Primary 1a and 1b had a fantastic afternoon of Karate. Some of us have already experienced Taikwondo or Karate before, and we were keen to show off our skills.

We found out that Karate is a Japanese sport.

We began by learning how to say hello in Japanese. They are very formal. To say hello, they bow, with their hands at their sides and their feet together. The more important the person, the lower we bow. So of course, we all bowed very low to our teachers!

We then learned how to count to 5 in Japanese.

1 – ish

2 – ni

3 – san

4 – chi

5 – go

We then learned different ways to punch and kick correctly, so as not to hurt ourselves. (Of course, we learned that this is just a sport, and only to be done in safe environments, such as in karate or taikwondo classes).

We learned a forward punch – it is important to keep our thumb tucked away, punch in a straight line, and use the top part of our first 2 fingers.

We learned to a head block and a side block (to stop others punching us).

We then learned something called a slap kick – we don’t use the bottom of our foot or our toes, as this would hurt. Instead, we use the top part of our foot.

We practiced all of these on punching pads, held only by the instructors. We then got a go at using the pretend man called Bob. This was fun as he was very squishy and wobbled a lot.

We also had lots of fun playing games. These games were to help us get fit, and to exercise our muscles. We played an opposites game. We found this tricky at first but eventually got the hang of it. If the man said sit, we had to stand. If he said fight, we had to dance.

We then played a dice game. The dice had different exercises on it, including crunches, push ups, star jumps and squats. There was even a side which got the teachers to do 25 exercises! Luckily it only landed on this once. It was very funny watching Mrs Baty trying to do 25 push ups! She’s not as fit as us.

We had a really fun day, and we’re looking forward to the rest of the week.