Bogu care

Just a bit of information to those members who have recently started to get into club armour. Please ensure that after practice you keep the bogu in a space at home that is warm, dry and ventilated. Ideally the armour should be out of the bag, at the least the bag should be rolled down. Failure to look after your bogu this way WILL result in mould growing, particularly if you can't attend practice for a couple of weeks, or over the holiday period when we are not training.

Due to having a new kitchen fitted I've not been able to attend to my bogu in the usual fashion and my spare kote have mould growth on them and that's been just a couple of weeks! It just goes to show it can happen to anyone and it can happen very quick, so please take care of the armour on loan to you.

Should the worst happen don't panic. I've used cleaning products such as Oxi Clean and an old toothbrush to remove any mould without any harm to the bogu. Don't use bleach cleaning products under any circumstances. Any questions or tips just ask us, either on practice night or the forum.

Apologies for last nights practice cancellation.

Sincere apologies to all those who turned up for practice last night. As you know it was cancelled due to scaffolding left in the dojo which prevented practice. As this knowledge was not passed onto us we couldn't let people know in advance not to turn up using the blog, the forum, facebook or even by phone.

 

It was a disappointment made more frustrating as Sensei Needham from Bolton Kendo Club made the journey to practice with us. Also, it would have been Dave Parkes, who has been visiting us for the past few weeks from Oxford University, last practice as he will be leaving us and travelling to Japan to train. Thanks for your attendance and safe journey.

 

Lastly, there was lots to catch up on from the Bowden and I'll be posting the remaining links to the matches on youtube, though they are easily found now if you can't wait. Apologies once again and thank you for your understanding.

Attendance

Thanks once again for attending last nights practice, in particular our visitors from near and far, your efforts were appreciated. It's been a good week for kendo in that we've had two days of Intensive Training with the British Squad and two weeks where new practice partners have stretched our abilities and challenged our skills.

Summer is a time where many dojo find numbers slowly drop off as there seem to be far more interesting things to do on a warm evening than stand in a hall and sweat yourself stupid for two hours. Thankfully, for the most part, we have had relatively good numbers attending which is rewarding for us as we are seeing people week in, week out, improving through our efforts. Presumably it's also rewarding for those who attend regularly as they will be experiencing that progression first hand and not feel intimidated by the challenges ahead.

It's understandable that every day life can impact on training which may prevent attendance, therefore can you please make every effort to let us know if you cannot come to practice. If we know individuals are not coming we can aim to start practice sooner rather than later. Aside from that, it's part of dojo etiquette and common courtesy to those who do attend that they will not be benefiting from your presence. More importantly, if you have been loaned club armour you have taken on the responsibility of turning up regularly. If you cannot make that commitment it is only fair that you return the bogu so that someone else who can be at practice every week can benefit and progress. For greater understanding of this please refer to my post on Giri 義理

So, if you can't make it to practice please let someone know through the forum, facebook or email [use the link at the bottom of http://www.liverpoolkendo.co.uk/]. There's plenty of options so there's really no excuse. Thank you for your understanding and as a reminder there is NO kata on Monday, it's a bank holiday so please DO NOT turn up, you'll be disappointed!

More information about intensive training with the GB Kendo Squad

Just to give you a little more information about Squad Training. Our old friend Daniel Antoni, now resident in Japan went to a couple of squad practices. You can read about his efforts on the Kobudokan Kendo Club forum. There's clear indication of how a session runs so forewarned is forearmed.

Additionally The Kendo Hypochondriac Blog also features a short report from the last squad training in Cardiff, you should be plugging that into your RSS readers as it's an interesting read from 'one of us' a 2nd Dan kendoka who's occasionally injured and is beset by the typical kendo concerns we all have.

And just to remind you, where, when and how much it is.

Hope Park Sports Hall, Liverpool Hope University, Taggart Avenue, Liverpool, L16 9JD
Saturday 20th 14:30 - 18:00
Sunday 21st 09:30 - 13:00
Each session costs £5.

PS don't forget to be on time tonight.

Intensive Training with the GB Kendo Squad

If you were unaware the GB Kendo Squad holds regular monthly training sessions, they are open to all BKA Kendo members. One goal of these sessions is to build a pool of talent from which the Great British Kendo Team will eventually be selected. In order to become a GB Kendo Team member, you must  be committed and demonstrate that you will make a consistent contribution to the BKA and the GB Kendo Squad. Joe has been attending these sessions regularly and his progress not only shows in the dojo but he has come close to being included in the team.

