News

Hi,

Well the grading and Shiai took place this weekend, and was a resounding success. We had visitors from all over the North west, and Sensei representing a variety of clubs.

The Grading went smoothly and I dont believe any one was dissapointed with their results. The quality of the Kendo presented was great. Many thanks to the sensei who pannelled:

Gary O'donnell, Wilf Swindells, Mark Needham

Thanks go out to the volunteers who ran the floor (Mr Bauld, and Me :-) ) or stood in where needed (Mr Halls and Mr McFarlane)

The Shiai too was a success, thanks to the excellent work of Sensei Andy Norse. It ran smoothly and was great fun for the Mudansha who fenced, and the Dan grades who refereed.

Congratulations to Nicholas (of Brighouse) who won the competition.

Congratulations to Alex (of Bolton) for winning fighting spirit with an impressive display of good quality kendo.

Thanks to Gill for arranging the meal, it went down well after a hard training session. :-)

Its nice to have feedback too.. Dave (from Liverpool) had this to say..

"Hi Paul,

thanks again for a good day I was thoroughly thrilled with the reffing. I was so stressed coming off after the fist two matches yet couldn't wait to go back on. It's amazing how you can be so focussed on something and yet it just seems completely blank after a while. Not only that but you don't even notice the kendo just notice the score.

I think I scored some good points, there was a couple of times I think I got them before my other judges so I was quite pleased. Also I had some dodgy calls but I really enjoyed it. At any rate I feel far more confident than I did before and I even have a few tips I can take away and pass on to help improve some of my clubs scoring...

...I got to fence with Wilf, just like last year and I think I've improved a bit. It was certainly a pleasure to meet him once again. I had another fence with Mark, his speed is truly phenomenal sometimes, one of your kyu graders and of course your good self. I just wish I had have cleared my cough/cold enough to do it better justice and get a chance with Gary. ...

Anyway I took a few pictures and video, including one that captures Gary fencing someone, with you and Wilf in the background so you may find some value in it if I put it on YouTube, if you want. (yes please)

Thanks again and hopefully I'll get up again, wife willing, before next year. At least it didn't take me two hours to get home this time! All the best

Dave"

I'm looking forward to doing it again next year... maybe sooner ?

Paulo

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OLD NEWS

As you may be able to tell... I'm giving the site a bit of a rejig. This will mean a little disruption but hopefully very litte.

The expected changes are:

more space on a page
Better organised sections
Public areas, for you to put up what you want.

Hope this works :-)

Paulo

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Hi y'all

The grading has been combined with a Shiai and geiko session.

The date of the session is the 27th of April.

It will start at 10:00 am and will end at 03:30 pm.

Please have a look at the in-house grading page for more information.

Cheers

Paulo

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Hi,

further to the discussions about the grading:

The last weekend in April has been put forward as the date.

The grading will be combined with a shiai.

More details to come

We are now Facebook-tastic

Cheers

Paulo

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Hiya,

There is a planned in-house grading that will take place in one of the last two weekends in April (to be decided).

This will be for those wishing to grade up to 2nd Kyu.

Please remember if you want to grade you have to be a BKA member. Either Ask Mark, or myself for forms... or get them direct from the BKA website.

For those not wanting to grade, there will still be a class, that will run around the grading.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers

Paulo

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Hi,

sorry Ive been quite rubbish at maintaining the news of late.

I would like to welcome the host of new members we have gathered in this new year. We hope that they will stay on and give us all a challenge in the coming year.

We are currently upgrading the club equipment, so you will now start to find shiny new Bokken in the bags should you need them. We have also expanded our junior sets of equipment to cope with demand.

Hopefully my ill health is at an end now so I'll be there regularly, which will mean more frequent updates.

See you in class :-)

Paulo

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thanks everyone who came for the meal on Saturday, it was a great do and loads of fun. The food was fantastic as usual.

Colin Nolan was awarded the Fighting Spirit Award by the club for his contribution and progress. Well done matey :-)

Here is the timetable of classes until the new year.

Sunday 23rd	Class running
Sunday 30th	SPORT CENTRE AND CLASS CLOSED
Sunday 6th	Class running. First class of the year, bring yer spirit :-)
Sunday 13th	Classes back to normal.

I'm on holiday now but I'm back in the new year (the 6th) so I'll see you all then.

Merry Chrimbo.

Paulo

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Hello,

The annual Chrimbo practice/meal is set for the 15th of December. The practice will be from 2 til 4 pm on Saturday, then quick change and onto the usual Chinese restaurant.

Let us know in the clas if you want to come. You could chuck me an email if you want and I'll start a list.

cheers

Paulo

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Hiya.

Well done to the DSKYK Bolton team in mumeishi 3's comp.

They did not get very far into the rounds but gave an excellent showing. Giving a great example of uncompromised Kendo. There was no break in posture and no point chasing, which resulted in compliments from other clubs.

The day was filled with a long Ji-geiko session that lasted about 4 hours. Again a great compliment to the Kendo at Bolton was the fact that other Kendoka requested to fence the Bolton team, and at one point a queue was formed.

Keep up the good work lads. Hope the competition bug has not bitten too hard :-)

Perhaps more of us will go down next year??

Paulo

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Hello again..

the site has had a bit of a rejig, so some of the pages you thought were in one place are now in another.

Hope its not too confusing.

There are loads of videos to watch in the Kata section and in the video gallery.

Paulo

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In Case you havent seen.. there are some new piccies in Members-Friendly faces.

I've also submitted two teams for the Mumeishi 3's Taikai.

Team 1 :

Mark

Ewan

Andrew

Team 2:

Colin

Chris

so show us some Grr and get us in the fighting spirit.. the competitions on the 17th (sat) of November.

Grr

Paulo

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Hiya,

I'm bringing a camera in next class to update the Rogues gallery.. dress well.

Even if you are sat on the sidelines I'm gonna get a snap..

Cheers

Paulo

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Miyagawa Sensei (6th dan) will be returning to Japan for good at the beginning of November.

He will be holding one last practice in Nottingham (please see below).

The practice is mainly aimed at experienced kendoka, but all enthusiastic kendoka are welcome.

Let's give Sensei a big send-off!

13th Oct/ from 2:00 to 4:30

Place:Nottingham Trent University Clifton Campus. Basket ball Gym/ Sports Hall Nottingham Trent University Clifton campus Clifton Lane Nottingham NG11 8NS Junction 24 from the M1 towards to city centre A453 Close to roundabout Clifton. about 10 min from M1 Junction 24.

Tel: +44 (0)115 941 8418 University Organiser: Yuki emai 07701031133 Fee: 4GBP

(taken from comment page)

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Hi,

to celebrate the weekend, we are having a practice and meal on Saturday the 6th of October.

Thats 06/10/2007.. the sixth of Oct.. October 6th..

We are having a training session first. Starting at 2:00pm until 3:30pm.

If there is anything you want to focus on especially let us know before hand, or tell us on the day.

We are gonna charge usual fees for the class even though its a little shorter than normal.. now before you blow your lids read the whole newsbit.

Once the class is finished we are toddling off to the usual Chinese restaurant for the slap up meal..

mmmm... meal.

Anyway, The cost of the meal is estimated to be £15 per head.

What the Club is going to do is use the money from the training to pay for the hall as usual, and then we will chuck the money (plus maybe a little extra) into a pot to put towards drinks and stuff (the and stuff is for none drinkers like me).

Cheers

Hope to see you all there.

Paulo