Welcome to the Toowoomba Fencing Club

I am happy to announce that BBRD will soon be supporting the practice of Olympic fencing here in Toowoomba.

Fencing is a University Games sport, and the Toowoomba Fencing Club has looked to provide opportunities for their USQ student members to focus on competing at that level. We are still bedding down some of the particulars regarding training times and location, but we hope to have that sorted by Market Day on Wednesday so that we can promote it to the University community. We have flyers and posters ready to go, and will set up a web page for them shortly. 

I'd like to thank Jamie Webb and Michael Stockwell for approaching the Club with their request to join under our Club banner. I will look forward to working with both of them to grow numbers of USQ students and general community members practising the art, and learning the finer points of the European sword traditions.

Taiko Drum donation

I am very proud to announce that the Club is to be the recipient of a substantial donation of taiko drums, gifted from the Takatsuki City to the City of Toowoomba. As the home of Toowoomba Taiko, BBRD will be storing and facilitating the use of this gift, which when shipping and travel of Taiko sensei are factored in amounts to close to $20,000. 

It is an honour to be involved in this inter-community donation. Sian Carlyon will be in Takatsuki this week on the back of participating in a Wadaiko Festival and a personal holiday to officially thank the Takatsuki community for their gift. 

The official welcoming ceremony in Toowoomba will be held Wednesday next week (7 March), and there will be a taiko workshop run in conjunction with the visit from the Takatsuki Taiko delegation.  

We will be posting updates through this week. Stay tuned!

Club Muster/Phoenix Carnival this Wednesday

In a break from tradition, the first Club Muster of the year will be held in Week 1 rather than O Week. This will hopefully see more on-campus students come past the Club’s stall and demonstration areas than have done so in the last few years.  

We will be doing our usual load out with an 8x8 m training area and a stall inside the main marquee in the USQ Toowoomba Quad. We are planning to have as full a spread of the Club’s disciplines on display as we can, and will need the support of Club members throughout the day, but especially over the busiest period of 12–2 pm. 

We will be packing up the dojo on Tuesday night in preparation for Wednesday. Kateena has generously offered the loan of her box trailer, so we will be loading mats into it as we go, and ensure that the cars are also packed with necessary equipment. 

“Bump in” is from 8.30 am and must be completed by 10 am. We will need to have at least three people available from 10 am–1.30pm, and then manage “Bump out” no later than 4 pm. 

Some requests: If someone could donate the use of an external monitor and a tested/tagged powerboard for the day, we will run some demonstration videos in the marquee stall. Second, if you could give me an indication ASAP as to your availablity for the day, and especially for “bump out” and restock the dojo, that would be very helpful. We are down a few folk who would regularly be there to assist, between new work commitments, travel, and a few long term members having left town. 

I hope to see many of you there on the day, even if only to stop past and say hello! 

“Have a Go” wrap up

Saturday’s Kendo event was a reminder for me of the depth and value in the Club’s sense of community, and the embodiment of the notion #KendoIsFor Life .  

On a misty Saturday morning, we managed to: 

• Have the first organised gathering of kendoka from outside the Toowoomba region since 2012
• Organise the very first regional KYU grading to be held in Queensland
• Successfully grade two Club members who had both taken extended breaks from their Kendo journey
• See the return of Kendoka that have been away for a few years
• Introduce the discipline to new community members and help them take their first steps (and swings).  

The success of events like this hinges on the generosity of many people donating their time and efforts to bring it to fruition. So in a list that might rival an acting awards speech: To John Isaacs sensei for enthusiastically supporting the event from its inception, teaching two sessions of kendo and being the head of the grading panel; to Dave Fitz, Sorin P, and Ryo A for taking the roles of sempai, motodachi and grading constituents that allowed for the KYU grade to occur; to Nash and Anna who came up for the day in support of the event; to Tracy, Geoff, Eric, Brady and Kesh who provided vital support on the day, from photos to lunch fetching, to venue set up through to dog wrangling— we could not have done it without you; to Peter Mc and Randy L for dusting off the bogu and providing vital assistance in crowd wrangling and motodachi work for the “Have a Goers”; to Sian, Sean T, Suren and Kateena for throwing themselves into near three hours of training with Isaacs sensei; and to the community who came in to support, including Jack B, giving it a go! (And yes even Arron T for popping in and saying hello!)

I also wanted to thank St Ursula’s for allowing us the use of the Salo Centre for the event. It is the first time that I have used the facility, and I must say what a joy it was to train on a clean, properly sprung wooden floor for the day, and it would be lovely to have the opportunity to do so again in the near future.  

In addition to the pleasure in seeing the day come together, I must make mention of my joy in seeing Sian successfully grade to 3KYU and Sean T to 5KYU. Both have had disrupted Kendo journeys and their success can be seen as the culmination of significant amounts of hard work over recent months. With renewed focus, I hope that both of you continue to progress in the near future, with the ultimate aim of having more yudansha level practitioners here in the district. 