This weekend Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st August, Intensive training takes place here in Liverpool. They will be using the same venue as we did when holding the Kyusha Taikia:

Hope Park Sports Hall, Liverpool Hope University, Taggart Avenue, Liverpool, L16 9JD
Saturday 20th 14:30 - 18:00
Sunday 21st 09:30 - 13:00

Each session costs £5, so it's great value for money, three and a half hours of kendo with Britains strongest competetive kendoka under the watchful eye of the Squad coach. This is an event not to be missed as it is highly unlikely to return to Liverpool, but looks set to move to Wolverhampton, so if you get a taste for it this weekend you won't have to go to the ends of the Earth to show you're interested.

Rest assured though, this will be a hard practice, Joe has described it as 'relentless'. If you are up for the challenge you must remember you are joining practice with the GB Squad and it is your responsibility to do your best to improve their kendo as well as your own, they are not there to 'hold your hand'. Therefore if you want to participate please feel free to take advantage of this opportunity. Come with a strong fighting spirit to do your best and learn with the best. Equally if you are not in armour and wish to come along to watch you are more than welcoem to do so to learn what goes on and what it takes to be a squad member.

We shall overcome!

Thanks go out to those who were at practice last night. Unsurprisingly the dojo was not stormed by the disaffected youth of Merseyside on the hunt for large screen TV's, iPhones, and booze. Although it might have been fun if they had... Sensei was grateful for your attendance and efforts and has asked to remind folk that Kata is on Monday. A reminder has gone up on the Liverpool Kendo Google Calendar  and another one will go up afterwards to let you know there is no kata on the 29th as it's a Bank Holiday, if I do it now you'll only get confused.

Additionally I'll be adding a bit more information over the next week about the intensive GB Squad training course being held on the Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st of August at Hope University, where we had the Kyusha Taikai. Hopefully everyone will be able to attend but I just want to clarify details.

Training still on tonight

I contacted both Sensei and they are keen not to let the current disturbances disrupt practices and are confident that the situation was in hand last night and will probably remain so, particularly with the weather being so miserable.

You are however advised to take care and travel with plenty of time to ensure any possible diversions can be negotiated. If you feel there is still risk in attending then please find a way to let us know if you are not coming so we can begin on time and also that we are not concerned for your arrival. Forums, Facebook, email, text, these are all useful ways to convey this.

Beginner's Night July - CANCELLED

Due to a number of factors we will NOT be holding a Beginner's Night on July 27th as previously indicated. We will decide later on whether to hold the next Beginner's Night as advertised on Wednesday October 26, 2011 or to bring it forward. Information will be here, on the forum and on the Beginners page as and when we know it.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Kiai during warm up

Thanks to everyone for their efforts in supporting the new format for the warm up. Kendo clubs around the country have different ways of doing things. In particular this type of warm up with kiai is very popular in other dojos. It's a high energy start to a lesson, without high impact, builds fighting spirit and dojo cohesion and helps practice your kiai.


I have the firm belief that letting go of inhibitions in your kiai is the quickest way to feel part of the club, to feel like you are actually taking part and contributing. Also your progress in things like footwork, cutting, following through and later waza can seem long winded and often non-existent. At least putting your all into how you shout is something everyone can do, regardless of experience!

As this is such a common warm up elsewhere and it will be an ideal way to set the tone at the BKA seminar and Kyusha Taikai we will be continuing this format. I hope everyone takes the opportunity to give it their best. Just in case here's a reminder of what I say:


"ichi, ni, san, shi " (1,2,34)
and you respond:
"go,  roku, shichi,  hachi" (5,6,7,8)

That's not to say our more relaxed warm up won't return. No doubt on our next Beginner's Night on Wednesday April 27, it will return. It's much easier to get the first lot of warm up exercise done properly and safely with a bit of instruction.

If you have any thoughts about the new format let me know, either by the comments or on the forum.

Bogu Babies

Well done to Amir and Mulyo for their first full practice in Bogu last night. It shows true spirit that given the option of only having to complete a couple of fences they chose to practice with everyone for the entire jigeiko. I hope they finally see what kendo can be and realise it's all back to square one.

It's a whole new 'stick game' once the armour comes on and it's very difficult to think about all the basics learned up to this point. As beginners, and even more experienced kendoka, it's always important to reacquaint yourself with the basics - footwork, posture, how you cut, tenouchi, kiai and above all RELAX!

It's important to take you time with these things and all the 'big cutting' basics we do in the main kihon practice is the exact same set of skills you employ when you get into armour. Cut big and commit to your attack with full spirit and kiai. If it fails so be it, you learn from the experience and move on. Hopefully the guys will post something up on the forum on their thoughts of their first time in bogu. This is a momentous occasion worth recording for posterity. Sadly my own experience is lost to me but I can guess how they feel, well done and keep going, gambatte!

P.S. kata Monday, I'll put it on the Calendar n'all

Kata focus

It was a fantastic turnout for kata last night, 17 people with just over half beginners. I think that's a record for a kata session and it was great to see everyone trying to get to grips with the 'technical aspect' of kendo. Hopefully you all benefited from the extra training. It's a very different setup with a little more explanation and a slower pace to help digest the amount of instruction on offer. With a bit of luck it will help you with your Wednesday night practice. We've seen good progress from the last group of beginners who also attended kata so we think it's a key component to improvement.

