Newsletter - 29 July 2011

 

 

Hi All

 

Half the year has gone already and I am still only just getting used to writing 2011.

 

For Helena and I, this year has been full-on: Jake going of to Uni at Otago, me suffering from an unexplained acute kidney failure (which has now resolved itself), me finishing off my PhD at last (has yet to be marked though), me (rather stupidly) picking up a fairly severe knee injury, my father dying, me landing a new job and now Helena also landing a new job. For us it has been an even mixture of happy times, worrying times, sad times and exciting times.

 

Throughout all this, the one constant (as it has been all these years) has been the karate club and the great mix of people that we have training with us – sometimes we feel as if it is the karate club that keeps us grounded and sane (some may argue with my definition of sane, though).

 

Through this year’s illness and injuries (and other events), I am very grateful to have been able to rely on Dale, Jon and Jelena for the warm-ups and for putting in so much effort with instructing – thank you guys…really and truly!

 

As predicted, last term was one of consolidation for most of you and it has been very pleasing indeed to notice the improvements each of you are achieving in your karate. The focus for this term will be to try and get more of you through your grades towards the end of the term…remember, though, how fast you progress through the grades is largely up to you and the amount of practice you put into your karate training in between sessions. Helena and I will always try to push you, but it is absolutely fine to want to progress at a slower pace – karate is a hobby and must be kept in that perspective…family, careers and study must always come first.

 

We had two people grading double grades last term: Brian Williamson (who achieved his 5th Kyu blue belt) and Christian Yee (who achieved his 2nd Kyu brown belt). In the entire time that we have run clubs, it has been very rare that we have advanced students more than one grade at a time and we only consider this as an option if exceptional circumstances prevail – for both Christian and Brian, the exception circumstances can be partly attributed to their past experiences in other martial arts but mostly, it is the extraordinary effort, hard work and practice that both of them have put into their training. Well done guys, your grades were a pleasure to watch!

 

For the instructors’ training, I would like the focus to be on bunkai practise this term. I want to take the knowledge that you already have and push your abilities from ‘knowing’ to ‘a high level of proficiency’. It is one thing to know the bunkai but it is another thing entirely to being able to do it and do it consistently well. What I would like to propose is that we pick a kata every second week and blitz the bunkai within them for a couple of weeks in a continuous cycle – we can discuss this more at our instructors’ meeting on Monday.

 

The instructors’ training sessions are designed to compensate for attention that I don’t give them during normal sessions as they are busy instructing. Anyone is welcome along to use the hall during our instructors’ training for your own practice (and I would encourage you to make use of this time), but tuition will be limited to those who help out with instruction.

 

I am looking forward to next term but until I get to have surgery on my knee, it is going to be hard to predict exactly now much I am able to participate myself.

 

The dates for next term will be from Wednesday 3-August until Monday 3-October. I also need to change the time for our instructors’ meeting from 6:30 PM on Monday 1-August to 7:00 PM as this will be my first day at my new job.

 

Hey, one last thing - Jake was supposed to help me update the huge number of photos that still need to go onto this website from last year and this year while he was home on his mid-semester break. He simply ran out of time and hopes to have this done on his next break at Christmas. He will also change the photoviewer so that it is compatable with Macs. I need Jake to help me as this new technology is one that I have not yet mastered!

 

Take care, and we’ll see you all next week.

 

Cheers

 

Guss & Helena