Keep your comments polite, on topic and succinct. Play nice and everyone benefits!.
A kendo session between Michael Baczynski and Robert Kimber, at USQ Market Day last Thursday, was filmed with a Go-Pro (now renamed a Do-Pro) attached to Michael's Do (kendo body armour)
This gives a unique perspective, a bit like a first person shoot-em-up computer game crossed with a washing machine!
Our thanks to Nik for the footage. Domo arigato gozaimasu!
Enjoy!
I wanted to provide a big round of thanks to everyone who participated in the USQ Market Day on Thursday. We managed to generate 45 expressions of interest in the Club — significantly up on last year. So to Adam, Brady, Dave, Dylan, Eric, Lauren, Peter, Robert, Sean C, and Will, thank you for your time in the embu-jo and for talking up a storm to generate the interest.
There should be some good pictures and footage from the day, including some from a go-pro strapped to Michael's chest while practising Kendo with Robert. We will post them up when it becomes available.
I just want to remind everyone that annual renewals for BBRD membership are due this month. For those who have joined us recently and paid your membership this calendar year, you are covered till this time next year!
A 2016 membership form can be downloaded from the Club website. After your initial four weeks of temporary membership, you must become a current financial member in order to continue your training under the banner of the Club, and hence be covered by our insurances. We have a grace period till we hold our AGM, but please ensure that your attend to this promptly. Funds should be either directly transferred into the Club's bank account, or you can use the credit card facility that we operate on the Club website. If you are direct transferring, please put your surname in the payment advice so that we can more easily track things.
As a side note, please ensure that you attend to your monthly contributions this week.
Many thanks to those members who could make it along on Saturday to assist with the cleaning of the mats: Raymond, Dylan, Matthew, Sean and Sian. With the return of the Aikikai mats scheduled, on Wednesday with a wipe down after use at the next demonstration, we know that we are returning them in relatively good cleanliness and repair.
Welcome to the new academic year!
O-week is always an exciting time at the Club as it brings the possibility of an influx of new members, fresh starts, and most importantly a few chances to spend a few hours practising what we love to do and convincing others to join!
The first commitment for the Club will be the Clubs and societies market day this Thursday, 25 February. We will be in the quad from 8.30 am till about 2.30 pm putting on demonstrations, talking to folk and generally promoting what we do. I would love to see as many of you as possible come along and provide support, either with active participation on the mats, meeting and greeting the public or even just stopping past and saying hi.
Please let Michael or Sian know your availability ASAP to that we can ensure that we have sufficient people to staff the booth and the mats during the expected busy times.
This Saturday is an excellent opportunity for us to have a mini spruce up of the dojo, including a thorough clean of the mats. This is an important part of our hygiene protocols at the Club, and is something that we should all contribute to.
Given that we will be transporting a portion of our mats for O Week Market Day activities, and we may well have new members come along for their first sessions in the coming week, I want for all of us to ensure that we are putting our best foot forward and providing the correct impressions of the Club's values.
So it would be excellent if as many folk as possible could come at 3 pm on Saturday, armed with an old towel to help give the mats a clean. In addition, if you have a bucket and mop to bring, we can give the MEAC floor a decent (and relatively quick) mop down too!
I want to let everyone know that from next week, the Club's matted training surface will unfortunately shrink, as Toowoomba Aikikai Aikido has asked us to return the remainder of their mats that we have in our possession.
While this reduces the maximum usable training surface to 64 square meters, this will not affect the Club's regular classes, only our capacity to host large seminars of more than 20 participants. We will, of course, be looking to extend our training surface through a variety of grants, fund raisers and savings to eventually be able to provide a full sized Adult judo shiai-jo to train and compete on (just shy of 200 square meters).
I would like to thank Aiki Kai Australia for their initial offer to provide an interest free loan for the purchase of the mats, and their agreement for the Club to continue paying a pro rata amount for the residual mats left with us once Toowoomba Aikikai Aikido relocated to the Clive Berghofer Recreation Centre. This has allowed us to continue training and purchase our own mats over the past four years.
As regular readers are aware, Toowoomba Kendo has been made partially homeless due to redevelopments at the PCYC resulting in a lack of suitable space for us to train.
In order to work a temporary fix, we have decided to train at the MEAC on a Sunday morning for the next few weeks, until we find a new permanent venue. The MEAC's floor is not the best for ongoing practice as the rubber composite is just a little too thin to protect higher level players from the wear and tear of fumikomi. However, it is our most convenient (read available) option for the moment.
So that we do not cause disruption to the Holy Name Parish's Sunday morning service, we will start training at 9.30 am, which may be better for some folk.
A final favour to ask — could those Toowoomba-based kendoka that are still willing or able to train of a weekend please fill out the time preference survey for weekend training, either on the BBRD group page, or the Toowoomba Kendo group page. It will make our task much easier to target an appropriate facility for training (and consequently secure the time that most can make it).
This week coming has birthdays for both Michael and his partner Sara, so there will be some changes to Thursday and Saturday training.
Gym and swim will be on as usual, but Brady will be running the Jujutsu class on Thursday, and at this stage Tracy will get things kicked off for Iaido in the second session. Sean should also be there for Systema.
There will be no training Saturday. Keep cool everyone!
Classes are on from 6 pm, just before Jodo. Bring yourself, comfortable exercise clothes and some water — particularly in the heat we are expecting this week!
Hope to see some new faces.
Keep your comments polite, on topic and succinct. Play nice and everyone benefits!.