Karate athletes in Nanaimo have a ways to go to get to the level of a three-time world champion, but they’re building the right foundation.
Nanaimo’s Shima Karate hosted Douglas Brose for a seminar at the dojo on Sunday, Oct. 16. The Brazilian athlete is a three-time gold medallist at the World Karate Championships and the 2021 world champion in the 60-kilogram kumite (sparring) division.
Brose worked with all levels of Shima’s athletes.
“It was an amazing opportunity to share my experience with high-level athletes and with kids, most importantly,” he said.
Brose said when he has only a limited amount of time to work with students, that time is best spent training fundamentals.
“Some people think that the base and the foundation are not the most important because they are at the elite level, but the base and the foundation is everything,” he said. “Especially when I teach kids, I like to give them different ways to see the basics and to make [it] interesting.”
He said as a young athlete he got a chance to train with a world championship medallist and said it was inspiring for him at the time. Shima athletes have “very good” technique, he said, and can reach a high level if they work for it.
“You need to invest your time and you need to invest your energy in this, but I think those kids can have a future [in karate] if they want to,” he said.
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