Hi all

I hope that you have had a great Easter break and that you haven’t all drowned in chocolate.

Last term was a short term. For us, it was very intense, a little disorganised but, on the whole, everybody made good progress – well done.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Jon Hopkins and Dale Hutton for taking over the running of the club while Helena and I were in training for our grade – I think that you will all agree that they did a superb job.

I would also like to thank you all for having patience with us during this time and next term will see much more involvement on our part towards your continued progress.

Unfortunately, neither Helena nor I were successful in our grading attempt. We have some very grave concerns over the way that the grading was organised, the way it was conducted and the manner in which we were judged. As a result, we have launched an appeals process and it is going to be very interesting to see what comes about.

If our appeal is unsuccessful, we may well try again at some point in the future, but next time, we will ensure that the grading will be conducted entirely on our terms.

For those who want a detailed account of what took place, you are welcome to read an article called Grading 2007 which you can find in the articles section of our website (www.bugeikan.com).

I would like to thank all those that turned up to our grading to support us. I would particularly like to thank Jon Hopkins for the hundreds of hours he spent with me as my training partner in the last 6-months – we both learned a lot from this experience and this knowledge will be imparted to you as you progress through your own grades.

Lastly, I would like to thank Jake and Sam, our two sons, who had to put up with some very tired, grumpy and stressed out parents during the build up to the grading and the agonising wait for our results – I am sure, that with a little counselling, your scars will heal. ;-)

Changing the subject now, we are getting a little concerned with the sliding discipline at our kid’s classes. We seem to have a number of junior students that are simply not trying and are becoming disruptive. One of the focuses for next term will be to shape this up a little in order to raise standards. We try very hard to create the right balance between quality instruction and creating an atmosphere of fun. What we would like parents to do is to gauge whether your children truly want to be members of our club – if they don’t, then please withdraw them. They may well find a renewed interest later on in their life and forcing them to go when they don’t want to may put them off wanting to learn in the future.

From next term, we are going to change our policy on club uniforms for training. We don’t insist on people training in a karate gi (karate suit). We do recommend it, though, as it seems to serve two purposes: firstly, it puts people in the right frame of mind for training and the gi itself is designed to make a snapping sound when a technique is performed correctly – this is a very useful feedback mechanism and we find that students with karate gis learn basic technique faster.

But, what we will be insisting on is that students who cannot afford a gi, or don’t want to train in a traditional gi, must wear a white t-shirt with either dark shorts or a dark track suit bottom – and you must wear a belt denoting your grade. Belts are not expensive (see the uniforms and equipment section of this website to get details of where you can purchase belts). If you don’t wear your belt, it becomes very confusing for instructors to place you in the correct group as we don’t always remember what grade you have. Belts are, therefore, now compulsory.

We are also going to be phasing in junior belts for kids – these are different from adult belts in that they are all white but have a coloured stripe in the middle to denote the junior grade. So, if you are about to buy a belt for your child, please buy them a junior belt.

This is the first time that this newsletter is appearing online only – no hard copies have been posted out. If you know of somebody who does not have internet access, please get them to contact us and we will see to it that they get a copy.

No accounts have been posted either. There are still some outstanding fees, so if you have not paid last term, please do so as soon as possible.

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

• Nicke Bonning - Junior Yellow Belt
• Michael Black - 9th Kyu Red Belt
• Donna Thomas - 7th Kyu Orange Belt
• Jennifer Nickel - 7th kyu Orange Belt
• Desiree Horlacher - 7th Kyu Orange Belt
• Lee Liu - 6th Kyu Green Belt
• Chris Steele - 6th Kyu Green Belt

Those that missed out on a grading last term may be given a chance to grade next term if the required standards have been reached.

Congratulations also go to the following people who won medals at the club kata competition last term:

Red Belt & Below:

• Gold - Gabrielle Corker
• Silver - Jared Kelman
• Bronze - James Craig

• Gold - Sam Wilkinson
• Silver - Maysell Downey
• Bronze - Ben Smith

And lastly congratulations to the blue team who won the kid's sparring competition by 6-matches to 5...well done!

Just a reminder, if you want to buy uniforms or equipment, we suggest that you do so using a Hamilton based retailer at www.bushido.co.nz – (the contact phone number and address can be found on our website www.bugeikan.com) you can go along there and try uniforms on for size – something that we highly recommend.

Remember; if you are an orange belt or above, you must purchase mouth guards and fist mitts in order be allowed to spar.

The dates for next term are as follows:

Wednesday 18^th April – Wednesday 27^th June. (We don’t train on statutory holidays).

Anybody, brown belt and above, who is interested and willing to commit to instructing next term – we will have an instructor’s meeting on Monday 16^th October at 6:30 PM – please attend!

See you soon

Cheers