European Training Seminar, organised by Shihan Tony Childs, with expert tuition provided by Saiko Shihan and the European Shihans. During the training seminar,students were graded to Dan grade levels. Of particular note were Shihan Ghulum Mughal who achieved his 7th Dan and Shihan Tony Childs, who achieved his 6th Dan and Mark Purcell who achieved his 5^th Dan.

Thanks go to Shihans Tony Childs and Mark Adams for their organisation, to IKGA Europe and the organising committee for their support, and to the staff of Potters for providing a world-class venue for the championships and training seminar.