If you want further insight into kata there is a section on the forum devoted to it, as well as waza [which are specific kendo techniques. You can read up on some of the interesting thoughts and discussions here.
Also if any of the beginners wish to jot down their thoughts on both kata and Wednesday night practices then feel free to add them to the forum or even a review on google would be nice. It can be useful to record your progress, although from experience it's often a different opinion from Sensei but useful all the same if only to show that some weeks you can do it!

Just checking

As in previous posts I've stated I will always try to keep the Club Calendar up-to-date. Sometimes this isn't always possible so if you have any doubts if Kata, or even normal Wednesday practice, is on then please ask on the forum. I check it numerous times a day in case there any questions from members that need answering so please make use of it.

I would rather answer a simple question on the day and save someone some hassle than field a phone call at 7:30 in the evening where one of you is alone in Crosby going 'where is everyone?', only to worry how you're going to get home and what a wasted journey you've had. Yes, they know who they are ;) So any question, no matter how trivial - ask. We are keen to get the forum used more to ensure that questions can be asked all week, not on a Wednesday when really we should be practicing instead of chatting.

Kit bashing

Next Wednesday we will be taking a club photograph. Sensei suggested you should all be looking to get Hakama and Keikogi before Christmas, this was one of the reasons why. If you didn't and hurry you may still be able to secure a set before next Wenesday. There are numerous online vendors for this and some are listed in our links page. Don't worry though, you will still be allowed in the photograph if you're in a tracksuit ;)

Whilst you are at it I would urge everyone to purchase their own shinai as well. We've discussed this on the forum and recommend you purchase from one of the reputable suppliers in the link page. Local sports shops do stock shinai but we have found them to be unsafe.

We will be getting a new batch of Beginners at the end of January and as we are loaning our own personal shinai, in some cases, there is a severe shortage. The club has some 'club shinai' but these, like our personal shinai, are prone to breakages - Beginners do tend to hit hard. The situation will only be compounded by another 6-16 members turning up on Wednesday 26th January. So please make the investment. We would hope all existing beginners have their own shinai, hakama and keikogi by 26th January.

Additionally you MUST have BKA membership as Sensei pointed out last night. In case you still need to get it there's information here. If you have not secured membership by the end of the month for insurance purposes we will be unable to continue training you!

Kata Monday

Sensei didn't get chance to say but it is Kata on Monday, the first of 2011. Please attend, although I will be otherwise engaged. A reminder will go up on the Liverpool Kendo Google Calendar later this week so if you haven't already put it in your RSS reader then do so. If you need help with any of this ask on the forum and I'll direct you. These communications tools are really important particularly over the coming year, please make every available opportunity to engage with them so you know what's going on, thank you.

Website update

Hopefully if you're reading this you should have noticed the website has had a minor update. The text is marginally bigger and a little bit brighter. Mike has already put in a claim for singed retinas!

More importantly there's an orange button to send you to the new page on the BKA Kyusha Taikai on April 2nd and 3rd that we are hosting!

Additionally I've addressed the issue of the missing newsfeed. The Springwidget we used didn't work because their website was down so I've swapped to some other way of doing from a site called Blastacasta [probably too good to be true]. On the one hand it renders the feed seamlessly which is what I had originally envisaged when I set up the blog within Mike's page, on the other I'd just got the Springwidget to include the BKA's news feed as well so it'd have been nice to have wider kendo news available from our home page, "c'est la vie".

Anyway if any of this is beyond you you can always check out the news blog separately. The downside to all this is some pages are acting a little funny but I don't think you will notice any problems if you refresh your browsers, they're more aesthetic errors my picky nature has found. Any comments just drop them in the forum.

Google Advert

A while back I registered Liverpool Kendo Club as a business with Google. This means when you zoom into The Egg on Google Maps we have a little marker that hopefully has been seen by people browsing the area [7420 views since I set it up in June and 562 clicks for 'More info' or click-thru to our website!]. This then links through to another page in Google Places which has a descritption, links, reviews, pictures and videos of the club to drive traffic to our Beginner's Nights. Hopefully it has, the success of our recent Beginner's Nights back this up. Although not many people [here I mean none] have filled in my simple survey to find out how they discovered the club.

One of the unexpected benefits of this was Google sent us a £50 voucher for Google Adwords. So I set up a campaign to advertise our upcoming Beginner's Night on Wednesday 26th January. Half the voucher will be used to promote this event, the other half will be used to promote the British Kendo Association Kyusha Taikai and Seminar we're hosting in Liverpool on April 2nd and 3rd.

