Oubaitori Karate Kickboxing Peterborough

What a result! Everyone at Oubaitori are incredibly proud of you! Over 2200 in attendance to this years worlds and it’s not over yet!

Well done Team England 💪🏻

Half term fun! With Matt and Leo away we still got it done! Drilling basics, kata, working forward and retreating attacks for points and finishing on sparring, these guys put a shift in 💪🏻 Amazing work Wednesday warriors!

It’s Competition Day 1! England kids are up first, Leo has two weight categories and teams ahead of him.

Everyone here wants to wish him all the luck, go and have fun Johno Jr 💪🏻

Sponsored by Airport Arrivals Peterborough

🙏

Well, that’s that!

The hard work is done, injuries had and overcome, new techniques learnt, skills sharpened, tomorrow they FLY!

The boys want to take a moment to personally thank their wonderful sponsor Airport Arrivals Peterborough who they will be proudly flying on their T-shirts over the next week.

Good luck to the whole team over the next week - there will be regular updates on the page from Flick.

To the boys - we’re very proud of you both, go out, fight with OKC spirit, you’re already winners in our eyes.

Next weeks lessons are still on so no excuses 😉

💪🏻

What a week!

In our final week before Germany Matt and Leo have been focusing hard on training tweaking and getting bits right.

Everyone else has also been putting in some serious work into their techniques and drills.

We love to see the effort guys keep it up 💪🏻

Let’s go 💪🏻💪🏻

💙 Showing Up Right - From “Sensei Daddy” 💙

🎯 Lessons from both sides of the mats, to help your kids thrive

💭 As a Coach, I’ve seen all kinds of parenting styles over the years and hundreds of students I’ve had the privilege to coach. I’m not here to criticise or comment on any specific parenting style, but I’ve seen a lot of what does, and what doesn’t work. I thought I would share this insight with you all, with 10 easy Do and Don’ts.

✅ So here’s the stuff you definitely should do!

🏆 Share in their achievements, be on the journey with them and celebrate their successes
🥋 Encourage discipline - motivation gives out, but discipline sees you through
💙 Ride their emotions with them -buzzing or reflective, sit with them in it, let them feel it and process it
💪 Treat training as a commitment, the same as anything else. Their commitment has to match their goals
👏 Show up, whenever you can, to support them. It’s not always physically possible, but make sure they know you’ve got their backs
😪 Help dust them off, ready to go again. A bad match doesn’t have to be a bad competition, day, week, month or year
🤔 Take time to empathise with them, it’s not as easy as it looks!
🙌 Realise that you, coach, and kid are on the same team - working towards the same goals
💧 Help them be prepared physically (water, kit, etc) and emotionally
👊 Build a strong rapport with your coaching team, the kids can feel it, the most you trust and respect us, the more they do

⛔️ And now the other stuff, the please don’t do the following

😠 Use coach as a disciplinarian - we want little ones to be excited to see us, not worried
📢 Coach from the sidelines - let the coaching team do their jobs
🤚 Be harsh or critical - (especially on the drive home) the coaching team will manage performance, be their parent
🤬 Be disrespectful - to coaches, officials, or anyone else - you’re setting the standards they will follow
🤷‍♂️ Disregard coaching advice - this teaches them to do the same, if you disagree, discuss it with the coaches quietly
🥱 Be excuse-oriented, progress and results tend to be mutually exclusive
🚨 Encourage cheating or foul play - it reflects badly on everyone, and it teaches acceptance of “I can’t win” by normalising adverse behaviours
🤕 Wrap your kids in cotton wool, a decent coaching team is working alongside safeguarding guidance and best practice - you have to let the youngsters face adversity and fail, so that they can learn to get back up, to progress, and to win
🫣 Be comparative. Telling your kid they’re better than someone else increases ego. Telling them they’re worse than someone else reduces their self worth. Focus on their journey and progress, nobody else’s
😂 Mock or joke at the expense of the child, whether that’s mocking the sport or discipline, or your kid’s performance, or someone else’s - it teaches them that participation or failure comes with shame

