Student Life Expo wrap up

I want to express a quick round of thanks to everyone who participated at the Student Life Expo on Wednesday, and a big Hello! to everyone who dropped past to find out a little more about what the Club has to offer. 

Although the overall foot traffic for the event was down, we still managed to generate quite a bit of interest and had a number of folk sign up for more information. My hope is that they start to make their way into the dojo from this week coming!

Thank you Eric, Jack, Kateena, Sean T, and Sian for your efforts in the Quad and Refectory. And it was great to see Aaron dS come past and help to pack up at the end of the day!

Club Muster this Wednesday (27 February)

It is that time of year, and we shall once again be parading the Club’s colours at the USQ Toowoomba campus Student Life Expo this Wednesday. 

We have had a number of folk exit out of the University system this year, which will make both the staffing of our stall and demonstration area a little more difficult, and make it more important to recruit new members so that we maintain our minimum number of current registered students and current staff in order to maintain our affiliation with USQ Student Life. 

We shall be doing our standard procedure of setting up a demo area in the Quad (weather dependent) and have a booth inside the refectory to take details of folk interested in what we do. While the busiest period is always between 11.30 and 1.30pm, we will still need assistance:   

• packing up the trailer on Tuesday night at the MEAC. We will be doing this from 6.00pm sharp and will require at least four volunteers to make this relatively efficient.  
• “Bumping in” on Wednesday from 8.30 am
• Staffing either the booth or the demo area till 3 pm
• “Bumping out” from around 2.30 pm
• Restocking the MEAC and setting up for evening training from 6 pm

A number of you have already indicated your availability (or lack thereof) for these various times, but if you haven’t, please do so ASAP so that we can take an appropriate amount of gear with us and draw up a roster for the day.  

Even if you can’t make it past for Wednesday, please spread the word and try to flush as many people past us as you can. Remember that the Club is only as strong as its membership, and the more folk we have engaging in the various activities we support, the better an experience everyone at the Club enjoys! 

Changed training times from this Saturday.

The start of the new month will see a change to training times in order to accomodate my availability due to study committments. 

The most immediate will be this Saturday, where training will start at 2 pm, and take the order of Kendo (2–3.30pm), Jujutsu (3.40–4.40), then FlexiFit (4.45–5.45pm). I will be updating the Club’s website timetable later today to reflect this. 

The aim of the change is to make the transition between classes a little smoother, and to squeeze in FlexiFit, which I will no longer be in a position to direct of a Monday night as I will be in Bundaberg.  

I would ask that those coming in for Jujutsu please do so by 3.30 at the latest, so that you can assist with the set up of the training surface and be ready to start at 3.40 sharp. We shall then transition to FlexiFit and I’d encourage folk to stay for that class in order to properly cool down and do some body weight exercises. 

The second change will be to shift Wednesday Jujutsu to Thursday evening, starting at 6 pm. Again this will accomodate me driving back from Bundaberg to teach. We have yet to confirm the permanent shift for Kendo to Thursday second session (7.30 pm), but the likelihood is that we will be running it parallel with Iaido on a Thursday night.  

Hope to see you at the dojo! 

Wrap up: Kendo State Squad training

Queensland State Squad training for the upcoming Australian Kendo Championships was held on Saturday, and it was lovely to spend a post-birthday morning with the upped ante of practice under the wantchful eyes of Isaccs sensei, Komo sensei, and Tamura sensei. 

For me it also represented the lat time I will get a chance to train with senior sensei input before resetarting my travels up to Bundaberg for study. I personally feel like I have refined a few techniques and had several light bulb moments with my practice, which I will be attempting to make a regular part of my training. And a always, it was lovely to have the opportunity to share that with Kateena and Sean T, including a lovely lunch at Sunnybank on the way back to Toowoomba. 

Isaacs sensei is looking to host at least one or two more of the State Squad sessions before the AKC, and we will be planning to attend them when we know the details. 

Some altered training for this week

Just a quick note to let you know that I will not be able to make it to the dojo tonight. Brady will be running Jujutsu, and we will give FlexiFit a miss till next week. For those interested and available, I’ll be on campus at lunch with Go boards.

At this stage I shall be in for Wednesday night as per usual, but will of course provide an update if there are any variations to that. 

Stay hydrated this week!

Although we have a lovely cool Monday morning start here in Toowoomba, BoM is predicting some quite hot weather over the next few days, especially Wednesday, which is predicted to have a maximum temperature of 38 C.  

Please ensure that you bring a water bottle to training so that it can be kept easily accessible at the edge of the training area, and take time to check in with yourself while training regarding potential signs of heat stress.  

We will try to be particularly mindful during Jujutsu and Kendo sessions to stop regularly for a break. 

No Jodo training this week (Feb. 11-15)

Hello All,

There will be no jodo training this week (Tues. 12 Feb. & Thurs. 14 Feb.)

Training will resume next week at the usual times (Tuesdays & Thursdays at 1800 hrs).

Eric

Sparing a thought for Townsville

Weather events can certainly seem cruel. While we are loving the few millimetres of rain here in Toowoomba, and desperately hoping for more, I’m just wanting to convey our thoughts for those enduring the deluge in Townsville and surrounds.  

I’ve been in contact with Matt G, and he and his family are in a good position. However, yet to make contact with our other martial arts friends in the district. Will post updates as they come to hand. 

Keep safe everyone! 

No training at the MEAC Wednesday (6 February) night

Just a quick heads up that the School has informed us that it requires the MEAC on Wednesday night for a function, and hence the Club will not be able to run training sessions at that time. Many apologies to the Jujutsu, Fencing and Kendo participants. We ought to be back to regular programming next week. 

Congratulations Sian Carlyon!

The Australian Iaido and Jodo Seminar and Championships concluded in Hobart this week past, and I am enormously pleased to report the successes for Club stalwart Sian Carlyon, and Queensland more generally.  

Sian is now the second person at the Club to be elevated to a Dan rank in any discipline. Additionally, she was the winner of the Haga Shield, placing first in her division at the Championships. 

I am enormously proud of Sian. As one of the founding members of the Club, she has worked long and hard to achieve this result. Achieving a Dan grade is the culmination of many hundreds of hours of practice and reflection. It is also paradoxically the “base camp” from which scaling the actual cliff face of a discipline must necessarily work from. She now has a twelve month minimum wait before she can test again for the next level— and excellent opportunity to work towards, as we will be hosting the AIJSC in Queensland next year. As they say in the classics — Gambatte!

Other wonderful news for Queensland practitioners is that Hiroko Tsukadaira sensei was successful in her challenge for 5DAN iaido, Kevin Humphries was successful in his attempt at 4DAN iaido, and Tom Johnson sensei won a paired jodo award and a shield in the 5DAN Iaido division. 

So once again, congratulations all around!