The USQ Martial Arts Club is dead…

After 16 years as an affiliated UniSQ Club, BBRD was unceremoniously deregistered by the Student Guild on Friday.

The proximal causes of this were a list of reaffiliation criteria that we would always find impossible to meet, including having an Executive fully staffed by current studying UniSQ students, the effective hand over of Club assets to the Guild, and an insistence that we abandon our current financial systems and instead funnel money through the Guild’s payment system (while paying handsomely for the “privilege”).

This came on top of having blind sided the Club with a more-than-half reduction to our training schedule at the start of this year, the “generous” suggestion that we could restore our times by paying an effective $75 an hour, and the dragging on for months the drip feed of information and continued spurious claims from the University/Guild end of things.

In the end, we were dumped in a terse five sentence email that opened with the meaningless opening of “hoping we were well” before giving us less than four days to move all traces of the Club from University property.

No mention of the years of service to the University community and the active role we have played in promoting it. No mention of the University Games medals won in Kendo and Judo over the years. No mention of the role the Club has played in helping to connect alumni to the University.

This past twelve months has been draining. Personally, I have felt utterly disrespected through what has transpired. And the hard work that has been put in over more than a decade and a half seems like it has been burnt to ash and cinders. Because of having to deal with the consequences of the Guild/University’s decisions, I have felt completely unready to attempt the three senior grading opportunities in Jujutsu, Kendo and Iaido I had hoped to sit this year. And honestly, at times over the past nine months it has felt like I may never regain the momentum to even have a stab at these opportunities in the future.

However, what keeps me going are the values we espouse and the symbols we use to represent ourselves at BBRD.

Unlike the University, we retain the phoenix as the core Club symbol. This is a reminder that through adversity we can regather and reform to do what we have always set out to achieve: Providing the community with the opportunity to find challenge and reward through the practice of the martial arts. And I remind myself of the Club’s dojo kun— integrity, perseverance, and compassion— to motivate myself to stick the course and do my best, because all I have control over are my own actions and being honest in myself to know I aim to deliver my best.

We are currently homeless, and we are going to find it difficult in the short term to get regular training up and running. Suitable spaces seem to be hard to locate in Toowoomba at present. I would gratefully accept any and all tips or leads the readership might have of what we might do.

At the very least, we are likely to pull out the Zoom cameras a bit more often and connect as we did during COVID, albeit with more opportunity to see each other face to face. And take the opportunities we can to train with our senior sensei in Brisbane.

We have active plans to move beyond this current situation organisationally, and have in train a process to create an Incorporated Association by the end of this month. This is so that we have the legal status to enter into contracts such as rental agreements, and an identity beyond the University. And we also plan to be more active in communicating with our wider community of friends and supporters in the coming weeks and months.

So the USQ Martial Arts Club is dead…

But long live BBRD. We intend to be around for some time yet!

Gambareba dekiru to omoimasu!

(If we do our best, we will get there!)

BBRD is moving to WhatsApp!

BBRD is moving to WhatsApp for communications regarding training with the launch of the Bun Bu Roy Do Martial Arts Community.

This will enable a safe and up to date place for members to get information in the announcements group - only admins can post here. Plus each discipline of the club can/will have a dedicated group so that we can give information on training times and who can make it etc. everything that we have been doing on different platforms for a long time. We're just moving it all into one place.

If you haven’t downloaded WhatsApp already, please do, then make an account and join our community. Use this link https://chat.whatsapp.com/L8fqG49lrZ0C0qlJGcgQs6 to find our community. Members who are on our member database should already have a copy of the link sent earlier today. After joining the community, you will be able to join the relevant discipline groups to get information specific to that discipline. If you were previously in the jujutsu group, you would have been automatically added into the community already and will still be a member of the jujutsu group.

If you are an interested community member, but do not want the notifications from different disciplines, you can also just be in the community without being a part of any groups.

If you have any questions, please contact us on WhatsApp or on enquiries@bbrd.org.au

Update: Membership renewal for 2024-25

It has been a big few weeks since I last wrote a blog, and am only now coming up for air. I am trying to get this out to as many people as possible, so some of you will have received an invite for membership via e-mail already.

There are many friends and supporters of BBRD who have graced the Club over the years, some who have moved on from Toowoomba, others who have taken other opportunities or have found the current training times too difficult to make.

As a regular reader of the Budo Bulletin, you will be aware the Club has faced a number of challenges this year, particularly after the University unilaterally, and without consultation, changed our training times such that we have been subsisting on less than half the training program we have historically offered.

In spite of this we have continued to operate and provide support to the various disciplines and activities that we have supported.