So back to the ordinary but serious business of every day Kendoka practice. Our next scheduled trip down to Brisbane to train with Kenshinkai members will be Saturday 7 April (the weekend after Easter/Australian Kendo Championships), where hopefully we might have a few of the community “converts” to come down and join us. Training will be as usual for this week (Tuesday 7.30 pm and Sunday 10 am at the MEAC), and as mentioned elsewhere, we will be modifying training times from next week to accomodate my study schedule. In addition to folk we can entice at the Club Muster Day on Wednesday, I’m confident that we can build on a great start to the year and see a renaissance of Kendo in the district. 

Shhhh! ... Exciting news coming up

Just as a teaser for next week when we launch into the new academic year at USQ and into our major promotion round for the year, I just want everyone to know that we have a number of exciting announcements to make in the next edition of the Budo Bulletin. These include:

• A major donation to the Toowoomba community from the Taiko drummers in our sister city of Takatsuki
 • Closer association with the Toowoomba Fencing Club
 • A number of changes to the Club’s training schedule
 • Launching of a sister Club based in Gin Gin. 

“Have a Go” day update

We are now counting down to the biggest Kendo event we have hosted in Toowoomba since at least 2012.  

Saturday will see folk come from around South East Queensland to participate in a morning’s keiko and help the “newbies” kendoing for the first time to “Have a Go”.  

I will be sending the Club’s press release to all of the local news outlets this morning, and sending out an email later today to everyone who has generously said they will help out, to give them an idea of what we will be doing. 

Broadly, the day will have three parts to it. The first is general keiko for current and lapsed kendoka to put on a show to the community of what good quality kendo looks like (from 10 am). The second is the “Have a Go” session for first timers to swing a shinai themselves and get a feel for Kendo (from 11.45 am). The third is a regional Kyu grade opportunity for Sean T and Sian (from 2 pm). The regional grading is a first for Toowoomba, and indeed for Queensland. It provides an important template for being able to do similar events across the State, and in doing so reducing some of the barriers to participation that occur in a State as large as ours. 

Please make sure that you spread the message as widely as you can to family, friends, work mates and through your social network. For those on Facebook, you can share the event created for the day https://www.facebook.com/events/1704545319639770??ti=ia or link directly through to the bookings system at  http://www.bbrd.org.au/memberships-and-courses/kendo-have-a-go-open-day .

The day is free for everyone to participate, and people can just rock up on the day. However, just so that we can plan the “Have a Go” session, we ask that new people book in so that we have an idea of how many shinai we have available, and if you are an experienced kendoka, please let me know if you intend to come and help out so that we can divide up our teachers and motodachi within the group. 

Campus kendo demonstration this Wednesday lunch time

With USQ O-Week starting this week, we will be taking the opportunity to promote the “Have a Go” day in the USQ Toowoomba Quad from 12-1.30 pm. 

This event is just for Kendo, as the main Club Muster Day has been shifted to next Wednesday in conjunction with Phoenix Carnival. However, if you are free, it would be most appreciated if you could come along and help by handing out promo flyers to the crowd. 

I will be in the quad from 11.30 am to set up the bollards etc, but the main action will be from 12.30 till 1.30 pm. We will be doing some keiko and kata, and it will be a good opportunity to put a final polish on things before coming under the eyes of the visiting sensei on Saturday. 

If you are coming down, please wear a Club t-shirt for this or any other promotion that we engage in this year. I have three new size L ones that can be purchased for $15, though I would encourage you to order one via the BBRD T-Shirt Shop (or ask nicely to borrow one of my spare shirts). 

Thanks to everyone who helped service shinai!

In preparation for th “Have a Go” day, we managed to check and service all of the Club’s shinai, including having thorough inspection (and subsequent retirement) of some of the relics inherited from the PCYC days of Mushin Itto. 

As usual, a thorough underestimation of the length of time the task would take saw Kateena, Kesh, Minty, Sean, Sian, Tracy and myself have at it from 2.30 pm till just a little after 7 pm fueled by tea and sweeties to ensure that the Club’s stock is now free from damage, oiled and tensioned in preparation for the weekend.  

Many thanks for the hard work put in by all! 

No training this Sunday (Arnis and Kendo)

We will be taking a break from our regular training schedule this Sunday.

The Kendo folk are likely to be all kendoed out after the “Have a Go” Day on Saturday and Dylan will not be able to run an Arnis class on Sunday morning. 

We will be back to a regular weekend programing next Sunday. 

Kenjutsu workshop

The first kenjutsu workshop for the year will be on 4 March starting at 9:30 am at the MEAC.

This workshop is open to all BBRD members who are involved in the use of the sword (iaido, kendo & jodo), and it may prove insightful to BBRD members who practice arts that utilise stave weapons (e.g. jujutsu) in that the methods of gripping and striking with these weapons are quite similar.

This is the first of four workshops to be held throughout the year with each individual workshop concentrating on one of the three sword arts practised in BBRD (ZNKR seitei iaido, ZNKR kendo and SMR kasumi shinto-ryu kenjutsu)  and with one workshop being a combined arts workshop.

Look forward to seeing everyone there