Neerbeek, 06-01-2024

New record for JKA Nederland 11^th Memorial course.

It was November 2012 that JKA Nederland organized the first edition of the JKA Nederland Memorial course. The course was organized to remember the founder of JKA Nederland: Peter Wewengkang sensei, who has passed away earlier that year.

This year (2023) it was already the 11th edition and the line-up was excellent. JKA Nederland invited four highly ranked JKA HQ instructors for this anniversary:

Okuma Shihan, Nemoto Sensei, Shimizu Sensei and Kurihara Sensei arrived in the Netherlands on 21 November. This was the start of a wonderful week with activities and of course JKA karate.

At Friday Sawada shihan (from Europe) arrived and the instructors were complete. Friday evening the gasshuku started and after there was a nice get to gather in the local Chinese restaurant. This year the organization decided to skip the honbu dojo and go directly to the big sport accommodation 500 m from the dojo. It was a good decision because there were already a lot of participants; it wouldn’t have fit in the dojo!

Saturday the day started with a lot of participants and the organization was very proud and happy to announce that after the 2nd training the 433 participants registered! A new record for this tiny country! For the first time in the JKA Nederland history JKA Nederland welcomed so many people from 12 different countries!  We needed two sport halls to train together. Not only the organization, but also the sensei’s were very excited. We were only half way of the weekend. Sunday the new record was broken: 478 participants over 3 days (6 trainings) from the next 16 nationalities:

Japan, England, Mexico, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Luxembourg, Italy, Poland, Germany, Spain, Armenia, Hungary, France, Cuba and of course the Netherlands. It was huge, it was great!

JKA Nederland gives a special thanks to all participants, karate clubs and countries to be part of it. It was a blast!

After the gasshuku (training 6) the results of the dan examination and qualification exams was announced. Congratulations to all who passed the examination.

JKA Nederland is looking forward for the next edition in November 2024.