At this time, we need your support, whether actively training or simply being a part of the BBRD community. With numbers, we can argue for better terms for the wider Club community and get back to doing what we love best, which is to practice and promote authentic martial arts and associated activities. Whether you are physically training or not, you can still be a valued member of our community.

All you need to do is fill out this year's membership form by following the link below:
https://forms.gle/dgo9LE2qW3fL...​

There is no fee for joining BBRD this year. You will also notice that there is a new category of discipline membership of “General community supporter/non training member”. This is for those of you who are yet to pick disciplines you wish to train in, or who cannot currently train.

In order to physically train, you will still need to pay the relevant discipline fees, training contributions, and State/National Association fees. A list of those fees can be viewed on the Club website:
www.bbrd.org.au/fees

However, the community supporter category still covers you (cost free) for insurance in other aspects, and entitles you to what discounts we can pass on to all members when we make Club equipment orders.

So, whether you want to enjoy discount rates on martial arts and fitness equipment, be an active supporter of the BBRD community, or actively participate in training, I will look forward to interacting with you in the year ahead.

There are a few big things planned for the second half of this year, and it will be exciting to share these with you as they start to come to fruition. Please pass on this message to everyone in your network who might be interested in joining the BBRD Community, especially as a supporter. There is definitely strength in numbers, and together we will look to forge a path forward to continue to serve the wider community through the promotion and practice of the martial arts.

And, as always, I will look forward to see you in the dojo: physical, virtual, or "second"...

Membership renewals for the 2024-25 year

This is a quick reminder that the Club membership year has ticked over and everyone will need to renew your membership status for the coming year.

We will be holding an AGM in June once there is more certainty around the constitutional changes required to realign under the entity of the Guild and away from our arrangements under the University’s direct auspices (Phoenix Central/Student Life).

We will require everyone to put in renewals (even USQ Students who are not charged for membership) by May 30 2024.

I will be sending out direct forms to all currently listed members in our Martialytics database later this week.

Club updates: many things on the table

It has been somewhat of a tumultuous start to 2024 for the Club.

I acknowledge that I haven’t managed to put out a Budo Blog/bulletin since January, and we are now in that lovely post ANZAC day autumn that Toowoomba experiences.

Unfortunately, the University/Guild finally came back to us with a cost proposal for restoring our Saturday training (after very hard graft and prompting from our end). Their offer is to charge $77 per hour of training, with 2 hours added to that for a Guild staff member to open the centre up and close it up after we finish.

Even if we factored in the “no charge” training Tuesday and Thursday nights, we would still be paying $462 a week which is essentially an equivalent of over $55 an hour for each hour that we train. This is clearly not sustainable for the Club. Even at our best numbers historically, we would be struggling to get the 13 unique participants (average) for every class that would be needed just to break even on our hall hire costs.

And based on the logic of the documentation provided at out meeting, if we were to restore our training times to what we had till December last year, the University would be charging us close to $700 per week.

Effectively, the University has placed us in a position where we have only one of three options:

1. Wind up BBRD after 16 years of consistent, high quality, contribution to the University and wider Toowoomba community

2. Kill off support for some disciplines entirely, and continue to offer only one session a week for those that remain

3. Move off campus to a more affordable location

None of these options are good ones. However, the first two almost guarantee that the Club would no longer exist by the end of this year. That would seem like a betrayal of all the good work and effort put in over the years, especially in support of the diverse community that the Club represents.

As everyone reading might appreciate, the loss of our Saturday training has had a significant material impact on the Club. Many members, some of whom were travelling as far away as Stanthorpe, Warwick and Laidley for Saturday training were unable to make a regular commitment to train on weeknights. Many members have full time work and weeknight training is not something they can commit to week on week. And only having one, truncated, training session per week (if that for some disciplines) is simply insufficient to allow people to successfully progress.

The slight drawback of being a Club that has existed for as long as it has is that we tend to see the cyclical nature regarding the level of support provided by the University to the Club. We are no longer enjoying the wonderful support provided by the OG Phoenix Central, or indeed the Jenny Rix led Guild that brought us back to Campus in 2020, but instead to the same financial and facilities crunch that forced us off campus the first time at the end of 2011.

It is about now in a post like this that the marketers would be placing a “call to action” from its readers. And a call for action is most definitely needed from everyone who continues to have a connection or an affection for the Club and what we do.

For those that have trained with us in the past and still hold an intention to someday come back to train, take that plunge, get in touch and come train again. The hardest step is the one over the threshold of the dojo. You will always be welcome and supported in your training journey.

For those that life has taken in a different direction but you remember your time with the Club fondly, let your wider circle know the great things that the Club does.

If you have any hot tips for alternative training venues that are less than the exorbitant price we are currently being offered, please let us know. We need roughly 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon, and three hours on a Tuesday and Thursday night. We would also need sufficient storage for the Club’s equipment.