So, if you do a Google search [or map search] for 'Liverpool' and 'kendo', for instance, you might see a little box at the top of your search results saying:

Liverpool Kendo Club
Learn the Japanese Martial art of
Kendo free Beginners Night 26.01.11
www.liverpoolkendo.co.uk

So far there have been over 1,400 views of this advert in 3 days, which isn't bad and that translates to 7 clicks through to our website. It's very exciting and when I see the advert I do get an urge to click it myself. I shouldn't have to explain to you all but this would be a mistake. Every click costs part of the advertising budget. So, I would ask if you do see the advert you now know what's going on behind the scenes and please resist the temptation to click it.

It's almost as if we're actually getting organised with stuff!

Winter Training part 1. is complete

For those who couldn't make it tonight you missed out on an awesome display of kendo stamina and whole lot of fun. Please make every effort to come next week as Winter Training not only prepares you after a few weeks of gorging on festive treats but it also builds team spirit and is a complete club bonding experience - it's the highlight of the year!

If you want to know what you missed perhaps some of the happy few who did attend may post a description on the forum. However I will describe it as like kendo sports day, with a bit of It's a Knockout thrown in, if that's not selling it I don't know what is [did I mention 1,000 suburi? erm better not]/

So we expect to see all those 'no shows' next week ;) where I will be preparing for my annual Winter Training injury, ha, ha! Sensei says he's bringing the bigger medicine ball as well.

Christmas traning dates

Apparently there is some confusion about training over the festive period. In particular Mark some think there will be practices on Christmas and New Years Eve. I'm not entirely sure where this is coming from but aside from it being a chronological impossibility - those dates are Fridays, if you recall we practice on Wednesdays, the calendar currently has training thus:

• Wednesday, 15 December
• Wednesday, 22 December
• Monday, 21 December - kata
• Wednesday, 29 December
• Wednesday, 5 January 2011 - Winter training
• Monday, 18 January 2011 - kata
• Wednesday, 12 January 2011 - Winter training
• Wednesday, 19 January 2011
• Wednesday, 26 January 2011 - Beginner's Night

Some of these dates may change and as yet need to be confirmed but this is the current potential schedule. On top of this we have the current weather conditions that may or may not affect training, it did last year, so the only way to keep up-to-date is to subscribe to the Liverpool Kendo Calendar RSS feed. I will try my very best to keep it accurate, failing that you can check on the forum for contact details and email/message/ring one of us.

The Event - 2nd and 3rd April 2011

Some may not know this but I was asked to be Events Officer for the club. Not really along the lines of the Christmas meal coming up [that's Joe's baby], more towards organising an Event for the club and other BKA members to take part in, a BKA weekend seminar for instance.

Now this may be a little premature but I've gone public with a date for our event, which is particularly brave considering we don't have a venue, funds or high grade Sensei to take the seminar, but those are just minor details... ;)

Anyway, as the headline suggests the Liverpool Kendo Seminar will take place on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd April 2011. Put it in your diaries and use it as a goal to aim for because hopefully we'll get a big turn out and we can put our dojo and all the other North West kendo clubs on the map and show what we're capable of.

There's still a lot to do and organise, if you think you can help in any way let me know. Things will become a lot clearer over the next few weeks and we can get most of the organisation started. Now that I've announced it on the BKA forum I'm cacking it a bit because failure's not an option but the rewards will be great for all of us, who knows what we may do if this succeeds (!) so your support is appreciated.

Organisational tools

If there's one thing the club has fallen short in success over the years it's organising things. When it comes to competitions and gradings I can recall being sat at the Egg on the morning of a Bowden trying to find out who's going and how we're getting there. It makes any attendance at a competition that much more difficult and remarkable that we competed at all!

Joe has had quite a problem organising the team for the Mumeishi 3's and it would really benefit us all if everyone could get on board with all the facilities put in place to get information and keep in touch with those 'in the know'.

The technology exists for us all to keep up-to-date with what the club is doing and there are very few barriers to contacting one member or another. Hopefully you will all be checking the website for this news page [or you won't be reading this] or you can subscribe to the RSS feed [in iGoogle, Livemail or other reader] using this link:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/KendoDays

Additionally you can plug the Liverpool Kendo Calendar into your RSS reader and sign up for the message board. The forum is an ideal place if you need any questions answered or wish to discuss anything about kendo or the club. By using the forum this way we'll all chat less at the beginning and end of practice and get more out of the training. It was noticeable that we were quite late in leaving on Wednesday so we really need to start using the 'extra-curricular' options to chat as opposed to in the dojo.

Lastly if all these are too much for you but you're still an avid fan of Facebook then don't forget we also have a Facebook group that will pull in this information as well, so join the group at least. Thanks for your help in this, hopefully we'll be able to organise our next event without too much hassle.