Congratulations Brady Albrand

I would very much like to congratulate Brady on his success this weekend in passing his Shodan examination in jujutsu.

The panel consisted of Kurt Graham kyoshi, Jason Griffith renshi, Peter Hills renshi, and myself.

Brady is the first person to reach shodan under the BBRD Jujutsu syllabus, having trained under me for the past 13 years.

So now the hard work begins! Many thanks to the grading panel, and his uke (who included a surprises Tony Schirmer on Sunday) and I hope that everyone congratulates Brady when they have the opportunity.

Notice of AGM 5 pm Sunday 27 August 2022

The Club’s Annual General Meeting will be held at 5 pm on Sunday 27 August. An Agenda will be senn soon and posted up via the Club’s usual channels.

Details are:

BBRD Martial Arts Club is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: BBRD AGM

Time: Aug 27, 2023 05:00 PM Brisbane

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 848 3749 1720

Passcode: 325786

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Reminder: no training this Saturday (Club clean up)

Hi folks,

Another quick reminder that this Saturday 12 August from 2 pm, we will not be running regular classes. Instead, we will be conducting a spring clean and equipment maintenance for Club gear and the store room, and running a workshop format for looking after your own gear.

I would please encourage everyone who can come to please do so. First, it is part of contributing to the collective good and sense of community to contribute. Second the more people there, the lighter the load for everyone. Third, regardless of disciplines you practice, you will learn some valuable skills for maintaining your own uniform and equipment.

Please bring with you any of your own gear that you would like checked/assessed/fixed. In addition, if you have access to buckets/mops, scrub brushes, sewing kits etc. please bring those along too. We ought have sufficient cleaning fluids etc.

Hope to see many of you there on Saturday. Even if you can only stay for a while, or come in later your contribution will still be valuable.

Equipment maintenance and storeroom clean up

Just a quick note to let everyone know that some long overdue things are in train at the Club, and I would like for as many of you to be on board four them.

First will be a Club maintenance day, where we will be doing a stocktake of the Club’s stores, maintenance as required and cleaning. This will include checking in on any borrowed uniforms so that they can be properly allocated into our systems.

This will be on Saturday 12 August commencing from 2 pm, and expected to run the full 4 hours till 6 pm.

Along side the Club equipment, we will also be having workshops for your own gear’s maintenance, including wooden weapons, uniforms, protective equipment, and personal first aid kit checklist. I would strongly encourage everyone to participate.

Second item will be a very long overdue annual general meeting. We will be holding this on Sunday 27 August at 5 pm via Zoom. Again I would encourage all of you to participate as there will be some important changes to the Club that we will be made going forward, and it would be good to have as many of you be a part of that process. An e-mail with the Zoom details will be going out within the next few days.

Third, my workplace, Up & Active Physiotherapy will be participating in a team building exercise in the late afternoon/early evening of Friday 1 September, where they will be joining us in the dojo to get a taste of what the martial arts entails. Again there will be more details coming up in the next week, but it would be good to have some of you lock in that date to provide uke/motodachi services.

Finally, Kurt Graham sensei’s visit and weekend gasshuku is coming up the weekend of the 16th of September. It will be mostly jujutsu focussed. If you are interested in attending, please let me know ASAP.

Hope to see everyone in the dojo in coming days.

Lessons in the journey

So I didn’t pass, and that is a good thing.

The Easter weekend was partly spent in Melbourne attending the 45th AKC seminar and having a first attempt at a Kendo yondan examination. The seminar was important for two reasons. First was to meet the new requirement of all recognised Kendo instructors to attend a FIK Tier 1 (National-level) seminar to gain/maintain accreditation. The second was to take the opportunity to connect with the wider Australian kendo community and critically reflect on my own kendo practice and journey.

My preparation leading to this attempt over the past six months has been particularly sketchy. A new job starting at the end of last year, disruptions to training rhythms, and other challenges including niggling injuries have made it difficult to build the momentum up in relation to the type of consistency needed to demonstrate the sharpness required to be successful at a grading. One thing that I have always appreciated over my Kendo journey is that concessions are not made for “having done your time” with respect to gradings. You are either meeting the technical standard or you do not. So I was in good company, with only 6 of the 19 candidates for yondan making it through.

The benefit of this type of standards is that it gives you something clear to work towards. So whether you pass or not, you can continue to improve your kendo with that experience. One of the most valuable lessons from this is the development of resilience in the face of being unsuccessful, something that unfortunately is not normalised. It is not to say that it is not disappointing to not make it through. There will always be an element of having to sit with the realisation that you are still a distance away from the necessary standard and that if you are to be successful, then things need to change. This can feel like a hard barrier when there are many other things in your life clamouring for your time, focus and resources.

For me, step one is identifying the technical components I need to improve. Some are small details of process, to get them smooth and consistent now that they have been identified, like entering and exiting the shinsa-jo with the appropriate timing following the appropriate commands from the dojo steward. Some small things are a little more tricky, though still simple. The big one for me is the correct wearing of the men which was pointed out to me by one of the visiting hachidan from Japan. Incorrect eyeline, leading to incorrect posture, leading to too much tension in the body, leading to a lack of sufficient crispness in the cuts I made.

