On the 9th of December 2011 we were utterly excited to go on a first club's trip to Germany, where Modern Sports Karate Associates held their weekend seminar.

Our team of three shuffled off to a long but thrilling journey via la Manche in a nice rented car.

There are tens of cities throughout Germany, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Northern Italy, where such MSKAI weekend seminars take place. We were lucky to pick the closest one called Aachen -- near the border of Belgium/Netherlands. A lovely city, with remarkable old town and specialty sweets during Christmas period! All the more -- MSKAI was founded at Aachen's RWTH technical university in 1971.

Our karatekas were very eager to experience, what it's like to train 6 hours a day, two days in a row. Nontheless about how different it is to be taught by the 3rd degree black belt Master Issa Diomansy Koité.

The weekend turned out to be rewarding, both physically and emotionally. Our adepts achieved their yellow belt gradings, and smilingly returned back home, positively exhausted.

Some memorable moments of the weekend:

Edd's impressions:

The seminar in Aachen was an energetic and interesting experience. I learnt a great deal over the course of two days and feel that my basic grounding for MSKAI has now improved dramatically. The students were positive and I feel compelled to learn and train more throughout the following year.

Successful start = half job done! Congratulations to MSKA-Bristol for paving its way to mainland Europe!

We conclude with the seminar group foto: