Club Tozando purchase order to be placed next week.

We are intending to place a order with Tozando next week. The Club needs to obtain a few shinai for junior sizes, and a number of people have recently started iaido and kendo are have expressed interest in obtaining suitable equipment.

Club members wanting to take advantage of the Club's discount and save a little by reducing the shipping cost are advised to get your orders in with Michael no later than Friday. He will then advise you of the cost. You will need to pass on the money to him before the shipment is made.

Great day at the Hills District PCYC for the IBF training day

It was lovely to participate at the IBF Training day yesterday at the Hills District PCYC. Kudos to Peter Hills, sensei for coordinating the "front of house" activities in order to get the breadth of talent and background teaching session on the mat. And of course to Tammy Campbell DeBono for all of the "back of house" efforts that are essential to having a day like this run smoothly.

Tony, Tracy and Maaike did the Club proud with their efforts on the mat, and it was great to catch up with old friends and to make new ones! Will look forward to future opportunities to get together with this diverse crew!

Toowoomba Languages and Cultures Festival and Open Day thanks!

A huge thank you to everyone who assisted with the recent Toowoomba Languages and Cultures Festival, and the Inaugural BBRD Dojo Open Day. Both were great days with brilliant weather, ad for the Festival we had huge crowds and possibly the best placement we have had for our biggest demonstration area to date. Special thanks to the Kohokai members from Ipswich who came up the Hill to participate this year.

It would have been great to see a few more new faces at the Open Day the following weekend. However, those that did come all appeared to enjoy it, and regulars had fun with a spot of cross training!

Looking forward to next year being even bigger an better!

Sanda Power Training Pack

The Club is pleased to announce that it is offering a special deal for those wanting to kick start their training and reach their goals in fitness and combat sports.

A new Sanda Power Training Pack offer will be starting soon, where you will get three months training plus a whole bunch of training gear for a special discounted price of $280. This include $200 worth of gear for free!

You can book through the Club's website today by following this link!

The offer is strictly limited to 10 places, so book early to avoid disappointment.

No training at the MEAC the week of 31 August–4 September

The Club will be taking a rest from usual classes next week as Holy Name Primary School requires it for their annual art show.

To assist with this, could you please be mindful of being particularly tidy with Club equipment so that they do not get muddled, lost or damaged when the school starts its set up. In particular, we will need to remove all of the Club's decorative paraphernalia on Thursday night.

Additionally, there will be no Jujutsutraining on Saturday given the trip to Brisbane the following day.

International Budo Federation training – Sunday 30 August

IBF Brisbane August.jpeg

The IBF training day, organised by friend of the Club Peter Hills sensei,  is this Sunday at the Hills District PCYC.

Given it is a 10 am start, we would be looking to head from Toowoomba around 7.30 am to give us sufficient time to stretch our legs at the other end before training. As the flyer indicates, the $15 attendance covers some lunch afterwards, with profits being donated to Beyond Blue.

It promises to be a fun day down in Brisbane, so please let Michael know ASAP so that we can organise appropriate transport for those wanting to go down.

Toowoomba Languages and Cultures Festival this Sunday

So we are almost there — The Toowoomba Languages and Cultures Festival is this Sunday in Queens Park. We have some new promotional material for specific disciplines, and members have been working hard on putting together displays for the day. 

I'd like to extend an invitation for everyone to come along to what is always a really fun day of demonstrations, informal practice and meeting with the broader Toowoomba community to share a little of our passion for the martial arts. Even for the "out of towners", the sometime dojo visitors, friends, family and the just plain curious, the Festival has something to offer, so make sure you try to encourage as many people as you can to come along!

If you are going to be there, please make sure that you let Michael or Sian know (even if only a possibility) as we need to forward your names to the organisers so you will not have to pay the entry fee ($5 this year).

There will be no PCYC Kendo training on Sunday, nor Jujutsu training on Saturday. The former is because you will hopefully be there at Queens Park. The latter to allow Michael to attend to a few things beforehand so that he can spend a guilt free Sunday throwing people "wuffly" to the ground (among other things).

If you can, please come to the MEAC at 4.30 pm on Saturday to help load things up. On Sunday, we will be arriving at Queens Park at 8 am to set everything up. However, most people can arrive from 10 am when things properly kick off for the festival.

There are a number of things that you can do to help on the day. First is to participate in demonstrations for the disciplines you train (to which I am sure your various instructors have talked to you about). Second, we need people to chat to the public and distribute the various flyers that promote the Club. Third, we will need sufficient people at the end of the day (4 pm) to ensure that "bump out" is as quick and painless as possible.

For everyone attending, can you please ensure that you:

  • ensure your uniforms are clean and your equipment in good repair. We want to put our best foot forward to the public.
  • have a water bottle, hat and sunscreen. We will have some water and Club-provided sun screen, but everyone needs to take responsibility for being sun smart on the day.
  • bring your lunch or some money to purchase it. There are sure to be many tasty food options available.
  • take care when demonstrating and take sufficient breaks. We do not want to see injuries on the mat.

This year we have a whole demonstration area — theoretically properly cordoned off— to ourselves for the day, tucked near the USQ pavilion and near the Mediaevalists and Camels (what could possibly go wrong?, he says). I will also be setting up so Go boards for people to have a try.

I am looking forward to this, the 10th year of the Festival. Should be a great day out!

Reminder: Dojo Open Day Saturday 15 August

We will be actively promoting out Dojo Open Day from this week, including making flyers for distribution among the community and at the Toowoomba Languages and Cultures Festival on Sunday. Please make sure that you widely distribute through your networks this marvellous opportunity to come and have a look at what we have to offer — both in terms of our regular classes and our facilities.

On the day we will definitely be offering session in:

  • Dragon Wrestling
  • Jugger
  • Jujutsu
  • Kendo
  • Komei Juku (MJER) iaijutsu
  • Kyokushin Karate pad work and conditioning
  • Systema pillars and practices
  • Sanda
  • Tai Chi Ch'uan

With the possibility of running demonstrations in :

  • Arnis
  • Kyudo
  • Seitei Iaido
  • SMR Jodo

We are finalising the timetable on the next few days, but the details will be posted on the Club website at: www.bbrd.org.au/pages/open-day-2015

Hope to see many new faces there!

Farewell for Adrian Knight

It was Adrian's last night in the dojo on Tuesday and we had a brief joint training session with the SMR Jodo and Jujutsu classes before heading down to the Mort Estate Hotel for a quite farewell.

I want to again wish Adrian all the best in his move to Kyoto, Japan, and hope that he is enjoying the seminar in Malaysia he was attending on his way there. 

We are hoping that once he has settled in, we will be able to organise Toowoomba's (possibly Australia's) first multi location international martial arts seminar via the magic of the Internet and a couple of go pros projected onto the big screen of the MEAC.

Eric will be the Club's point of contact for jodo, and study group sessions will continue to run at the same times on Tuesday and Thursday.