Committee Changes

On Friday 7th August 2009, Debbie Muldown stepped down as Chairman for Hartlepool Wadokai.

On behalf of everyone at the club, I'd like to thank Debbie for many years of hard work on behalf of the club and its membership, and we wish her well for the future.

We are holding an EGM in September to discuss the new direction for the club, at this meeting we will vote for a new chairman. Until that time, Vince Dawkins (Vice Chairman) will step up into the Chairman role. All nominations for Chairman need to be submitted in writing before September 6th.

Japan - Returneth

Yes yes... as I've already posted. I'm returning to Japan tomorrow... All i've got to do is fit all the stuff in the photo into my backpack and i'm ready to go.

As you can see, I've got all the essentials including:

• 5 Karate suits...
• 4 karate belts
• 3 backpacks - various sizes
• 2 walking sticks
• 1 really cool head torch
• karate safety gear
• first aid kit
• sleeping bag
• Bisto Gravy
• Chocolate
• PG Tips T bags
• Lynx deoderant and Shower Gel

and of course... my laptop and IPod!

AND, you may ask yourself WHY I would want to return to Japan when I've only been back in the UK for five and a half weeks. No, It's not the wallet-crunching recession, or the mild weather, or the weird food...

...it's the family!

Now, that MAY seem harsh but let's consider that for a moment. The folks have had me working hard in their big old house over the last few weeks doing this...

making this small window-hole into a massive 8ft deep x 8ft long x 5ft wide hole that we've surrounded with a solid brick wall and staircase...

If that wasn't enough, we also found Human Bones whilst digging. Soooo, we had to notify the police, and in true form, they turned up en-masse... about 15 coppers in total! After a few hours of halted play, a university professor turned up to examine the bones. He decided that they were ancient and that we weren't in fact serial killers, so the Police left and we had to notifty the local archeologists.

Thus began a day-long archeological dig. It turns out that we uncovered parts of three people, very likely nuns from about 640AD - similar to the one that Channel 4's Time Team uncovered in the front garden in 2000.

In other news, Amy has had us moving back into our own house after 18 months away from it. So we've, Ok, Amy's been really busy cleaning and unpacking and generally making the house look pretty. So in between trips to Ikea, removing a strange accumulation of 28 inch CRT TV's, and re-setting up our home-dojo, I've been doing my best to resist Amy's insistence that we do actually have to go home eventually.

Amy, busy building an Ikea light, whilst I drink tea and criticise...

Congratulations - 25 years, not out

Cutting of the neck... I mean, cake!!!

Yesterday, a lot of the Hartlepool Wadokai seniors descended upon Hartlepool Divers Club for the 25th anniversary of two of our Executive Committee. Those being Mrs Diane Wilmot, who is one half of our Club Welfare Officer, and Mr Steven Wilmot, otherwise known as 'The Godfather', a man of many talents who not only designed our great club badge, but is also the club press officer, editor of our newsletter AND webmaster of the specially designed 'kids section' of the club website.

The party was a great success, with a great crowd (courtesy of the family), great food (courtesy of Trio Catering) and great music (courtesy of Alan Turner aka Taffy! http://www.taffysdiscotech.co.uk/).

Congratulations on surviving 25 years of marraige from everyone at Hartlepool Wadokai.

Japan - The Return...

This is Sensei Carl with Masatoshi Arakawa,

the youngest son of Takamasa Arakawa Sensei.

It may just be a coincidence, but Carl had to leave the country

shortly after this picture was taken... :-)

Yes that's right, Sensei Carl has been back in the UK for less than 6 weeks but he's getting ready to fly back on Monday 10th August (until the 20th).

He's returning for the 45th JKF-Wadokai All-Japan National Championships were he'll be competing against the best of the best from Japan in Kata (pre-arranged form) and Kumite (fighting). To prepare for the competition, Carl will be returning to Sensei Takamasa Arakawa' (6th Dan JKF-Wadokai) Shiramizu Dojo where he'll be training daily.

Carl also competed at last year's event where he placed in the 'best 16' for Kumite, though didn't get through the first round of Kata. This was still quite a good result considering it was his first ever competition in Japan, and the first time he'd ever competed in Kata in anything bigger than a club-only event.

Whilst there, Carl will also be taking part in an International Expedition to climb all 3776 metres of Mount Fuji, the largest mountain in Japan. He'll be climbing the mountain the day after the Japan Nationals alongside his adopted Karate Sister, Louise Fisk (from New Zealand) and Chris Heinmiller (from Canada) and hoping to reach the summit for sunrise of the 17th August.

We'll keep you informed of Carl's progress in Japan...

Vue Cinema Trip

During our Summer School, which runs from July 20th until August 7th, we managed to negotiate a special discount for our students at Vue Cinema. We all decided to head down to our local Vue Cinema on Wednesday 22nd July to see Ice Age 3 - 3D, which was fantastic...!

Special thanks to the Vue Hartlepool Management for making the trip possible...

Click on the LOGO for the Hartlepool VUE Cinema Website

Stranton Primary School

For the last few months, the club has been running a conditioning class every Saturday morning at Stranton Primary School. Since Amy and I have been back, we've turned this into a two hour Karate class.

The attendance hasn't been particularly inspiring, but every student that turns up has worked really hard and had a great time doing it - what more can you want?

We started out with some basics...

Also at today's class, we continued on with the a theme running through our Summer School - Tanto Dori, or knife defence. This stuff is usually not taught until a student reaches black belt, in fact in Aiwakai (our association) it's not needed until a student tries for 3rd Dan, so it's very advanced stuff.

Despite the advanced nature, and the fact that we had a mix of grades from yellow (8th Kyu) through to purple belt (4th Kyu), the kids did great.

We worked through the first 3 knife defences which in Japanese are called

No1:　 うでがらみどり (pronounciation = u-de-ga-ra-mi-do-ri) Udegarami-dori

No 2:　こてなげどり　 (pronounciation = ko-te-na-ge-do-ri) Kotenage-dori

No 3: うんがどり (pronounciation = u-n-ga-do-ri) Unga-dori

We also made sure they all knew how to breakfall correctly, with amusing results...

Sensei Peter May Training Course

Saturday 11th July 2009, Belle Vue Sports Centre.

Today we had yet another great training course with Sensei Peter May, 6th Dan who was as usual assisted by Sensei Mairi Kerin.

The kids trained first with Sensei putting everyone through the basics, including some simple but effective reaction training.

Then, everyone moved onto basics and Kata training. To finish off, Sensei and Mairi put the kids through their paces with some Grappling Drills which everyone of them loved.

The Seniors started with basics, and moved onto some great sparring drills and finished off with an indepth look at Seishan Kata - which was completely for Carl and Amy's benefit because it's the compulsory Kata for the European Championships in October.

A little bird told us that it was Sensei Peter May's birthday on the following Monday, so we got him a delicious chocolate cake after the kids session to make sure he was suitably embarrassed.

The Usual Suspects - (L-R) Sensei' Mairi, Lynne, Michael, Carl, Sensei Peter May, Vince, Amy

Thanks again to Sensei for another great course. The next one is booked for September 20th at the same venue.