Ladies and Gentlemen, it's been a while, hasn't it?
With the years summer course, this year held in it's new
venue of Paisley Scotland, behind us, what better time to check in and give you all a
rundown on all the recent happenings in the club.
For starters, all of our Kyu grades have not only gone
through their next grading, but all passed, including Danielle how has gained
her 3rd Kyu (and thus her first Brown Belt) and Robert who has earned his 1st
Kyu — putting him one step away from obtaining his Black Belt.
Mentioning Black Belts; a group of our more senior grades
also graded recently. Taking place at the Paisley course, two of our
instructors – Sensei Mark Warren and Sensei Russell Nelson (both of whom you
can read more about on our Team page) – took their 5th Dan JKA grading, while
two of our 1st Dan Black Belts – myself included in that – took our 2nd Dan
JKA grading. All of who, I hasten to add, passed!
Kyu grade or Dan grade, however, I think a hearty
congratulations are in order for all. You all worked hard to get where you are
now, and I have the highest confidence that you will all reach the next level
of your Karate, whatever it may be, before you even know it.
Outside of the usual stresses for everyone when one's
comrades are going for a grading. The Paisley course, as is to be expected, was
the usual mixture of world-class teaching from both Sensei Kawasoe and this
year's guest instructor Sensei Shiina – direct from JKA HQ in Tokyo – and
catching up with friends and fellow karate-ka from both home and overseas.
As for the teaching points covered by Sensei Kawasoe and
Sensei Shiina over the course of the three days? Unfortunately, this post would
never end if I started covering all of them here, so keep your eyes tuned to the
blog and Facebook page as I will hopefully have a post including a number of
the lessons from the Paisley course up here in the next few weeks.
Last up on the news front, the old Legacy Gallery,
showcasing some of the past moments and events in the clubs history, has now
been rebuilt after our move to this new website. The website has also received
some backend work (don't worry, I won't bore you with the details) to make your
experience, hopefully, a smoother one.
I would like to also extend another thank you to Allan Shepherd who
has moved his rundowns of our Wednesday Kata sessions from Facebook to the OSKC
blog. Expect more of those in the coming future.
And with that, we come to the end of the news, though on one
final note if anyone has any blog post idea's, posts they want to put up on the
site, or even some photos/videos for our gallery, please feel free to drop me a
line or grab me at training.
See you all in the Dojo,
Michael
