I'm excited to provide more details regarding the Easter weekend seminars that the Club will be hosting.
First up will be a Systema seminar delivered by Andrew Seyderhelm on Easter Friday (14 April) on the theme of Slavic movement — how the particular movement patterns that are found within Systema approaches help to range, close the gap and engage with opponents. The seminar will run from 2.30–4.30 pm and will be open to all who are interested.
Andrew was a foundation member of BBRD and I have always found his seminars extremely valuable due to their careful planning, interesting conception and good physical challenge. Recently, Andrew has been training in Canberra with a System group that follows the Kadochnikov syllabus and aproachs, rather than the Vasilliev/Ryabko branch of Systema. He has said that it is much more closely aligned to the type of training he experienced in the early days of Systema in the West, and more applicable to real-world situations than the direction that some branches of the Systema family have moved towards.
The second seminar will be a two session event delivered by Kurt Graham, kyoshi 7DAN on the Saturday. The first session will be 9.30–11.00 am and will cover aspects in the new Arnis Escrima syllabus. The second session from 11.30 am–1.00 pm will focus on concepts in Japanese Jujutsu. Again, these sessions will both be open to the wider community and all are welcome.
Kurt sensei hardly needs introduction to the BBRD community. As one of the premier martial arts exponents in the world, his real-world approach and thorough experience in traditional Japanese bujutsu is rarely matched.
As an extra special event for current BBRD jujutsu practitioners, there will be a third session in the afternoon from 2.00-4.00 pm that will exclusively focus on Ittoshinkan Core bujutsu drills, and act as the first gasshuku for the ITSK organisation. We expect to have some of the ITSK's other senior instructors at the Saturday event, including Jason Griffiths sensei from Brisbane, and Mike Hendrikse sensei who will be travelling from New Zealand to attend.
Prices for the open parts of the weekend are:
BBRD Members: $30 per session or $60 for all three sessions
General Public: $40 per session or $90 for all three sessions
Lunch on Saturday will be an additional $5
For the Gasshuku, which I strongly recommend that all BBRD jujutsu practitioners attend, the session will be $15.
This represents exceptional value given I have seen seminars of similar caliber range into the hundreds of dollars to participate.
I look forward to seeing a full MEAC over the Easter weekend!