This is the most important help that we need right now to ensure the immediate future for the Club. We have been looking since this uncertainty began in November last year. The available market for venues in Toowoomba is quite tight, and the more suggestions we get, the quicker we can move to the next phase of the Club’s history.

Thank you everyone I do hope to see more of you in or outside of the dojo in the coming weeks and months.

Interim training timetable (works in progress)

We go into this third week of January with a little more clarity regarding Club training session.

After our meeting with Facilities Management, the Guild and Student Services, we are still awaiting what might be the weekend training schedule for Saturdays, and what shape the weeknight sessions might take.

After speaking with Michael C and Brady, we are going to attempt starting classes at 6 pm rather than the 6:15/6:30 starts that we have managed in the past. Given the compression of time till we are certain what our evenings might look like, what we are proposing is:

Tuesdays:

• Systema 6:00–7:30 pm

• Iaido 7:00–8:30 pm

Thursdays:

• Jujutsu 6:00–7:30 pm

• Kendo 6:00–7:30 pm

• Jujutsu (Advanced) 7:30–8:30 pm

• Free Iaido/Jodo training 7:30-8:30 pm

What this will practically mean is that we need people to be ready to start their session by no later than 5 minutes past the stated kick off. This means that you will need to be dressed, ready to go and either strapping your bogu on or laying down mats on the dot of 6 pm.

The reduced time for training is not ideal, to say the least. However, we ought to be able to at least get some meaningful training in for the time that we have available.

As mentioned previously, weekend are sill completely up in the air as Facilities Management still needs to work out how much they intend o charge us for the use of the space.

What we may be doing in the interim is alternating between a Brisbane trip once a fortnight to train with the Brisbane Kendo Club, and then on the alternative Saturday have a get together in a park somewhere (weather permitting) to train some Arnis. And of course we will try to fit in some Kyudo taihai as we are able.

Apologies at this stage of the year to still not have clarity about our training situation. I would have hoped that we might have had some, but alas.

I hope to see folk at the dojo from tomorrow night. Let’s get back into training, brush those cobwebs off, and start working towards our goals for 2024!

Some Kendo and Iaido goals for this year coming

Coming off the back of the enforced break from training and my own recreational holidays this week, I wanted to prompt everyone to think about their training goals for this year. This might be improving your consistency of training, working towards a grading, or targeting a competition.

Entries close Wednesday this week for the Queensland Kendo Championship to be held in Brisbane this Saturday. While I appreciate that the unfortunate lack of training that has been available due to the changes forced through by the University, I would still encourage people to either throw your hat in the ring or go down and watch. For UniSQ students, it might be the motivation needed to have a crack at Uni Games in September!

Throwing my own intention out there, I will be heading to Sydney at Easter to attend the AKC seminar and have another attempt at yondan, and would encourage all yudansha to seriously consider joining me.

And in September the Iaido nationals will be held in Melbourne in September, which again is an excellent preparation for upcoming DAN examinations (and again I will be working towards a yondan challenge in that too.

Between now and then it is going to take some consistent effort and external input, with trips to train with Brisbane Kendo Club, training a inter-Club kendo events, and once Johnson sensei gets back from the UK, trips to train at Kohokai Matsuyama dojo.

We all need each other’s support and encouragement to please, do what up can to support both yours and other’s training.

Self care and supplemental training

Given the large break that we have had since before Christmas, I would like to encourage everyone to reflect on what you may need to improve your general physical fitness and capacity to train in the coming weeks.

It can be very tempting to push all limits the first session you get back into training, which carries with it a significant risk of injury (from minor to major).

Consider what you can do outside of our now restricted training times to hone skills, and build the strength and endurance needed to excel at your disciplines.

If you are needing specific advice, please do not hesitate to ask your instructor, or reach out wider to help develop a periodised training plan to meet your goals for this year.

But above all else, please have fun!

A new year beckons (cursed to live in “interesting” times)

It has been some time between Budo Blog/Bulletin posts and sitting here at the very start of the new year, I though that it would be good to share with the Club’s members and friends what has been happening over the past few months.

When last I posted we were in preparation for a visit by Jason Griffiths, renshi, out to support the Toowoomba Street Fiesta, and planning a trip to Brisbane to train at the Brisbane Kendo Club. That was back in October …

We successfully accomplished all three events, and hosted a Queensland Kendo Renmei summer seminar to boot. We also have three new Iaido yudansha with Clint D. Tamara K. and Sean T. successfully challenging for shodan.

However, the Club is facing an uncertain set of circumstances going into the new year.

