Nanseikan Kendo Club 剣道クラブ南西館

Nanseikan has been invited by organisers of this festival to do a short demonstration on the stage at Fed Square. Apparently last year they had over 40,000 people take part! As it is only a 10 minute demonstration, we don't need many people. Chie-san and her kids will be there as will I. If anyone else would like to join us they are more than welcome. The demo will be between 1 and 2pm. On at the same time is the Nittaidai seminar , which I think is a more important priority, so I would be much happier if members chose to attend that instead. Indeed the Nittaidai seminar is over both days, and this also clashes with the first class of the beginners' course. I've decided I will take this beginners' course simply so that as many people as possible are able to take part in the seminar on the Saturday as well.

EDIT: I've posted a different pic of the "Thumbs up" kote tshirt. There are quite a lot of garments available including hoodies and windcheaters. There are also iPhone wallets, stickers, tote bags and cushions (!). Their tote bags are really good, I've bought a few over the years and they're really sturdy; perfect for carrying kendogi and hakama, library books or just the shopping. Above is the most basic tshirt available.Could be the perfect gift for the Kendo person/social media addict in your life. Maybe that's you! For those that don't read Japanese, it says "ii, ne!" which means "it's good isn't it!", the Japanese equivalent of "like". Check out the different styles and colours here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/nanseikan/works/29785820-thumbs-up-kote?asc=u&p=mens-premium-t-shirt PS - this is my original artwork, so as the copyright holder I get a small portion of the fee from each sale. :) b

This video is 10 years old this year! It's still a great resource for oji waza. What does debana kote look like when done properly? What about suriage? Or kaeshi? Just watch and you'll find out!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2018 is an active and fruitful year for you all. Training for term one starts on Saturday 3 February is an 8 week term . We will start Wednesday night trainings the Wednesday after that. The first beginners' course will start Saturday 24 February. Fees will be the same as last year. Please endeavour to pay for the whole term on the first Saturday. Nittaidai Seminar, Monash Clayton 24-25 February This year we start with a bang, with the visit of these three sensei from the National Sports Science University (Nittaidai) in Tokyo. Yagisawa sensei (K8 dan), Shinzato sensei (R6 dan) and Furusawa sensei (R6 dan) will be running a seminar at Monash University's Clayton Campus over the weekend of 24-25 February. This seminar is being organised by the VKR. Below are details as to how to book, prices, etc. Feel free to go ahead and book if you are keen, particularly if you want to take advantage of the early-bird rate. This seminar will be a gre...

Shochugeiko will take place on Saturday 16 December from 9am to 5pm. Cost is $10 for Nanseikan members, $20 for VKR/AKR members. Snacks provided but BYO lunch. This year we will have a special guest Ekai Korematsu osho. Ekai osho is a Soto Zen priest and Abbot of Jikishoan Zen Buddhist Community in Melbourne  www.jikishoan.org.au . He is very familiar with Kendo having been involved in teaching Zen to some Hanshi 8-dans when he lived in Kumamoto. If you have a meditation cushion (like a zafu ) or stool, please bring it. Otherwise a firm cushion is fine. Ekai-osho's mini-workshop will start at 9.30am, after zokin and rei. WKC t-shirts and tenugui have arrived! The fund-raising tshirts and tenugui for the the Aussie team going to the WKCs next year have arrived, so we'll hand them out tomorrow to all those who ordered them. They look really good. Arpad Maksay sensei Kendo 6 dan Congratulations to Maksay sensei for passing his 6th dan exam on the first attempt! There ...

Club zekken (also called nafuda) are required for all members who wear bogu. If you don't have one, you should order yours asap. They are made to order in Japan by Zen Sankei and are a once-off cost. Zekken pretty much last forever and you can easily transfer them from one set of bogu to another. The only exception is if you need a smaller size for children's bogu. In that case I would order a medium sized one. Otherwise for adults, order the large size. Here is the link: http://www.zen-sankei.com/onlineshop/product_info.php?cPath=21_66&products_id=347 When entering your name, please type first name in sentence case, surname in all caps, e.g. "Jane SMITH" This is to avoid mistakes at the Japan end where family names come first and there can be confusion occasionally about which is which.  This zekken design is required by the AKR for all competitions. If you don't have one like this, you can't compete. And you don't want to be orderin...

With all of December's rainfall forecast to fall on us on Saturday, we must be aware of the possibility of the djo flooding and the need to cancel training. I will monitor the situation tomorrow and will keep you all updated. At this stage I don't imagine the Junior Championships at the Kenshikan on Sunday (12.30 for a 1pm start) should be affected and will go ahead as planned.

