10.12.16 End of Year Dinner at Kajoku (Korean and Japanese) Restaurant

BBRD End of Year Dinner and presentation of awards will be held this Saturday, 10th December at Kajoku (Korean and Japanese) Restaurant from 6.30pm.

Please rsvp, with firm numbers coming along, by this Friday 9th to Sian.Carlyon@usq.edu.au directly or via our BBRD Facebook group, if you have received an invitation in that way.

Families or friends are welcome (but just let us know firm catering numbers, as we will be charged for each no show in our booking).

Looking forward to seeing as many as can make it along.

Please note: training does not stop for the year until Christmas and resumes in the New Year.

 

Dojo Day and end of year dinner this Saturday 10 December

I am certainly looking forward to capping off a fairly hectic two months at BBRD with our planned Dojo Day and end of year dinner this Saturday.  

We will commence the day at 10 am, though please ensure that you are at the Dojo by 9.30 so you are ready to go and can attend to last minute organisation of the space. Training will run through to 4 pm with a lunch break at 12.00 pm.  

We will then reconvene for dinner at Kajoku restraunt in the evening for a meal and presentation of awards! 

I'll look forward to seeing all of you there for the day! 

Dojo Cleen up

School is now on summer holidays, which provides us with the opportunity to utilise the MEAC throughout the week. It also means that we will be able to leave the tatami down on the floor during this period. 

In preparation for our Dojo Day this Saturday, we will be organising a major cleen of the dojo space on Friday. Please talk with Michael or Tracy about your availability on Friday. We are looking at commencing the clean around midday, but will confirm at training as the week progresses. 

Kendo in Toowoomba

Last Monday saw the final Kendo training session at the Clive Berghofer Recreation Centre after more than nine years of association there. Unfortunately changing priorities and significantly increased rents for the space have made it unviable to continue training there. We will be relocating to the MEAC over the school holidays and are currently looking for a new week-day training location over the summer. 

We will, of course, keep everyone posted with developments as the happen! 

QKR Seminar wrap up

A successful weekend was had by BBRD members and friends at the annual QKR summer seminar, hosted this year at the Tallebudgera Recreation Centre on the Gold Coast.  

A big thank you to all the senior sensei across both Kendo and Iaido for their time, patience and instruction over the weekend in what were extremely hot and humid conditions. Many thanks especially to Tamura sensei who had taken the lion's share of the organisation for the weekend, including creating a new grading format for Kendo Kyu grades. 

Successfully promoted in Kendo were Alastair and Sean Bain (6 Kyu), and Matt G (3 Kyu, double grade); and in Iaido, Tracy Campbell (3 Kyu), Matt G (3 Kyu), Michael B (2 Kyu) and Rob Doncaster (1 D). We will look forward to seeing everyone's progress over the next seven months and meet up with the broader Queensland Kendo and Iaido communities in July.  

Dojo Day, Saturday 10 December

The year is winding to a close and we are all looking forward to spending time with friends and family over the New Year period.

One of the last official community engagements for the Club will be the BBRD Summer Dojo Day, to be held on Saturday 10 December. We will be running parallel sessions throughout the day across a range of disciplines and activities that the Club supports, and we would warmly like to extend an invitation to all the friends and community (Toowoomba and further afield) to come and participate.

The day will run from 9.30 till 4 pm. Sessions (TBC) will run for approximately 75 minutes and should include:

  • Jujutsu
  • Kendo
  • Iaido
  • Jodo
  • Systema
  • Kyudo
  • Arnis
  • Go
  • Fire and Flow

We will be firming up the timetable and session later this week, so do keep posted.

Saturday evening we will have our end-of-year dinner and awards night, and Sunday morning will be an opportunity for kyu grade jujutsu examinations. We hope to see as many of you as can make it for the weekend!

BBRD official 2017 calendars availabe for pre-order

The 2017 BBRD Official calendar is now available to pre-order for $17 per item. If you are ordering over 5, the price will reduce to $15 per item. These make great presents for friends and family and are a loaded with images from out past year of training.

The calendar has important USQ and Club dates listed, and Queensland public holidays. Contact Michael this week to le him know how many you would like to be set aside for you!

Combined Jodo Training

Hello all,

Training last Saturday (19 Nov.) with Glen Henry Sensei and students was to have been at Queens Park in Ipswich. Due to circumstances, I was the only one able to attend so training was moved to Chushinkan Dojo in Brisbane. I had an intensive training day starting at 10:30 am (10:30 hrs) and continuing until 3:30 pm (15:30 hrs) with a lunch break involving watching Moments in the Dojo, a DVD with Nishioka Sensei teaching and performing techniques in Omote Kata (the first jo kata group in SMR Jodo). Training started with working on Kihon and after lunch working on Omote Kata. I would like to thank Glen Henry Sensei for the time he spent helping me with my technique - if I retain but only half of what I was taught I should be more than doubly improved in my skills.

The next training for down in Ipswich is expected to happen in January sometime after New Year. Please let me know which Saturday would work best.

Eric

Kyushu Ryu Yudansha grading

I would like to congratulate Kyle Elkenhans and Luke Schmidt for their successful grading on Sunday to Shodan and Nidan, respectively, in Kyushu Ryu Jujitsu. 

I was again honoured to be invited by Jim Stackpool shihan, to be a part of the auxiliary grading panel for the day. Both candidates showed great spirit in the trying conditions, with heat and humidity turned up to extreme levels. Congratulations too for the uke who ably assisted throughout the 90 minute grading, particularly Moti Ram who put his body on the line for nage no kata for both candidates. 

It was lovely to catch up with friends from the wider jujutsu community, and we hope to see some of them in Toowoomba in coming months as the Club hosts our open events! 

Nihon Matsuri wrap up

It was great to see the turnout on Saturday for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Toowoomba-Taketsuki Sister city relationship. The weather mostly held out till the end though we were not able to undertake the jujutsu demonstration due to the thunderstorm. The food was lovely, the drummers awesome, and it was gratifying to see Toowoombans get out there and support an event such as this. 

Many thanks to Dylan, Peter and Tracy for the load up and unpack into the dojo on the day, for Tom Johnson sensei for the loan of the yumi and ya to add to the general display and coming up to observe proceedings, a big special thanks to Raymond for not only driving all the way from Kingaroy for the day, by stepping into the breach when no other Toowoomba-district kendoka were available to assist Michael with the demonstration, and to Eric for being a stalwart and staffing the information booth along with Tracy and Michael in the heat (and his marshaling of kids during the kendo demonstration and his Jodo demonstration under time pressure).  

It was also lovely to see Lauren Ole and Dave Johnson in the heat, and many thanks to both of you for assisting in the hurried pack up as the rain hit!

We had quite a bit of interest in folk wanting to do iaido, kyudo and kendo, so we will look forward to seeing that translate onto the dojo floor in coming weeks.