Nanseikan Kendo Club 剣道クラブ南西館

OK, so the forecast isn't great, but it's OK. 20 degrees and 10% chance of rain... so we'll go ahead with our barbie at Malahang.  The BBQ will go from  12.30 to 2pm , and I suggest that everyone brings what they need in the way of food and drink to training that morning. It can be stored in one of the fridges in the hall's kitchen. Then we can go to Malahang as soon as we pack up and get changed. I think keep it simple and light. Bring enough to feed yourself and any offspring/family you may have with you, but don't worry about catering for everybody. If your thing is salads, just bring salad. If it's sausage-in-bread then do that. I'm going to bring some of this to celebrate with, you might want to bring something soft. See you at training!

Last week we went to Cragieburn Martial Arts centre and filled their Kendojo to bursting. It was wonderful to meet Kevin and Leanne and admire the beautiful training space they have built with lots of hard work and love of budo. I think they also enjoyed seeing the dojo used to its absolute maximum! I'll attach all of the action shots at the bottom of this post. If you would like a higher resolution version of any of these images, please email me. Conversely if you would like any of them removed from this page or from our IG, please also don't hesitate to get in touch. 2019 membership fees due 15 May Annual membership fees are due soon. Fees are (still) $70.00 for adults and $45.00 for juniors. Fees are payable to me and I will forward a single club payment to the VKR by the due date. The AKR AGM was held over Easter. As you may already know Stilts was elected unopposed to be the new President of the AKR. Congratulations! The minutes, outgoing President's Repor...

This was held today in Nagoya. I have to admit that most of the names on the list I was unfamiliar with. However Miyazaki Masahiro was amongst them and this year he made it to the quarter finals only. After winning last year in his first 8th dan competition I think many people thought Miyazaki might dominate this competition like he usded to dominate the All Japans (he holds the record as a six-time winner. Onda sensei I know nothing about, however Ishida sensei is very well-known outside Japan. The AJKF have been very quick to upload this year, with it seems nearly all the matches available on their Youtube already. Goran kudasai!   https://www.youtube.com/user/ZennipponKendoRenmei Training starts this Saturday (no training Wednesday).

Thanks to Kyohei for pointing it out: as we will be training at Cragieburn Martial Arts Centre on 21, we will move our BBQ to the following Saturday. All other details remain the same as mentioned in the original post:  https://www.kendo.org.au/2018/03/grading-resultsend-of-beginners-course.html

On Saturday 21 April we will be relocating training for one week only to Craigieburn Martial Arts Centre  at 2/19 Export Road Craigieburn. The centre has its own Kendo Dojo and is privately owned and run by Leanne Walsh and her husband Kevin. Leanne is also the current VKR Treasurer, and our man Stilts is their Kendo instructor, so there are plenty of friendly connections! We will meet at St Pius at 9.00am so the beginners and others can get their bogu, then we will set out at 9.30 for Cragieburn (about a 25 min drive). Training will go from 10.00 am to 12.00 noon. There will be no special fee for the training, it will just be considered one of our normal trainings. However being the first training of term, our usual fees will be due (term two is a 10 week term). There will also be new shinai and bokuto available for purchase: new shinai and bokuto in bags for beginners... ...and some extra shinai (including more expensive madake shinai) for seniors. I al...

Michi Martial Arts is our most local equipment supplier, run by Junko Nomura who is a senior member at Kenshikan. The new website has lots of new products, as well as a proper shopping cart and credit card payment, making it much easier to order. Junko sources all her products through reputable suppliers in Japan, and being a kenshi herself, only chooses the best value and most useful products. No more Facebook I've never been a big fan of Facebook, and since migrating my personal account over to a group page, I've experienced ever more frustrations with its lack of functionality. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has been for me the last straw (and is probably only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the kind of privacy abuses FB is guilty of). So in the spirit of #deletefacebook, I've decided to stop using the platform altogether. I won't actually delete the page, but it will become dormant. It will be a static page advertising our training times and location bu...

...only for subscribers to this site! No FB or SMS! 7.30 to 9pm as usual.

This year's Kangeiko will be held at the Eastwood Leisure Complex in Ballarat. The date is Saturday 23 June. At this stage the plan is to meet at Southern Cross Station to catch the 7.16am train. The train arrives at Ballarat station at 8.40am and from there it is a 5-10 min walk to the venue. We will finish training at 4pm. At around 5pm we will head to Asahi Japanese Restaurant for an early dinner (5.30 start). We will catch the 7.13pm train back to Melbourne. The train is scheduled to arrive at Southern Cross at 8.40pm. The train can be paid for using a standard Myki. The adult fare deduction will be $15.12 one way. Concession is $7.56 one way. The cost of the training will be by donation. All food, drink and snacks will be BYO. More details soon.

The results of the two March gradings reflected the difficulty of the gradings themselves. Of all the Nanseikan members who graded this March, all but one passed! Congratulations! The one who didn't pass was the person who was going for the highest grade. As you go up through the ranks, what you are asked to do for each grading doesn't change, but the quality of how you do it must. It is more and more likely that you will fail the higher you go, right up to 8-dan where your chances of failing are consistently >99%. To Chie who did not pass her 3-dan grading, I offer commiserations and encouragement. Unlike in Western culture where failure is often seen as an indication to try a different path ("stop flogging a dead horse") in Kendo, the only failure is giving up altogether. Failure can be painful, but it is also an excellent teaching tool and we should embrace it, not run away from it. When you fail your grading. What to do next. End of B...

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.