WWCCs All NSK members over the age of 18 should apply now for a Working With Children Card. http://www.workingwithchildren.vic.gov.au/home/ It is free and the card lasts for five years. When you fill out the form, the volunteer organisation you should put is the Victorian Kendo Renmei: Organisation: Victorian Kendo Renmei Organisation Postal Address:  91 Rosslyn Street, West Melbourne, Victoria 3003 Organisation Phone Number: (please email me directly for this as it is a private number) As a state-govenment recognised organisation, the VKR also needs comply with VicSport's Child Safe guidelines. Please have a read through these:  https://vicsport.com.au/child-safe-standards OBON Society http://obonsociety.org / This is the organisation I told you about at training today. Here is a link to a news item about the Yosegaki Hinomaru  (soldier's good luck flag) return that Gazzaniga sensei attended earlier this year: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/sh...

And should be every week from now on for term 4. However for updates, click on "subscribe" in the masthead above.

Welcome back! Term starts this Saturday. It will be good not to be freezing at the start of training! We will start with iai at 8.30 for those interested. Below is lots of news with  Action  items highlighted. New member We will be welcoming an adult visitor from Japan who wants to recommence her Kendo training while she studies English in Melbourne. I'm not sure how long she will be staying in Australia but that's something to look forward to nevertheless. Wednesday night training There will be no Wednesday night training this week (11 Oct). I will be unavailable next Wednesday (18 Oct) but training can go ahead if there are enough people who want to go. Action : Let me know this Saturday at training. Cherry Blossom Festival Kendo Demo Also, the Cherry Blossom Festival is this Sunday and I'd like to know who, apart from Sean, would be interested in taking part.  Action :  Please see previous post on this blog for details and let me ...

We have been asked to do a Kendo demo at this festival from 12.30 to 1pm. Ideally it would be great to have four people there to demonstrate, but the more the merrier! In 30 minutes I would hope to do some Kendo kata and also some shinai Kendo in full bogu. If you are interested in taking part please let me know.

Reposting for Andy and Paul. Also click here to go to the NSK Beginners' handbook. See you all back at training on the 13th!

The Victorian Kendo Technical Committee reminds all VKR members of the importance of confidentiality in regards to gradings. Please see the statement from Macak sensei below. The gist of it is that grading panels members do not know how other members vote. It is completely inappropriate to try and find out which panel member may have given you a failing grade. If you inadvertently find out, please keep the information to yourself and also let the VKR know how this information came to be in your possession, so procedure can be tightened preventing this happening again. Panel members are approachable for general feedback from their point of view. They may or may not choose to tell you which way they voted, however by asking them directly you put them in an invidious position. Better to just seek feedback on what aspects of your Kendo need work before the next grading. While it is hugely disappointing and frustrating to fail, you should remember that in Kendo there is no limit to the...

Congratulations to all those who graded on Sunday! It was a huge grading, and there was a great feeling of how well Kendo is developing in Victoria. It was especially great to see so many kids from the Monash club. In the end the pass rate was 100%. For low kyu grades, this is as it should be. No-one should be arriving at their grading under-prepared, so it means both candidates and their clubs' instructors are doing their jobs. I was very impressed by our kids' performances. They all did their best-ever Kendo. This too, is as it should be. I'm sorry I didn't get a photo of everyone with their certificates; one of the problems of having my attention split between so many different areas. But this pic I think shows how busy it was in the Kenshikan. The day went very smoothly. Everyone got to watch the other other gradings too, so you all know what you will have to do for your next one! See you at training.

Training tomorrow will be normal time: 9am to 11am. But we will be at the Kenshikan, 91-99 Rosslyn St, West Melbourne. See you there!

It's a busy weekend with the VKC, but we will be starting our semester two beginners' course this Saturday. Beginners from 9am to 10am. Seniors from 9am to 11am. If you're thinking of starting, drop us a line: nanseikan at gmail. Please download the enrolment form and bring it in on the day: http://www.kendo.org.au/p/enrolment-form.html There is also a handbook of Kendo terms and other information you can download for free: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18z5KYMuwsLMvyCd2GNWboSMw-iv-bTnZSmzK4Y2IcLk/edit?usp=sharing

Our new nafuda kake contains the names of all people who have been members of the club through the VKR. Quite a few of the names current members won't recognise. But it's a fitting way to mark our fifteenth year by honouring all the people who have trained with us, no matter what level they got to before they moved on. There is plenty of space for current members to move up to the upper grades, and plenty at the bottom for new members.