So, a seemingly simple fix? Save for having developed a habit of not knowing what correct feels like. And then there is more fundamental changes that need to be made to the style of play that is appropriate for the grade I am chasing. Part of this will come back to putting in the necessary physical “miles” to develop the speed, power and timing required.

The trick is to have a plan. And gather the resources necessary to be closer to success at the next opportunity. First step is mindfulness in practice. Making sure that some of the minor points are being thought about and checked each time. Being insistent (and persistent) that everything is worn correctly, continue to drill the correct stepping on and off, put the effort into every cut. Second step is to (re)build the physical foundations — aerobic fitness, speed and power drills, technical skills.

The next thing beyond the plan is to have accountabilities so that the plan can be enacted. People reminding you of what you have undertaken, people generously helping you with their own time and observation of your practice. People sharing the journey with you.

The third is to understand the trade-offs you make in order to reach those goals. In other words being mindful of what is important to you at any one time, and what needs to be focussed on first before other goals can be achieved. This is not a fixed list, and the order will swap around as time progresses. And while it may seem like at certain times there is very little choice about what you have to do, or the conviction you can put into it at any one time, you need to focus on what is in your scope of control and just focus on that first. Anything else is just a dilution of your ability to achieve anything.

I want to thank everyone that has been a part of my journey to this point. And to thank everyone who will be part of the next phase. As I keep saying to myself:

Gambareba dekiru to omoimasu

In doing your best you will get there.

Hope to see as many of you as I can over the next few months as I work on my own goals, and I hope that I can be a mutual support to achieving yours too!

New Club year

Happy New Year everyone!

Saturday marked the start of the new Club year. We mark the start of the Club calender from April 1. We will be sending out membership renewals for everyone who joined or renewed prior to January 1 this year in the coming week. We will have a short form to fill out on-line for renewing members, so we don’t have an avalanche of paper come in.

We will also be having our Annual General Meeting after Easter, so a 14 day notification of that will also come out fairly soon too.

There have been a few movements of people over the past few months, and so I will be asking everyone to think about stepping up and taking an active role on the Executive. You can nominate for any position that you would like, but currently looking for someone to nominate as the Club Secretary and the Member Protection Officer.

Classes through till after Easter

With school holidays on, Easter this week, and me mounting a campaign to challenge for Yondan in Kendo Tuesday week, there are a few changes to regular scheduled classes over this period.

First Mike C is away on holiday so there will be no Systema classes till Tuesday 18 April. Brady is heading to he parents for Easter, so there will be no Jujutsu this Saturday. Next Arnis class will be Saturday 15 April.

Last chance Kendo for me will be Thursday and Saturday at the usual time, and then … we shall see.

Short update (classes for the next few weeks)

Just a quick reminder that the next two weeks will have changes to the timetable for regularly scheduled classes.

First, this Saturday we will be away attending the SEQ Regional Kyu grading in Brisbane. We wish all the best to Sean, Clint and Aren who will be presenting for evaluation. As a result there will be no Kendo, Iaido or Arnis on.

Next Tuesday (14 March) we will be holding an early grading opportunity for Jujutsu as we are about to loose Heather to an overseas adventure of a lifetime and want to provide her with an opportunity to challenge for her 6KYU (blue belt) as well as opportunities for other willing to challenge. This will mean no second session that Tuesday evening with the focus being on completing the grading.

Following that, Sean and I will be away for Saturday 18 Mach at the inter-Club Kendo yudansha training opportunity, so again no kendo, Iaido or Arnis.

We ought be back to usual programming then till Easter.

Hope to see you all at the dojo!

What's on this week (20 February 2023)

Just a few things to take note of for this week at the dojo.

First we will be doing full grading preparation for Jujutsu on Tuesday, so I would strongly urge those that are looking to take the early opportunity to grade to make sure that you are there tomorrow and ready with any questions regarding gaps in what you know with respect to the grading requirements.

Second, I will not be in town this weekend as I am heading to Townsville in support of the North East Queensland regional grading for Kendo and Iaido. Training on Saturday is scheduled to be relatively normal but please keep an eye on our chat groups just in case Sean or Brady are not able to take class.

Third, if you are free on Wednesday at lunchtime, the Club will be trying to drum up some more membership a the Club Muster, which will be held in the CBRC from 12–2 pm. Bob W from Go and Magda from Kendo have already stuck their hands up to say they will be there in support. However, it would be great if more of you can make it for even a brief amount of time to meet and greet.

Hope to catch up with everyone this week!

Reminder: No training Thursday

Just a quick note that as per usual, a public holiday Thursday means no Kendo or Iaido training.

Will look forward seeing folk throughout the rest of the week, including Arnis on Saturday and Jodo on Tuesday!