Kendo SEQ regional kyu grading Saturday 20 March

Another calendar grabber for all Club Kendo practitioners is the regional kyu grading opportunity that is being hosted by the Brisbane Kendo Club on Saturday 20 March.

Unfortunately, I have a pre-existing commitment that weekend and will be unable to directly support on the day. However, I would strongly urge all kendo members from Toowoomba to support the event.

There have been some proposed changes made by the AKR Kendo board to the requirements for grading, including the eligibility to challenge for grade based on time training and time as a financial member of the AKR/QKR.

The March opportunity will be the first SEQ regional grade held since Toowoomba hosted one in 2018. Given the changes to the MoD regarding grading, regional opportunities are likely to increase in frequency, and become a more usual pathway for junior grade advancement than the bi-annual State seminars. Currently, there is some discussion at the QKR Executive and Dojo Leader level regarding a similar arrangement for Iaido. I will certainly communicate any developments in that space.

New start times for weeknight training — 6.15 pm

With school back for its first full week and those of us in Honours land starting to do “official” work on our projects, we will be instituting a small change to weeknight class start times.

At the CBRC (honbu dojo), we will be back to a 6.15 pm start time from Tuesday night just so that we can finish at a slightly more reasonable time of an evening. While we had trained the 6.30 pm start last year in an attempt to make training a little more accessible, we found that by the time we finish our pack up and securing the building for second session often left us getting home after 10 pm — even later for Daen who has a 40 minute drive back home of an evening.

As always, could you please ensure that you are at the dojo 15 mins before the start time for your class so that all the necessary set up can be done. Just to formalise things, I will be putting up a checklist of what is required each session/evening so that we can attend to them efficiently.

The changes should now be reflected on the Club website. As always, if any eagle eyed Club members or supporters see any inconsistencies, please let us know so that we can correct them.

Will look forward to seeing you at training this week!

(Minor) changes to the Club’s COVID Safe plan

This week, I shall be finalising the latest update to the Club’s COVID Safe plan so that we can document and implement the changes that we have made to our practice now that we have been at the CBRC for near six months.

The majority of these changes to the document will be centred around how we lay the space out at the CBRC, including where we set up our personal gear in the dojo, and how we can fluidly change between levels of caution as the risk of community transmission changes over the coming months.

The outbreak of a community transmission case of COVID in Western Australia is a timely reminder that we will still need to be cautious in the dojo context to enhance the safety of ourselves and others in the dojo.

The primary directive of staying away from the dojo until any COVID-like symptoms have resolved and/or you have had a negative COVID test result come back is still in force. We are also requiring you to use the provided hand sanitiser and sign in using the Club’s QR- driven contactless system. If you are training on the Club’s mats, you still need to sanitise your feet, and you need to ensure that your “street” shoes are not worn on the wooden floor of the Group Exercise Room/Dojo. These procedures constitute good Dojo hygiene in any respect and will be enduring expectations for training.

Discipline specific protocols will be followed according to those set by peak State/National bodies appropriate for the level of caution. If you have any questions regarding this, please discuss them with your instructor or discipline coordinator.

Taiko!

Toowoomba Taiko is performing on Australia Day 2021 at 3.20pm.

Come on down to Toowoomba’s Civic Square to watch us do our thing with the fabulous drums gifted by our Sister City, Takatsuki, Japan!

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This also means, we’re back practicing for 2021!

Everyone is welcome to join us on Thursdays from 6.30 - 8.00pm at Hear & Say, 295 Ruthven Street, Toowoomba City. No experience is required!

Please wear comfortable clothing and BYO water as we’ll work up a sweat!

Your first class is free and if you love what we do, sessions are $10 and paid via the USQ Martial Arts Club.

For more information look for our Taiko page on the BBRD website or on Facebook.

Short bulletin: what’s on this week

Just a short note this week to highlight a couple of changes to regular programming.

First up, there will be no training tomorrow night due to the public holiday. Normal training for Thursday and Saturday.

Second, Go for this week will shift to Wednesday in the USQ Toowoomba’s refectory. We will also be starting from 12 pm as we have had requests for an earlier start time from some of our players. From next week we shall lock in Thursday 12–1.30 pm, and this has been reflected on the Club website.

Third, Daen and I are catching up today to swing some sticks. We are still talking about locking in some regular, timetabled, training sessions for ZKR Jodo and Kyudo. We will let you all know what we have come up with when we put our planning caps on.

Fourth, there has been a small flurry of interest with Arnis, and I would like to gauge broader interest in it and potentially lunch time classes for other disciplines. These of course will have to fit around by availability due to clinical placements in March and June. However if numbers are robust, we will certainly look to see what disciplines and when we might be able to get some additional training in. Make sure that you either contact me directly, or make a comment on the post to let me know what you are thinking.

Have a great week everyone, and as always, I’ll look forward to seeing you in the dojo!

Go: State championships, regular sessions and Toowoomba Tsubaki Taikai

With full rhythms slowly returning to our new normal, I’m wanting to rekindle our regular Go sessions on USQ Toowoomba campus with the aim of supporting/building numbers of regular players.

I am going to propose Thursday lunchtime 12.30–1.30 pm in the Refectory (R-block) USQ Toowoomba campus. If there is better interest for another time/day we will shift to that time slot, so do let me know either directly or in the comments.

The first major event on the Queensland Go calendar is the State Championships, set for the weekend of 5–6 February in Brisbane, with the handicapped division running Saturday and open division on Sunday. The QGS AGM will be run during lunch on Saturday.

