ITF-Belgium invited Sabum Neil Ernest to conduct a sparring seminar in Belgium, Destelbergen June 18th 2011. Neil Ernest (IV°degree), vice-president and national coach of ITF Wales, is World Champion 2003 and European Champion 2004 and won lots of medals on World, European and many prestigious tournaments.

Neil arrived in Brussels National Airport on Friday morning June 17th. He visited Ghent with Master Frank Vanberghen and had lunch with the Master and national coach Yves Pollefeyt. During his stay in Belgium he resided in a hotel in Kortrijk.

The seminar started on Saturday morning at 10.00. Although there're school exams in Belgium at the moment, still participants from 7 clubs were present. Special thanks to Patrick den Hoed and Thé Chaiyong, both Dutch teammembers, who came all the way from The Netherlands to attend the course. In the morning, after the warming-up exercises, the participants practised on shields: basic kicks, combinations of kicks, how to create and keep the proper distance, combinations of punches and kicks.

After a 45-minutes lunchbreak the participants had to put on their sparring-equipment. Sabum Ernest had some very nice exercises with punches and basic kicks again, on dodging, etc. After some free sparring the seminar finished with stretching, while participants could ask Neil Ernest all kinds of questions. At 15.00 the participants could enjoy a well-deserved shower.

In the evening Neil had dinner with Master Frank Vanberghen (technical director ITF-Belgium), Annick Van Driessche (president ITF-Belgium) and Yves Pollefeyt (national coach) & his family in Kortrijk. He left to Cardiff again on Sunday afternoon.