Gin Gin classes to start next week

Regular classes for Iaido and Kendo will be starting up for the year next Wednesday, 19 February in the National Fitness Hall, Bruce Highway. These will be run as virtual dojo classes until I start to come up for the start of the academic year in the week of 9 March.

There will be a change to the time classes are run. Specifically, Iaido will start at 5 pm and Kendo at 6.30 pm for 90 minute sessions. This will allow for a few more adult members to participate in Kendo. Jujutsu will start on the 10th of March once I’m back, and given that it will parallel Toowoomba dojo class times on a Tuesday, we might see if we can get some virtual dojo link up during at least once a month.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone after the extended break. Just as a reminder, now would be a great time to have a look at your uniforms and equipment to make sure they are in good repair. Nothing worse than coming for the first session of the year to find broken (or worse still mouldy) equipment that prevents you from participating fully!

Keep up the good work folks!

After our call out last week to like and share BBRD posts on Facebook, we had a definite bounce in our analytic data for the week.

I’ll again ask that everyone once again like and/or share any BBRD post they see this week, just so that we can increase the share of the audience and bump up the occurrence of Club posts in members’ and friends’ feeds.

This week I’d ask three further things. First, if you could have a look at the official BBRD Facebook page and associated groups so that you can check to see if you are receiving all of the posts put up there. Second, please contribute some shared (or original) content to the various BBRD Facebook groups that you are a member of. Post your questions, observations, or just fun, martial arts related, stuff you come across when you are browsing.

Finally, could I ask that you make a comment on this post regarding what type of content you would like to see on social media, and, more importantly, which social media you would like to access that content on. Over the past few years we have started up some channels, but haven’t spent much time filling them with content outside of Facebook. So if you generally prefer to interact via Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or another media, let us know so that we can start to put the content you want in the media you access!

Rick Beal Kyudo Seminar 21-22 March

BBRD is looking set to host the first Queensland Kyudo Association-sponsored seminar on the weekend of 21-22 March.

Rick Beal, 5DAN is undertaking a tour of Australia, and the March seminar is part of that journey around the country. Beal sensei is one of the highest ranked non-Japanese practitioners of the art and a frequent visitor to Australia. We are expecting attendees from as far away as Atherton, QLD and even some interstate visitors to take advantage of the two day seminar. It will also be open to the public to participate or even just watch.

The seminar will cover all aspects of Kyudo, from the formal etiquette that is central to its practice through to live fire of the Japanese yumi (bow). A formal schedule and price for the weekend will be finalised in the next fortnight, and we will be promoting the weekend at the USQ Club Muster event on 26 February.

Call out for soft plastics

Rob Doncaster, Queensland Kyudo Association President, has asked me to put out a call for clean, used, soft plastics, which he is intending to make kyudo targets from, especially with the upcoming Rick Beal seminar next month.

Basically, he is looking for any old plastic bags that you can “scrunch” in your hands (and would ultimately be able to put into the red recycling bins outside of Coles). Clean is very important though, so if they have had direct contact with foodstuff, could you please give it a wash before you bring it in.

I will be arranging a bag to the MEAC store room where you can make your deposit.

No training this Thursday (6 February)

I’ve spoken to most students who are affected, but unfortunately the School’s P&C Committee have a function in the MEAC this Thursday. Tuesday and Saturday training will be as normal.

I’ll look forward to seeing you at training this week!

Call for Social Media support

Just a quick request for those of you who interact with Budo Blog posts via Facebook. Could I ask that when you see the post, please give it a like, click on it, and even share it..

The Club does some amazing stuff, and it would be great to have that more widely known in the martial arts and wider communities. Social Media algorithms are pretty brutal in that the fewer likes or clicks a site receives, the further down it is put in people’s news feeds (if it appears in them at all).

One thing you can do is to make sure that you select the option in Facebook to view all of the BBRD posts. If you go to the BBRD Facebook page and look at notification settings, you can select to see all posts, and “see them first”.

Hopefully, with more photos of our activities throughout the year (hint, hint, remember your entries for the 2021 Calendar competition), we will have sufficient to use some other social media channels such as Instagram. When these accounts are set up, it would be great for all our active members, friends and supporters to interact this these as well.

