Jeanne last night in town (well dojo anyway) ...

Tuesday night will be Jeanne Séronie-Doutriaux last night of training with the Club before she starts her way back home to France.

Jeanne has primarily been training in Jujutsu and Systema while on exchange to Toowoomba, and has thrown herself into things with the gusto that we have come to expect of international students at the Club!

Tuesday night training will only have one session (so no Systema or Iaido), and instead we will be heading off to the Mort Estate Hotel for a quiet ale to say farewell. Everyone who would like to come is most welcome to join us there from around 8pm.

Bon voyage Jeanne! Make sure you keep in touch!

And for some amusement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOdkcM-yR3M

Arnis seminar this Satuday

Don Ouellette and Pete Armstrong will be in Toowoomba this Saturday to deliver an Arnis workshop/seminar and get folks focussed on the syllabus requirements for yellow, orange, and green belts. The idea is to provide a kick along with our individual practice, and to keep our edge sharp for Kurt Graham's next visit (and next grading), which will be in the New Year. However, new participants are most welcome to come and try out the canes!

We will be kicking things off around 11.30 am and will run through till around 2 pm. Cost for the session will be $15 for BBRD members and $25 for other interested participants.

Shout out to Andy Rogers and his Kendo Monochrome project

Seize the moment!

Andy Rodger, erstwhile Queensland kendoka an current resident of Nagoya has been winning accolades for his photographic efforts documenting Kendo keiko and shiai, including being selected for the Canadian Kendo Federation's annual calendar.

I absolutely love his photos, that capture the dynamism and tradition of Kendo, and would love to have more Australians inspired by the images he is able to capture.

Make sure you check out his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kendomonochrome

I've been talking with Andy recently and I am trying to encourage him to make the odd contribution to the Budo Blog from Japan, so it is a case of "watch this space"!

Jujutsu: New Month, new theme

I hope that everyone is finding a little bit of mid year rest now that school and university are on holidays and that the financial year has ticked over.

In Jujutsu this month, we will be focussing on goshin jutsu (self defence) and heiki waza (weapons work), so I would ask that you bring in both protective equipment and your training weapons. We will also be working on some demonstration pieces to be shown during our usual commitments at the Semester 2 O-week Marked Day, the Toowoomba Languages and Cultures Festival and the USQ Open Day.

Will be great to see some of you return to the mat this month — lots of fun to be had!

Grading Congratuations!

I want to pass on congratulations on behalf of the Club to Toshi Tsukadaira sensei and his wife Hiroko Tsukadaira sensei for their recent promotion to 7th Dan and 6th Dan respectively in Kendo.

The Tsukadairas have been strong supporters of Kendo in Toowoomba and have always been generous with their time and knowledge when instructing at seminars. Both continue to be amazing, inspirational role models, regardless of the budo you may be engaged with.

I would also like to congratulate James Archer for his promotion to nikkyu in Seitei Iaido on Sunday at the QKR Winter grading.  A great result and worth of the dedication and effort in training that James always put in.

Kendo: "To Dos" for this week ...

There are several things for Toowoomba kendoka to attend to this week. First, and most important is to ensure that you have paid your QKR membership renewal before Wednesday. Remember: no membership, no insurance; and no insurance, no training. There are details on the QKR website for dealing with direct debit transactions. Please include your QKR membership number and your surname in the information you provide for any direct debit. It will ensure a much more efficient processing of your renewal.

Second, it to make it along to training at the CBRC on Wednesday afternoon. After two weeks of forced absence, I am very keen to get in there and pick up the training intensity. Please bring your bokken and/or your suburito as we will be building up our training in the coming weeks leading to the demonstrations we will be putting on for the 10th Annual Toowoomba Languages and Cultures Festival.

Third is to send best wishes for those travelling down to Collingwood Park this weekend to participate in the QKR winter seminar, particularly those attempting gradings. James Archer is the only BBRD person attempting a grade (for nikkyu in iaido), but we wish all the grading candidates the best.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at training this week!

