4th Annual Training Holiday, 23rd-30th June 2006
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At 4pm on Friday 23rd June, all the eager participants of the 2006 UKKFF Training Holiday assembled at Gatwick Airport South Terminal to check-in. Previous years had seen problems with passports, tickets or last-minute amendments, but amazingly this year was completely hassle-free (apart from Karl Van Lith only getting his travel visa a mere one day before we were due to fly!) This was all probably due to Mrs H's excellent organisation skills rather than blind luck, but we can't be totally sure. Anyhow we zipped through check-in & passport control, then split up to acquire some stupidly overpriced food (how else can you describe a £4.95 baguette?) before the flight commenced. No problems boarding & a good flight with the only exception being the obligatory screaming child in the next row. We all thought that this was a good time to see if he would fit into the overhead storage lockers, but the airline seemed to have a regulation against it. Despite his lung-busting efforts, we landed smoothly at Malaga Airport right on time, and I was proud that everyone resisted the temptation to give him a quick Kuen-Sao upon disembarking. But of course i'm making a joke! A Fak-Sao would have been far more fitting, given his position as we walked by.
So after collecting the two hire-cars we began the 1-hour drive up the Montes De Malaga (mountains of Malaga) to Lagar Ruvira, our holiday location for the week. I drove one of the cars followed by Barry Beckett driving the other, selected mainly due to his european driving & motor-racing experience. With hindsight this may not have been the best choice, as we later heard that his new nickname of Death-Wish Barry was coined whilst taking a particularly sharp mountain bend with the screams of his colleagues ringing in his ears. Top fun no doubt, although replacing your underpants every few turns could soon prove tiresome. In all previous years the second car had been driven by Officer Andy Noakes, and you'd think a Class-1 Police Driver would not do hand-brake turns with an MPV. But you'd be wrong. It seems that all future 2nd-car drivers have a unbroken heritage of misbehavior to live up to! The winding road gave way to dirt tracks and even though it was evening the view was getting progressively more spectacular, a sign that we were nearing our goal. Then suddenly there it was! The dogs ran out to greet us, and our hosts Bob & Di Seymour welcomed everyone with drinks to cut down the heat. Everyone settled in to their accommodation, and the holiday had begun.
Each day then followed a simple pattern: Get up, swim, light breakfast, stretch, train for 2 hours, lunch, relax, swim, train for 2 more hours, swim, dinner, relax, bed. Repeat for six more days. Having two swimming pools on hand in the 40° heat was just bliss, and many training sessions took a quick break while participants jumped in for a brief dip before resuming their Chi-Sao. The morning stretch lasted 30-45 mins and covered exercises from traditional Yoga & less-traditional Chi-Kung. The first training session of the day usually covered Escrima, and the second slightly longer evening session covered Kung-Fu. As always we tried to give everyone something new, as well as taking people further upon their own WingTsun student programme. Everyone made their own breakfast each day, but a huge healthy lunch was often provided by our hosts as well as the many evening BBQ's, which went down a treat (thanks Bob & Di). Some of us even felt energised enough to do some traditional strength & fitness training, including a morning run up the mountain & back (but once was enough for this!). Our group was split over two adjacent villas, so each day we chose a different place to do our training and where to relax afterwards. It soon became obvious that Karl, Joe & Mark were the more debauched household, whilst all of us up at the other villa were of course much more refined!
As we had two cars at our disposal, some days we decided to take trips to the local sights, including Comares and the lovely beachfront at Torre Del Mar in the town of Velez Malaga. It was at the beach that we discovered just why Barry had brought all his snorkelling kit, as he vanished into the sea for hours on end, reporting back afterwards that it was indeed wet and had fish in it. Good stuff & important to know too. On a couple of days we also took trips to local restaurants to sample the famous cuisine, and everyone was amazed by not only how good & how cheap it was, but also just how big the portions were. Seriously, it's a good job we were on a training holiday, as we'd very likely return to the UK having to pay excess tonnage penalties on the flight.
The week went all too quickly, and in no time we were packing everything back into the cars for the trip down the mountain again. We hugged our hosts, promised to return next year and bade Lagar Ruvira a fond farewell until the 2007 Spain Training Holiday. I don't think any of us can wait until it's time to fly out again. Adios!
- Author: Lee Heron
- Sources: None
