December 2012

New Syllabus

At the recent Brown and Black Belt seminar in New Westminster, the Technical Committee met to work on finalizing the new syllabus. This version came about for several reasons. Primarily, we wanted to bring kihon, kata and kumite closer together. For example, kihon will now contain technique that reflects combinations used in both kata and kumite. This syllabus also has a more pronounced progression. While the red to green belt exams remain very much the same, increasingly complex combinations and more varied techniques are required through the brown and black belts. We also hoped to make it more interesting by introducing a greater variety in technique, more stances and increased movement.

The plan is to introduce the new syllabus in January with the first grading under the new format to take place at the April Brown and Black Belt seminar in Victoria.

Summer Camp 2012

Summer camp was held in Kelowna this year where we experienced some real summer (+35). Thanks to Sensei Elizabeth Wijnstra, we had a lovely air conditioned gym to train in.

There were about 50 participants this year. It was really nice to see some old friends back at camp like Kurt Pattison from Kelowna and Chris Walker from Calgary.

We had a busy weekend including a Technical Committee meeting, elections and a good deal of training with kobudo instruction first thing in the morning followed by lots of falling on the floor and a test drive of the proposed syllabus. Saturday, we had our grading where four Yukoners were promoted to shodan, Andrew Sinclair made nidan and Sensei Jessica Moore of the UVic club was promoted to Yondan. The day finished with a group dinner.

Sunday was completed by an energetic line drill that had everyone one sweating and doing more kiai than we usually do in a month. Thanks to Scales Sensei for that one. And thanks to Sensei's Ingram and Wijnstra for their teaching as well as instructors Mike Maxwell, Doug Rathy, Guido Arnaud, Mark Deugau, Jean Rodrigue, Kurt Pattison and Chuck Julson for helping out.

Next year in Victoria where we are proposing to add an extra day to the camp just for kobudo. Stay tuned.

Jean Sabastien Rodrigue and Kurt Pattison frolic at summer camp 2012.

See the rest of the summer camp pictures here.

Thanks to Nancy Claire Duchaine for the piccies!