In November, the University had signalled that there will be significant changes this year to the use of the Clive Berghofer Recreation Centre. The reasons for this remain unclear, despite having continually asked for clarification and justification from the Student Guild and Facilities Management at the University. To be quite frank, the responses that we have received are logically inconsistent and lacking any significant detail, aside from vague references to “efficiencies” and “preferences of the University”.

To be clear, there was no consultation or discussion with the Club prior to the announced changes, and whatever decision making process undertaken by Facilities Management was done without any knowledge of what the Club does or how it operated.

The long and short of what we are facing is that we can only use the CBRC while there are reception staff at the front desk (from 8:30am till 8:30pm). This means that we cannot train Saturday, and that we are only able to fit one session of training in on Tuesday and Thursday nights. This will mean reducing from six time slots supporting 11 classes a week down to two time slots supporting three classes.

We were also requested by Facilities Management to hand back all keys/access cards before Christmas, with the result being we have lost direct access to the Club’s equipment, and from this point forward must seek assistance to use any of the things that facilitate our training.

To be clear this has all been simply framed as a “preference” of the University. There is no reason that the Club has been provided as to why arrangements that have been in place for the past three and a half years had to change. In fact, the December seminar was run in exactly the same manner as previous seminars we hosted in 2021/22 with the Club operating on its own recognisance, so certainly there has been no legitimate concern about how we have operated the facility in the past.

As I am sure everyone reading this will appreciate, if this were to be the reality for the Club going forward, there will be massive changes to what we can support. Gone will be the opportunity for members who come in from as far afield as Stanthorpe, Warwick, Laidley and Gatton to train on a Saturday and get home at a reasonable hour.

We will have to make very hard decisions regarding which disciplines actually survive this bottleneck, as we simply cannot make these mathematics work to continue to support all of the disciplines that people have dedicated hundreds of hours over many years to nurture.

We are meeting this Wednesday (3 January) to have a face to face meeting with individuals from Facilities Management, The Student Guild, and what has now become of Student’s Services. I suppose we can only see what this might bring. However, on past experience over the fifteen years the Club has operated I am quite sceptical of there being any significant change of position on the part of the university.

It means that for the first time in the Club’s existence, we will not be able to hold our multi-disciplinary Kagami Biraki (New Year’s “breaking of the seal” shared training session). The CBRC reopens on the 8th, so our first potential classes will start on the 9th at the earliest — if we are able to figure out how the access to our equipment is going to be managed. I will have to let everyone know next week once we have had the meeting and sorted out how we are going to proceed.

We are currently trying to work through a variety of contingency plans. Some contingencies may have us moving location to a place, and at a time and date yet to be determined. Others will have us travelling to Brisbane to train with senior folk there. For some, we may have to put Club disciplines into hibernation until a clear path opens up. The only things we can say with certainly is that January will be a very uncertain month for the Club.

Clubs like BBRD existing because of the support that we have as a wider community, not just the current active members. I would like to think that as the haze clears and we can see a clearer path forwards, that we will be able to count on your support as we attempt to lobby the University, or help us to look for a new home where we can once again support all our disciplines under one roof.

We have survived as a Club through a number of challenges over the years, and I am certain that we have the capacity to do so again this time. Our strength is always our members and wider circle of friends, motivated by the desire to provide the opportunity for people to access high quality training in a wide variety of disciplines, to find what suits them best and enjoy the many benefits of training in the martial arts.

As always, I will look forward to seeing you in the dojo, whenever and wherever that might be next.

Training and events for the next few weeks: Jason Griffiths, Renshi; Street Fiesta; training with Brisbane Kendo Club.

The weather has certainly turned warmer, and we are coming into a patch of Club committments leading up to the end of the year.

Some quick updates for the next few weeks.

First up, Jason Griffiths, renshi will be coming up this Saturday (with some additional visitors) to run a two hour Arnis session starting at 2 pm then a two hour jujutsu session staring 4 pm. We will be taking a rain check on Kendo for Saturday, so please come along Thursday night for this week’s opportunity to train. I would also encourage all Club members to come along and support the afternoon and indulge in some cross training. Jason sensei is an excellent teacher who can cater for all levels of experience in his classes.

We are hoping to lock in some future regular dates

Next Saturday, we will be shifting our training to the outdoors, as we will be supporting the Toowoomba International Street Fiesta. We will be planning more fine detail on the next few days, but the intention is to essentially run some training sessions in the afternoon and evening of the Fiesta, so it would be excelling to see all hands on deck.

The following week (Saturday 4 November) we have pencilled in training with the Brisbane Kendo Club. I will be locking in details over the next few days for this too, so will have a discussion in the dojo Thursday night/on our regular chat channel.

So a busy few weeks ahead! As always I’ll look forward to catching up with everyone in the dojo.