And a happy new year to everyone: we hope that you have all survived the silly season with only moderate physical, financial and psychological damage.

First of all, I would like to say a very big thank you to all of you who made my 40^th Birthday celebrations such a memorable event (those bits that I can remember that is) and thank you all for such generous gifts – I really appreciated it.

Thanks also for all the lovely Christmas gifts as well, they were most welcome.

When we ponder upon the events of last year, we realise that it was quite a year – probably the most eventful yet:

We had Kevin’s visit from England and the very interesting courses that he ran; we had the visit from the Funakoshi club from Australia; we had my and Robbie’s joint seminar held at his Peachgrove Rd dojo, we had the seminar held by Dennis May; we had the training camp at Pukehina and we achieved 7-new black belts – wow!!

And then to mention the rest of you who all made such major progress through the grades last year – you need to all give yourselves a good pat on the back. Remember, you did it all yourselves: Helena and I are only your guides.

The camp was great wasn’t it? Helena and I thoroughly enjoyed it and the amount that we managed to learn that weekend was astounding. The hall was perfect, the setting was wonderful, the food and the drink was great and we really enjoyed your company – getting to know you all even better on a personal basis. Let’s make this an annual event!

I also enjoyed the seminar held by Dennis May. As a very high ranking Goju Ryu instructor, we have a lot of interesting stuff that we can learn from him and he has promised to come to our club early this year and share his knowledge with us – this is fantastic and we will keep you all posted as exactly when this might be.

As some of you know, Helena and I will be away for 6-weeks from the middle of June. We are returning to Sweden to visit friends & family, and we will also be holding some training sessions for our old students.

I haven’t been back for 7-years and it is going to be great to show the kids where they were born, where Helena and I grew up and went to school as they are now old enough to be able to appreciate it.

This trip is going to be heinously expensive for us and I will be working for about 4-weeks there as an Optometrist in order to be able to earn some extra pocket money. I haven’t practised optometry since we left Sweden, so if you hear reports about an unusual epidemic of blindness from that part of the world, then you know who is responsible!!

We have had rumours from some of you that we will not be coming back. we want to assure you all that this is simply not true! Our kids are thriving here; Helena and I both have rewarding and interesting challenges in both our professional and academic lives and we have you guys – there is no other place we would rather be and barring some unforeseen circumstances entailing that we have no other choice: we are damned well here to stay – so rest assured!

The club will continue to be open for business while we are away.

As usual, I would like to keep you up to date on my health status. Unfortunately, it is not good. The last treatment did not work and I suffered a full relapse – I actually cannot walk around the block without stopping due to breathlessness.

These events have not dampened my resolve to continue training and running our club. I realise that a lot of you don’t remember me not being sick and in the beginning, I was afraid that I would lose credibility when I could no longer lead hard warm-ups by example and stay one step ahead of everyone else in terms of fitness and flexibility.

But, thankfully, Helena and you higher grades have been able to fill in where I am not capable and as such the overall training quality has not been affected. We would like to thank you all for your understanding and patience and I would like to assure you all that I will be back in top form given a little more time.

Health permitting, Helena and I are due to grade again at the end of this year, or the very beginning of next. This is a big carrot for my recovery and I hope to be able to select a couple of you as training partners for this purpose (as soon as I am able) and Helena will be doing the same.

Changing the subject a little; I know that some of you enjoy watching the K1 competitions on TV. That’s fine and I have no problem with this. Remember that these are sports martial arts competitions – and fairly poor quality at that.

The rules are constructed such that it is generally the biggest and strongest that win, and they do very little but trade punches and kicks. The rules and their gloves severely limit what they are able to and it really is a young man’s sport. I would like to think that our martial arts is far more intelligent and effective – so keep what you watch in perspective: there is very little to be learned from it.

Let me know if you wish to have any of the articles in printed form.

Lastly, we will not be advertising for any new students this time. We are pretty full in the adult class but we will take on a few who drop in – so come on you parents who have been eyeing up the class, you are very welcome to have a crack.

Also any juniors who have friends who might be interested in trying – bring them along!!

Congratulations go to the following people who passed their grades last term:

 Junior 2^nd Brown Belt

Congratulations also go to the following juniors who won medals in the end of term kata competition:

 Yellow belt & above

Also: well done to the red team who won the end of term team sparring competition. It was as exciting as ever!

Congratulations go to the following people who passed their grades last term:

The dates for next term are:

Wednesday 4^th February – Wednesday 7^th April.

Please try to pay the term fees as soon as is humanly possible at the start of term – this saves us the hassle of having to chase people. If this is not possible, talk to us so that we can agree on another arrangement.

Cheers and see you all soon