Hi
All!
I
hope that you are all well and that the excesses of Christmas and the New
Year haven’t done too much damage.
I
would like to start off by thanking Tony and his wife for hosting the
Christmas party this year – it was a lot of fun (from what little I can
remember) and it was very nice to be able to show you all the photos of our
club history.
The
big news for us is that Kevin Fox (Helena & Guss’ Karate Teacher) will
be arriving here from the UK on 10th Jan for a 3-week holiday.
It
will be a time of a lot of site-seeing and intense training for Helena and I
and we intend to learn as much new stuff as we can while he is here.
He
will also be holding courses for senior students only on two dates that I
will confirm to you all by phone nearer the time.
One
of our students from Sweden, Micke Schneider, will also be coming here in
the end of Jan, for three weeks to train for and grade to 2nd
Dan.
The
other news is that our web site is now complete and will be up and running
within the next two weeks. The site address is http://www.bugeikan.com
and contains the syllabi, a lot of articles, newsletters, information,
history and a lot of photos. Check it out and let us know what you
think.
Many thanks go to Shaleen Deo for helping me design and construct the site.
The Junior Club
Congratulations
go to those that passed their grades:
Junior
red belt:
Also huge congratulations go to Ocean Rhind on
passing her Junior Black Belt. Ocean is the youngest student that we have
ever graded to black belt and her standard was exceedingly high – it was a
real pleasure to watch.
I
would really like all those that missed out on a grade last term to get a
chance next term – but it is up to you…practise practise practise!!
The
results of last term’s kata competition were as follows:
Group1
– orange belt & under
Group2
– green belt & over
The
red team won the end of term sparring competition that turned out to be very
competitive and exciting – well done!
All juniors who have an orange belt and above, remember to bring mitts and tooth guards to the sessions for when we do sparring.
The Senior Club
Congratulations
go to the following people who graded last term:
There
has been a bit of a drop out this last term in terms of senior members. This
is quite normal.
Since
starting to teach students of our own in 1988, we have graded only 6-people
to black belt. When considering that this involves nearly 500-students that
we have taken on since that date it is clear it takes a very special type of
person to make it all the way.
I
can fully understand those that do drop our, as I could think of hundreds of
things that I would rather do, but the rewards are quite profound to those
that do stick it out.
I
consider all of you that are left in the senior club to be core members. A
lot of you have been here since around the start, or shortly after the start
of the senior club. Most of you have achieved very high grades and all of
you now have the potential to reach black.
In
order to achieve this, you are going to have to take charge of your own
learning: you have to decide where, when, how and what you are going to
learn and your visits to the club should just be a means for Helena and I to
keep tabs on your progress. Do not be afraid to demand help from us: we are
there for your sakes; you are not here for our sakes.
Having
said that, we do appreciate the help that we get from you with the running
of our junior club and we hope to improve the structure of our appointed
instructors very shortly.
We
plan to carry on with the senior group, as before for the next term, but
after that we will be advertising for new members and hope to have quite an
influx of new senior members for the first time since we opened the NZ club.
We
hope to see you all achieve your next grades before that time, but as I said
to the juniors, it is up to you!
See
you soon,
Guss
& Helena