Uni is back in session

[Aden]

Uni has started - Sunday training I did one run through omote kata 1-9 jo side only as the only actual kata I did in 1 1/2 hours (followed by iai which featured doing ipponme once as a demonstration in 1 1/2 hours of nukitsuke and noto).

Its kihon season :).

Aden

[Newbie]

Sweet :) I'm still down to an hour or two of either iaido or jodo once a week. Tonight is iai. Stupid knee.

Is your avatar the Wollongon tsuba?

[Aden]

Well spotted - the avatar is the Wollongong mon - and the Wollongong tsuba of which we distributed 100 or so as souvenirs of the 06 iai / jo nationals are a slight modification of that (slightly altered the width of the mountain to accommodate the nakago ana better in the cutout version). Did Caine have one of the non cutout version on his iaito at Hobart?

On the jo front I have cleared my morning tommorow so can go up to Sydney to the SMR dojo I train at (far too rarely) which should satisfy my need for kata practice for a few days.....

Aden

[Newbie]

Did Caine have one of the non cutout version on his iaito at Hobart?

I'm not sure to be honest! But I have admired the one Kristian brought back and the mounted one he got for second place in the jodo kyu grades many times.

Didn't get to train at all last week cos Kristian's baby had a cold and couldn't last night cos he had an emergency op but this Sunday! Woo-hoo! (after a big birthday party. If I can train hungover on new year's day though I can never been in too bad a shape to train) but not sure if we're doing iai, jo or both.

How is Caine anyway? It was fun both of us learning the third jo kata for the first time three days before the competition! :) My main problem was the bleeding red lines in dim light. Certainly made it a challenge but I wish I'd got to practise with it before the comp.

Bec has invited me over to Melbourne for a seminar but I'm not sure when. Apparently we're having one down here soon but don't know when that is. I know we'll be having one in June for the Hall of Fame thingy.

What are people focussing on for their jo this year, or at least the first half of this year? I'm grading my nikkyu (hopefully) in June and whilst my first two kata can definitely use some serious work I wanna thrash the tandoku. I don't know the last few very well yet. I mean, it sounds like I have heaps of time but soon I should be working nights, which is when most training is and this knee is putting paid to most training.

[Aden]

Hi Newbie

Jo training here for the next 2 months will be dictated by our plan, all going well, to be offering the opportunity of a state jodo kyu grading together with our iaido state kyu / dan grading at the end of April when Ray Lawrence visits us. So the 1 or 2 seitei interested students are going to be on a diet of grading practice since this will probably be the only opportunity for them before next years nationals (or in the case of any who didn't go to the nationals their only opportunity this year since Wollongong dojo has only 2 people able to sit on a jo kyu panel so we need a visitor).

Aden

[Newbie]

*sniff* Well, that's it. Got an evening job that starts at 4:30 Monday to Friday. So last night was my last Thursday night training and my last training with Risa before she leaves to go home to Japan in a week. *sigh* Sempai's annoyed cos he just got us working together nicely in kata (but he knew that was gonna happen).

So training's gonna be more sporadic than before. I asked sempai what self-training I can do and how often and he said as often as I want but if I start going crap he'll resort to physical violence....

Umm... yeah. But anyway, some of my tandoku and second kata need lots and lots of work so that where I'll be concentrating my efforts. Oh, and learning last few tandoku properly before June.

[Marcus_P]

You can't train weekends?

[Newbie]

Maybe Sunday's but sempai works half day Saturdays and has two young kids, don't forget.

[Marcus_P]

Maybe Sunday's but sempai works half day Saturdays and has two young kids, don't forget.

So that should mean he's up early in the morning for you to train with him on Sundays? =D

[Newbie]

When he can, he is.

[Beckmeisterrr]

Hi Newbie

Jo training here for the next 2 months will be dictated by our plan, all going well, to be offering the opportunity of a state jodo kyu grading together with our iaido state kyu / dan grading at the end of April when Ray Lawrence visits us. So the 1 or 2 seitei interested students are going to be on a diet of grading practice since this will probably be the only opportunity for them before next years nationals (or in the case of any who didn't go to the nationals their only opportunity this year since Wollongong dojo has only 2 people able to sit on a jo kyu panel so we need a visitor).

Aden

Hey Aden, how's it going? When will the gradings be?

Cheers
Bec

[Aden]

Hi Bec

Things are going well here at Wollongong - as many iaido newbies as we have spare saya boken for at the moment, a couple of jodo ones, and more kendo ones than the last few years.

We haven't cleared it with the NSWKA yet so its not locked in stone, but at this stage we are organising to have

SATURDAY 28 April - all-day 'state' iaido seminar at Gilroy College in NW Sydney (jodo also possible if required)

SUNDAY 29 April - NSW/ACT Jodo-(kyu only) & Iaido grading (to Nidan) at Wollongong University (morning seminar afternoon grading, 9am-3pm)

As you can see from the above we have invited the ACT group to attend, since they are only 2 1/2 hours away from Wollongong.

Regards

Aden

[Aden]

And to wrap things up, we have finished our 2 day seminar with the largest NSWKA state seitei Iaido / seitei Jodo grading yet - over 2 dozen iai candidates (1 for nidan, 4 for shodan, between 1 and 7 for each of the kyu grades) and 6 jo candidates.

All NSWKA iai dojos had people challenging, plus the ACT contingent. Despite the seminar moving between 2 dojos 80 miles / 100km apart most of the 35 or 40 people involved attended both days, our little hall here in Wollongong was not up to it on the second day and I was running the jodo refresher before the grading outside on the bricks...

Still nowhere as big as the state kendo grading and seminar but a definite big step forward.

Aden

[Andoru]

That's great Aden! Good to know that things are progressing well. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. :)