Just Karate Interview with Junior Lefevre Sensei 6th Dan

Just Karate Interview with Junior Lefevre Sensei 6th Dan

It is a great honour to have former World and European champion Junior Lefevre Sensei for this month’s Interview for JUST KARATE, we are privileged that he accepted our request to share his expert knowledge and experiences with us.

I will pass you over now to John Kelly (interviewer) and Sensei Lefevre for an insight into this inspirational Irish karate ka.

Q1-JK:  Sensei  Lefevre  your are practising Shotokan Karate many years now, When did you start Karate and what made you choose  Shotokan Karate ?

I started when I was 8 years old… I started as I was teased at school (I lived in quite a bad part of Brussels)

I took the first club that was close to my  home… and lucky for me it was Shotokan Karate

Q2-JK: Who was your first instructor?

A not well know instructor… his name Selly Simanovski

Q3-JK:  You have trained with many sensei, can you name a few and how the contributed to your success?

After… my father choose a different sensei with who I worked/trained …

Sensei Dirk Heene, traditional Kase Ha Shotokan, thanks to him I had very good basic

Sensei Patrick Suard, ex national French Trainer, my Kata Sensei for competition.

The best for me … Sensei Jose Manuel Egea… thanks to him… I am a good fighter… he taught me to use my head properly… to be smart.

Q4-JK: Have you always practised Shotokan or have you tried any other styles?

As Sensei Jose Manuel Egea is Shito ryu… I also practice Shito ryu style

Q5-JK: Many people already know of your world famous champions dojo, which has had many student of all ages and nationalities participate in your training courses/seminars, can you tell us a bit about champions dojo?

The Champions Club is a formation club of high level where a lot of champions come to benefit from our experience.

I started the dojo about 10 years ago… and the camps are now world famous… as it attracts many people of all ages and level… that all have a unique goal… to be better

Q6-JK: What advice would you give to a student in their training to reach top competitive level?

The word of my club … Clouds shows you the way… means  that only the hard path… the cloudy one is the good path to chose… being better is only by working hard.

Q7-JK: When you were competing and training for the European and world stage events, what was your daily and weekly training schedule?

Wow…

Hard question as after 2000, I was not “training” for myself any more  but before that … about 3 hours karate a day 6/days a week.

Gym or physical training, about one hour a day.

But I remember that I was hated by my team-mates as I only wanted to kill/win them on training.

Q8-JK: Who do you think of karate as an Olympic sport and do you did kata should also be added?

Karate will enter one day I hope. It would be good for the athletes  even I think we give too much of ourself to enter… I mean, when you look at karate now… we lost a lot of karate spirit… we become more and more a sport … not any more a martial art.

But I guess it is the normal way if we want to enter

Q9-JK: Of all the Instructors you have trained with, does anyone sensei stand out in your memory and why?

Sensei Dirk Heene and Sensei Jose Egea

The first one because I give now seminar next to him…and the second one as he became like my grand brother… and even I had hard time with the federation, he never put me down.

Q10-JK: What was the best piece of advice you have been given?

“Junior, you are the best… but if you want to keep practising for a long time… use your head”

Q11-JK: If a competitor is training for competition, does it benefit them to compete in all rules and competition, for example if the are competing in WKF, does it benefit them to also compete in traditional events?

Each branch can give something… when I was 16 I became ESKA champion … I learned to fight without gloves with adults… after I was not scared any more  of nobody

Q12-JK: What was your most memorable moment in your long and distinguished career and why?

My father crying in my arms at the World Championship in 2000, all that training and fight in my life to finally accomplish my goal.

Q13-JK: You have done training and seminars with Rafael Aghayev, another class competitor, what are your thoughts on hantei decision in the 2012 WKF finals, is this a good rule change in your opinion or should there be an extra bout in finals?

Correct decision of the referees… Rafael was blocked… he wanted to catch Luigi and make ashibarai… but Luigi was smarter.

Of course, I find it a big pity that they didn't apply any more the golden point for a world championship final.

Q14-JK: What are your plans for 2013 and can you let us know of any courses/seminars that you have coming up so as we can add to our JUST KARATE site for your fans in Ireland and Worldwide?

I plan a lot of good surprise for the next Summer Camps 2013, they will be held in Liège Belgium with the presence of Luigi Busa, Haldun Alagas, J.Mottram, Lucio Maurina, Ivan Leal,

On behave of” JUST KARATE” I would like to thank you for this very insightful interview.

Fans will be happy to here Junior Lefevre Sensei will be in Athy, Co. Kildare at the end of March, for a two day seminar, which I arranged with him last year, unfortunately I had to pull out of running it due to surgery and was happy that School of Sport took over running it from me.

Don’t miss this course, it will be TOP CLASS, for more info go to www.sportkarate.ie

Osu!