January 2009 schedule

Richard here...

Prior to every month Arakawa Sensei prints a schedule for the coming month and hands a copy out to everyone. It lists all the events at the top, plus the different branch class times at the bottom. Since last November when he had his Japanese website revamped, he now posts these schedules online too.

Some things for January;

Sun Jan 11 - New Year Walk to Shrine 1:30pm

Mon Jan 12 - Kagami Bariki festival at the Nippon Budokan (see last year's post message)
10:20am meet time for the 12pm start

Mon Jan 12 - First formal New Year training session - Asukaru Rec Ctr 6pm

Sat Jan 17 - high performance training class 4pm

Sat Jan 31 - Instructor's only class 8:30pm

Happy New Year!

Richard here... Happy New Years to everyone!

This is the official Shiramizu 'nengajo', New Year's Card, sent out by Arakawa Sensei.

Yes, that's him with a kumite helmet on that has an Ox picture on it, since 2009 is the Year of the Ox. On the right in bold are the many tournaments and events listed by month, followed by a message, then some January and February 2009 event reminders (which I've added to our events list in the blog's right column).

Pretty much all adults in Japan send out nengajo cards to everyone they know, and these are delivered by or on Jan 1st by a huge fleet of postal delivery men on little red motor bikes. These are designed like a post card, with a personal message and picture on the front, which a person can have made easily at stationary stores, post offices, printing shops, photo stops, etc.

Between Dec 22 to about the 27th, Japanese people are madly trying to get their cards done and get them mailed so they can be delivered on Jan 1st, as Jan 2nd would be late and lateness by even one minute in Japan is a no-no...

As for international squad here at Shiramizu, we had a great 2008 and the new year looks even better. I wish everyone a wonderful, peaceful 2009.

Gekkan Karatedo Magazine article about Oliva Sensei!

Richard here...

The late Shotokan Master Hidetaka Nishiyama on the cover.

The latest edition of Gekkan (monthly) Karatedo magazine came out on December 27th, with a very nice four page write-up about Antonio Oliva Sensei's kumite seminar. The magazine writer wrote about the seminar in great detail, very similar to our own earlier posts about it.

Team Gaijin NiJiKai

Carl here...

After the Shiramizu Bonnenkai, Team Gaijin (Richard, Carl, Amy, Lawrence) headed to a Karaoke place in Kasukabe for a continuation of the end of year celebrations - Japanese style!

Team Gaijin NiJiKai – Karaoke Baby!
This was the first time that I’ve ever done karaoke, with an audience anyway!

But Richard started us off with a bit of U2,


...and then Amy took over and sang along to every song after that.


...and this was before we started the music!
I think this is the full playlist, though I’m not sure about the order:

• U2 – With or Without You – (Richard)
• Queen – Don’t stop me now – (Lawrence)
• Maroon 5 – Sunday Morning – (Carl)
• Savage Garden – I want you – (Amy)
• Radiohead – Creep – (Richard)
• Savage Garden – Truly Madly Deeply – (Lawrence & Amy)
• Robbie Williams – Rock DJ – (Carl)
• Blur – Charmless Man – (Amy)
• Cheap Trick – I want you to want me - (Richard)
• Rhianna – Umbrella – (Lawrence & Richard)
• Meat Loaf – Two out of Three Ain’t Bad – (Carl)
• Destiny’s Child – Independent Woman – (Amy)
• Destiny’s Child – Say my Name – (Amy)
• Bon Jovi – Livin’ on a prayer – (Richard, Lawrence, Amy, Carl)
• Diana Ross– I will Survive – (Lawrence, Richard, Amy)
• Simon & Garfunkel – Sound of Silence – (Carl)
• Smash Mouth – All star – (Amy & Carl)
• Blondie – Heart of Glass – (Amy)
• Green Day – American Idiot – Finale!! – (Everyone)

I’d like to apologise to the singers and songwriters on behalf of Team Gaijin, for murdering perfectly good songs! I’m blaming the sake!!!

In summary I must say that I am something of a karaoke legend...


This is me, not forgetting the words...
I have the ability to forget the words to songs (even though they are on the TV screen in front of me!) and I can’t keep rhythm...


...but as you can see from the photos, we all had a great time regardless!

Shiramizu Bonnenkai

Carl here...

Shiramizu Bonnenkai
The end of year party was held at Manya restaurant in Kasukabe. This party was also held in celebration of Mr. Hirai’s recent wedding. Approximately 50 people turned up for this all you can drink meal. After everyone settled in, mingled a bit and sampled some of the delicious food on offer, Ueno-san started off the game of bingo. Everyone at the party was asked to bring a prize worth 1000yen or less, so that no one would leave empty handed.

Ueno, assisted by Mori drew out all the numbers and kindly shouted out the numbers in Japanese and English.

Kikuchi Sensei thought that the purple make-up bag that he won contained something special, so he kept rummaging through all the packaging until he finally realised that the bag was the prize!