The spirit of the beginner

Sho Shin Wasuru Bekarazu — Don’t forget the spirit of the beginner

This concept is important in the martial arts in that no matter how advanced one is in their particular art, the need to continuously start again and practice the basics is paramount. Because everything is built upon the basics, the ability to develop and understand the advanced techniques will only come with the further refinement of the basic movements of the art. This is reflected in the cycle of learning in the martial arts; where one starts out as a beginner, knowing nothing of the art, then progresses to an intermediate stage where the feeling that one knows the art is present (and is a dangerous stage in the practitioner’s development in the art) and then finally moving on to an advanced stage in the understanding of the art, where one then comes back full circle to the beginner and feels like there is much more to learn about the art.

Not forgetting the spirit of the beginner will also inform an advanced student when they train with a novice, or lower level, student. One must be mindful that who you train with may be at a stage where their knowledge, skills and experience is below that of your own, so when you train with such a student you need to set the pace, intensity and strength of the training to be challenging, but not overwhelming, to your training partner. This will encourage development of their skills (which is the goal of having a beginning student training with a more advanced one). However, if the more advanced student sees such training as an opportunity to only practice their more advance techniques or to treat the training as a competition, where the objective is to defeat the training partner, then this will inhibit the development (and possibly the spirit) of the more novice training partner.

Finally, no matter how skilled one is, there are times when one needs the correction and instruction of a teacher. Often times a more advanced practitioner will feel dejected, embarrassed or frustrated when instructions are given on what they feel they already know, this is only their ego getting in the way of their improvment. Even the most senior practitioners will know that they cannot know it all…there is always some aspect of the technique that needs improving, even if it has been practised one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand times before. Keeping in mind the spirit of the beginner will allow any practitioner to take correction on their technique as that, a correction that is aimed at improving their technique.

Let’s all work this year on keeping in mind the spirit of the beginner.

SMR Jodo summer seminar

During the Australian Day weekend, SMR jodo held a summer seminar. The seminar was held at Camp Warrawee in Brisbane during the Saturday and Sunday. The seminar was lead by both Glen Henry sensei and Adrian Knight sensei (both menkyo kaiden).

Saturday (starting at 09:00) consisted of working on ken kihon, which included various iaido style techniques, cutting techniques (both solo and paired) and stances. This was followed by work on kasumi shinto ryu kenjutsu kata. Practice then concentrated on omote kata until lunchtime. After lunch, intermediate practitioners then worked on chudan kata and with advanced practitioners working on kata up through gohon no midare (the 6th kata group for jo). After dinner, Glen Henry sensei gave a demonstration on shodo (the art of Japanese calligraphy).

Sunday practice started at 06:00 with jo kihon, followed by breakfast. After breakfast, some combination drills were practised to aid with development of techniques within the kata. Following this, intermediate members went back and worked on polishing chudan and then continued with free practice of both omote and chudan kata until lunchtime. Senior members worked on okuden kata. Lunch was followed with an embu.

Overall the seminar was filled with good instruction by both menkio kiden instructors and by the senior practitioners, and there was ample opportunity for all to improve their skills and understanding in the ken and jo.

School’s back from summer

With the school year proper starting tomorrow, we are back to our regular routines of setting up and packing away training mats each session that we are training in at the MEAC. We are also unable to guarantee that we can access the hall until after 6 pm on Tuesday and Thursday nights due to after hours school care running in the MEAC.

Could I again ask that everyone who attends 6pm sessions to make an effort to be there on time so that we can manage the set up as efficiently as possible. And I commend those that automatically help to set up or pack away the mats even if you are not involved in a session that uses them as it is a solid sign of community building and sense of responsibility for the shared space. Many hands and all of that …

If you find moving the mats too difficult, there are other preparatory tasks such as sweeping the floor, and opening (or closing) the windows/louvers that can be undertaken to speed up the start/end of class for everyone. So please, be attentive and look to see how you can help rather than wait to be asked.

For my part, I will attempt to get classes underway by 6.10 pm and no later than 6.15 pm.

I’ll look forward to seeing everyone this week, especially a number of new faces that have indicated they will be along for their first sessions!

Club tablet up and running

With thanks to a generous donation by Tracy C., we again have a functioning SIM card in the Club’s tablet.

This means that we can use the tablet for all class participants at the MEAC to log in when they attend a class. I will be helping folk do so for the next few weeks until it becomes a habit.

We will try to ensure that things are set up to make this easy, and we shall also be using the tablet to provide a better track of time so that classes are not running into the next session as often.

I’d ask that we all be patient as we get used to the new routine, but that you ask yourself before you step into the “red zone” of the dojo-jo inside the MEAC, “have I logged into Martialytics yet?”