SMR Jodo training afternoon

Just a quick note to say it was great to be able to host visitors from Rembukan, Brisbane for a training session on Saturday. It will most likely be the last time BBRD will be able to host Glen Henry, sensei and the rest of the team from Brisbane before the departure of Adrian Knight at the end of the month.

On behalf of the Club, I want to provide a wholehearted thank you to our visitors, and hope to see them come up the hill again in the not too distant future to continue supporting the practice of SMR Jodo in Toowoomba.

Queensland Kyudo Association and Seitei Iaido in Toowoomba

I am very happy to announce more details of the arrangement between BBRD and the Kohokai that will bring us one step closer to the incorporation of the Queensland Kyudo Association and formalise our relationship with Kohokai to continue the practice of Seitei Iaido in Toowoomba.
 
As some of you will know, Tom Johnson, sensei has been training BBRD members in Seitei Iaido over the past 18 months, and we have wanted to foster that relationship so that we can grow the number of practitioners here in Toowoomba.
 
After discussions with Tom, we have been able to agree on a special arrangement for BBRD members who wish to train either Iaido or Kyudo. All people training in these disciplines will be asked to contribute $200 to Kohokai dojo membership and the relevant Association membership. The QKR fee is $60 plus $10 per discipline registered (Kendo, Iaido, Jodo), and for Kyudo, the Association membership will be an additional $70. All fees go to covering insurance, equipment and travel costs, as Kohokai, the QKR and the QKA are all strictly not-for-profit associations. They are a prerequisite for attending dojo sessions and seminars.
 
For Kyudo, this represents a $20 saving on the QKA association fees. In addition, full time students wanting to train in Kyudo who are BBRD members will only need pay $200 to cover both Kohokai and QKA memberships.
 
I am personally quite excited with this development. We will be looking to have some demonstration and practice of both disciplines during the upcoming Budo Taste Tester Weekend a the Club, which will be held at the end of July.

As extra incentive, Tom is in the process of arranging a visit to Queensland by Takeuchi Masakuni, 7th dan Kyoshi, and Toowoomba is being considered as a location to host a seminar.

For a little insight into both Kyudo and Takeuchi sensei, have a look at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh-ohspuCmE

Queensland Kyudo Association — Expressions of interest.

I am very happy to announce that BBRD is in a position to support the establishment of a Queensland Kyudo Association.

Tom Johnson sensei has been given the imprimatur for setting this up. For those that don’t know him, Tom has worked tirelessly over the years across a number of martial arts including Jujutsu, Seitei Iaido and Seitei Jodo, including his term as Secretary then President of the Queensland Kendo Renmei. Tom also acts as the supervising instructor for the BBRD Seitei Iaido study group.

Information provided by Tom is that there is some training gear that can be used. Initially all that is need is walking space for practising Kyudo reiho.  Gomiyumi are used to start with just to practice shape. These are similar to rubber slingshots.
 
There has been talk with to Collingwood Park management about letting us shoot inside their courts, but more on that as it develops.
 
Tom has calculated that $270 would be the annual registration cost, which would cover Club State and National memberships.  If can shot in Collingwood park the cost would be about $10 or 15 per lesson.  If there were a space up there and there was interest enough Tom was even offering to  travel up to Toowoomba once a week perhaps.
 
There is a national seminar coming up in Sydney during October with a  7 dan instructor coming from Japan. All financial members of the Kyudo Association would welcome to attend.

We will be posting more details up of the BBRD website as they develop, so make sure you keep looking there to see what is going on!

No kendo at the MEAC this week

Just to let everyone know that the CBRC is booked again this week and, as a result, we will not be able to run our regular Kendo class on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Holy Name is still in term this week, otherwise we may have had a chance to use the MEAC.

We will be back to regular programming next week, and there is always Sunday at the PCYC!