Harmony Day celebrations this Wednesday

The next of our early-year rush of commitments will be held during the Wednesday common hours (12–2pm) this week at the Toowoomba campus. Instructors will talk to their various students about what demonstrations we might offer, but we are leaning toward a "light load out" this year where we will not have to set up too many mats!

Harmony Day is an excellent fit with the core values of the Club, and each year that we have been participating in it at USQ has provided an excellent opportunity for us to show that. Make sure you drop past and say "hi" if you are free, and sample the food on offer from the various communities that make up the broader USQ community.

Seitei Iaido this Tuesday

There will be an iaido training session in the second Tuesday evening session at the MEAC.

Fellow iaidoka James Archer has moved to Toowoomba, and I am looking forward to the first training opportunity to look at some of what he picked up at the Nationals in January. We will also be having some discussions about the regular schedule for seitei iaido so that we can fit a bit more keiko in, including more time with Tom Johnson, sensei, whe he returns to Australia at the end of the month.

Hello from Kyoto

Hello to the club from Kyoto! Here it has been freezing cold. There has been many occasions after morning aikido training we open the windows to see snow falling outside! Another way to escape the cold has been to head to the local bath house (sentou) and soak in the hot water until you forget what the temperature outside was. This provides the right mood for some sake to be drunk afterwards :-)

The waza that I have been practicing the most whilst over here has been busting concrete with the jackhammer. My parents in law are renovating their house so I have been busy helping with any labour that needs doing. This has been a good test of my posture training as I find posture alignment harder to maintain after the fatigue sets in when wielding a 30 odd kilo jackhammer. See you back in the dojo on the 24th!

No jujutsu this Thursday or Saturday

Just to let everyone know that I will be down in Canberra in the later part of this week celebrating my Father's 70th birthday, so will not be able to deliver either the Thursday or Saturday Jujutsu sessions.

I would suggest that you still come along on Thursday and give Stuart some extra bodies to train in Dragon Wrestling for the evening (yes, the skills are all transferable)!

Russian Martial Arts Seminar, take 2 ...

I just got the text this morning confirming that Andrew will be up on the weekend of the 10th and 11th of April to deliver the Russian Martial Arts seminar delayed by Tropical Cyclone Marcia.

We will provide more specific details in the coming weeks, but it will broadly follow the previously planned seminar day. I really am looking forward to hosting Andrew, and hope that as may of you can make it to this opportunity.

Thanks for those that came and supported the Bunnings Community Day!

I wanted to express a big round of thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday in support of the Club's appearance at the Bunnings Community day. It was scorching on the mats by around 10.30, but the Club valiantly displayed its colours in the heat of the day. A special thanks to John Watton for the loan of his ute and Sian Carlyon for helping to coordinate the pack up.

Our next community engagement will be next Wednesday in support of the USQ celebration of Harmony day. We will have more details for that event in next week's Budo Bulletin.

Thanks to everyone who came and helped on Market Day

Thursday was another lovely opportunity for the Club to add some colour and movement to the University and show some of the new cohort of USQ students what we do at the Club.

We were allocated an excellent spot under the trees opposite the Heritage Bank in the Quad, and attracted quite a bit of interest in the various disciplines that we support. Hopefully that will translate to more people attending our classes, and maybe even one or two more University Games athletes for the end of September!

Many thanks to everyone who made themselves available on the day. The success of the Club is founded on the efforts of the membership to support opportunities like this, showing the wider public what can be gained from training in the martial arts!

Attached in the blog post is a short video that features the Club in action on the day.

Reminder: Bunnings Family Day this Saturday

This Saturday will be the rescheduled Bunnings Family Fun Day. We will be providing out usual spread of demonstrations and a few interactive activities for the general public to get a feel of what we do in the Club.

As a result there will not be any Jujutsu training on Saturday.

Please talk with your instructors this week to se what assistance you might be on the day!

Seitei Iaido: Red letter week

This week contains two opportunities to train in Seitei Iaido as it contains both the fourth Tuesday of the month and the first Sunday of the month.

Tuesday night training will be a 8 pm in the MEAC. Sunday morning training will be at 11.30 am at the Toowoomba PCYC. If you are coming to the PCYC, can you please ensure that you are a current member, and the training cost is $10 for the session.

Reschedule of Russian Martial Arts seminar

I just wanted to reiterate my own disappointment and frustration  with the forced cancellation of the seminar this weekend. Still, little can be done in circumstances where there is a Category 5 cyclone in the vicinity and an airline's (understandable) refusal to fly into it. Andrew is also very disappointed that the weather conspired against us, but hopeful that we will reschedule in mid- to late-April for "take two".

We will make sure that everyone on the list knows as soon as we do of the rebooked flights and times for the seminar!

Artists impression of Michael making the most of the weather on the weekend after the cancellation of the RMA seminar ...