Cost is $30/25 (full/concession) with a $5 early bird discount if you register before 30 January. This price includes full financial membership of the Queensland Go Society. The tournament will be using a Japanese rule set Horatio Davis (Horatio@go.org.au 0466 983 474) is the tournament director and can answer any specific questions you may have.

The second event we are working towards in the inaugural Toowoomba Tsubaki Taikai (Toowoomba Camellia Competition), to be held on a yet to be confirmed weekend day in September and tied in with Toowoomba’s Carnival of Flowers. It gives everyone plenty of time to practice and brush up their skills!

I hope to see a few of you on Thursdays!

Dojo housekeeping

Just a quick note on housekeeping in the dojo for the next few weeks.

First, we are still on a “monitor” setting regarding our COVID protocols for this week. This means that if you have been in the greater Brisbane area since 2 January, we would ask that for one more week you please wear a mask to, during, and from training. Many thanks to all kendoka that have gone back to mask wearing during jigeiko and kata this week past. We will hopefully get back to less restricted breathing from next week.

Second, could I again ask that everyone please give thought to where they will be storing their equipment when in the dojo. We have had some brief discussions regarding giving clear way access to where we are currently storing our mats, and to think about how we might make things as tidy as possible for when we are in the dojo. I will be giving things a bit more attention this week and see what we can come up with.

Finally, just a confirmation that I have an online class I am participating in on Tuesday night, so will be leaving may classes in the capable hands of Brady for jujutsu and Sian/Tracy for iaido. Will hope to catch up with everyone Thursday/Saturday!

And we are back to (almost) regular programming…

Our run of rainy weather appears to have broken for the moment and one of the first orders for this week is to get out into the garden and trim back the rampant growth. On the Club front, I will be continuing to chip away at small projects and bits of maintenance that will help set us up for the year ahead.

I wanted to thank everyone who contributed to the success of Keiko Hajime for this year. We had the largest number of members attending our kickoff event for the year, and some excellent still and video taken. Many thanks to Grant Vickery for forgoing training and instead offering his considerable talent at photography for the evening. Thanks too for Michael C and Daen F’s excellent sessions through the evening, to Matt G and Tamara K for making this the first beginning event to be experienced outside of Toowoomba, and of course to everyone who showed up and made the evening the success that it was.

Tomorrow marks the first full week of “normal programming”. However, with the unfolding COVID situation, please check with your relevant instructors or discipline coordinators if there are any additional or specific requirement you will need to follow in the dojo. For those who are logging in to the Club’s on-line offerings, all the Zoom links have been renewed for the new year, and ought be working as usual. Again let myself or your relevant instructor/coordinator know if you are having any difficulties logging in.

And finally, to make some comment on the year ahead of us. 2021 will no doubt throw up its own unique challenges, both in terms of stressors and opportunities at both he Club and at the individual level. Together we can rise to meet these, and make good on the promise that last week’s start to the year offered. Take care, be well, and as always, I will look forward to seeing you in the dojo!

Happy New Year! See you at keiko hajime (6 pm Tuesday 5th January)

I hope that this post finds you well rested after our two(ish) weeks away from the dojo and the enjoyable distractions of the festive season.

Tomorrow evening will be an excellent opportunity to positively kick off your training year and reconnect with the broader BBRD community as we commit to hatsugeiko (first training) and kagami biraki (breaking the barrel) with vignette training and demonstrations from most of our supported disciplines and a light supper of sushi, mochi, tea and sake to end with.

Could I ask that everyone who is intending to be be there tomorrow night reconfirm with either discipline coordinators or myself no later than 10 am Tuesday morning so that we can appropriately cater for supper afterwards. Visitors are welcome, but they will have to register so that they can be catered for, and to meet our COVID obligations.

This year, we will be broadcasting the event via Zoom, so those not physically located in Toowoomba can join in. The link for the night is:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85949564593?pwd=QXVkcW9wUjFZaHpFSnhPQk1ocldhdz09

We will be starting to set up for the night from 6 pm at the BBRD Honbu dojo, upstairs in the Clive Berghofer Recreation Centre 20 Baker Street Darling Heights. Please be there on time to help with the set up, as this is an important part of both mental and physical preparations for the year. For those observing, or beaming in via Zoom, we will be kicking off activity for the evening from 6.30 pm and will be running through till around 9.30 pm (a usual Tuesday night’s training).

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone there tomorrow night. 2020 has been such a mixed year of frustration, disruption and amazing opportunity and progress for the Club, and I want for all of us to celebrate that and commit to the year ahead.

Club Calendars and creative content for 2021

One of my usual summer projects for the past eight years has been putting together a Club calendar with photos from the previous year’s events.

Unfortunately, with the interruptions of this past year and the cancellation of many of the regular events that we would take these photos at, this year’s effort has been more relegated to a retrospective of the Club’s photographic history. While the thumbnail image for this post is the only 2020 photo in the calendar, I’m sure that you will enjoy some of the less seen photos from previous years, and as always, the calendar contains useful dates for USQ and CQU academic calendars as well as known events of interest to the Club. I have ordered a few spare copies, so if you are interested in securing one please let me know. It will be strictly first in best dressed.

I’d also like to encourage everyone to take some more pictures and video of what we do this year. Aside from an eye to the 2022 calendar, I am also wanting to create some more promotional videos in the vein of the one I’ve made for Kendo. For those that have not had a chance to see it, you can find it on our You Tube channel, or by following the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQkjDd-ICHg

I’m hoping that we can push a bit more content through our social media channels this year. The more copy we have, the better this will be. Also, for those of you interested, we have placed an updated and clarified set of policies regarding privacy and media/image rights in the Club’s policy repository on the website. You can view those statement by following this link.