🫶 If you’re reading this and think you’ve spotted yourself doing some of those things. I’m not just Coach, I’m a competitor’s Dad, too. I promise we’ve all misstepped in trying to support our kids. We’ve all had moments of disappointment or flashes or frustration. Having them doesn’t make you bad. Getting it wrong doesn’t make you bad. Refusing to acknowledge or correct them does. I certainly misstepped with Leo, and I’m sure I will with Kaida - different kids have different personalities, strengths, weaknesses, communication styles and training preferences. All I can really hope for is that I don’t repeat the *same* mistakes, and that she grows the same love for it 🙏

💙 Remember our 5Cs, Compassion. For yourself and others. We have all gotten it wrong. Be kind to yourself, be kind to your kids. Our other underpinning C is Community. Seek strength, resolution, and regulation from the other parents, and from your Coaching team - we’re here just as much for you as we are for the kids.

🥰 Some of you will remember, five or so years ago, when Leo was very small but trying his very best to respect the Dojo, and me as his Sensei - when he would wait to speak to me after class and when it was his turn to speak would start with “erm… Sensei Daddy”.

💭 Well I thought I would throw back to that. Because it was adorable, and our kids grow up so quickly. It doesn’t seem five minutes ago he was doing his first LightCon, and now we’re on our way to Germany in a couple of weeks for his first International tournament. It’s made me feel reflective, so I decided to share this with you all. Like any parent, I’d love to hear his tiny voice, coach his first competition, do it all over again. Don’t taint those memories and experiences with a crippling desperation to win.

💬 What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts below 👇

👏 Huge well done to Crystal for finishing her 5k race in 36.26 at the weekend 😁

🤔 We thought her cardio was suspiciously strong at her grading the other week 😂 🙌

🔥 Monster Mondays 🔥

🥊 Kumite and Kickboxing drills, building combinations and using our traditional Karate stances to deliver speed and power

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Huge effort from Leo tonight in the final fortnight of prep for the WKU Worlds in Trier 🇩🇪

⭐️ Shout out to Maya and Lids on their returns, and welcoming Frey to her first class, further bolstering the girl gang

🙏🏻 Massive thanks to the whole OKC crew for supporting the final part of Leo’s training leading up to Germany

✈️ Once again a huge thanks to Airport Arrivals Peterborough for sponsoring Matt and Leo’s 2025 World Championships campaign 🙌

🥰 Mondays are getting pretty busy! But we still promise to never pressure sell, or sell scarcity. You’re all welcome, if you want to learn what we’re teaching and train how we train, there’s space for you 💙 More info in the comments 👇

🥔 We decided to take some of tonight’s photos on a potato… they definitely aren’t still from videos because the team were too busy to get photos 🙄 😂

🇯🇵 Translations from tonight’s drills

Mae Geri = Front Kick
Mawashi Geri = Round kick
Oi Zuki = Lead hand / snap punch
Kizami Zuki = Lunging punch
Uraken = Backfist
Gyaku Zuki = Punch with rear hand (reverse punch)
Shikodachi = Horse (aka Sumo) stance*
Nekoashi Dachi = Cat stance
Zenkutsu Dachi = Long Stance

* Sh*toryu doesn’t use Kibadachi which is normally horse stance, Shikodachi is our horse stance also known as sumo stance in other systems

💪 Fierce Fridays 🔥

⭐️ Firstly, a big welcome to Aretas and Kostas and well done on your first sessions. You lads got stuck in and really made the most of your first steps into the dojo 👏

🙏🏻 Huge thanks and well done to Leo and Arnas for being their buddies and helping them have such great first lessons

🎯 Using combinations to manage and change range and angle - kicks and sweeps, straight vs hook punches, and elbows

🥊 Drill lines working on off-line counters to Mawashi Geri (round kicks) with circling out and projecting in, increasing the pace and working with partners of different sizes and styles