This is my bingo card. I was obviously doing very well! I ended up winning a box of gravel. I was told that you have to put them in the bath, rather like a mini spa, but it was still gravel!

After everyone had won a prize we carried on with the general drinking and merriment until the start of the speeches. Apparently the bingo game slightly over ran the schedule so the speeches were to be short and to the point. Even so, the speech was still to be a reflection of the past year and also what you would like to achieve in 2009 (hansei and hofu).


I challenge you...!
Suzuki Sensei’ speech was very good, with lots of energy and thankfully we had Richard Sensei translating it for us. He basically said that he’s 50-odd years old, but he’s still entering the Wadokai Karate Kanto Area Taikai (Kanto Championships - March 2009), and he challenges all the other Shiramizu instructors to follow his lead. I’m not sure about the others, but I know that both Yamazaki Sensei and Yoshihara Sensei have risen admirably to the challenge and will be entering both kata and kumite divisions despite both ladies being kata players!



Me and Yoshihara Sensei
During the party Yoshihara sensei asked me to help her with her kumite since I’ve started coaching** her daughter Kana when we have the time, she’s already improved significantly!

**This translates as me trying to beat up Kana at every opportunity!

My speech went something like this (only in Japanese):

Good evening!
Arakawa Sensei and Ueno-san, thank you very much for changing the venue for the party.

((The party was originally going to be at the same place as Arakawa Sensei’s masters party!))

The food at the last place wasn’t very nice.
Ueno-san, thank you for the English instructions for the party.

((Ueno took the trouble of translating all the information about the party into English for the Shiramizu English speakers!))

This year has been very busy because I handed over control of my dojo in England to a committee, and now I’m worried about it!
It’s great that we came to Japan this year.
We’re very lucky to be training in karate at the Shiramizu dojo, Thank you Arakawa sensei.
I always do my best in karate, but I still have to work on Junzuki, chinto kata and seishan kata. I hope the instructors will keep teaching me.
In 2009:
I’ll continue to do my best in karate.
I’ll do my best in Japanese karate competitions and do my best with my English dojo.
...oh and visit Kyoto!
Thank you and goodnight!*

The speech seemed to go down well, with a few laughs. Only the gaijin got the ‘thank you and goodnight’ skit but I thought it was a nice touch anyway! Obviously Amy and I had worked on our speeches beforehand, we read them rather than spoke them but everyone seemed to like the effort that we’d put in all the same.

After all the speeches were done we all got together for the group photo and then everyone went their own ways in smaller groups.


The party after the main party is apparently called a ‘Niji-Kai’, so Team Gaijin (Richard / Lawrence / Carl / Amy) went to a local karaoke joint for a Gaijin NiJiKai.

Shiramizu English Class Christmas Party

Carl here...

Shiramizu English Class Christmas Party
The Christmas party for the Shiramizu English class took place on 23rd December. The great thing about this party was that I didn’t have to dress up as Santa Claus that duty and that of magician fell to Arakawa sensei.

I started off the proceedings with a few English games and then Santa Claus came out with presents for everyone.

Santa Claus trying to make an escape...!

Then snacks were brought out for everyone and after this Santa Claus disappeared and was replaced with a very smart looking magician.

Pick a card, any card... no... not that one!
The magician insisted that he wasn’t Arakawa Sensei though the resemblance was uncanny! He kept saying ‘I am not Arakawa, I am a magician!’. Anyway, the kids and parents enjoyed the magic show and Arakawa Sensei was clearly having a great time too.

After the customary group photo everyone disbanded and I had to hurry home to pick up Amy so that we could get to Kasukabe for the Shiramizu Bonnenkai (Year-End Party).

Shiramizu End of Year Training Course

Carl here...

Sunday 14th December was the end of year training course for the Shiramizu dojo. (Training at the dojo didn’t actually finish for the year until the 21st).

300+ Shiramizu members, out of the 450 total.

The course took place at the Asukaru sports centre in Satte City. This is the venue for the Shiramizu branch dojo on Monday nights.

Kindergarten training
The Shiramizu kindergarten kids were up first and with so many tiny students (maybe 70!) I thought Arakawa Sensei was right in doing a roll call to line up each student. In order of branch dojo, he called up each student by name and then they were marshalled into line by one of the many assistants. It’s certainly a better system than letting them try and line themselves up, we’d have been waiting all day!

This session was very short; Arakawa Sensei led the kids through a warm up. Then we bowed in and the students went through some basics and kata.

Being the official intern, I was informed beforehand that I would be Santa Claus at the time Amy was still ‘tag along intern’ so she had to make do with being a reindeer. Yoshiba-san, a student from the Wednesday morning adult class (who wants to be a Shiramizu instructor) was the 2nd Santa Claus.

During the kata, Amy, Yoshiba-san and I were taken away to get changed into our costumes and when we got back, all the kindergarten kids were sitting in seiza meditating. As we walked to the front of the hall, only a few sneaked a peak! Amy, Yoshiba and I then gave all the kindergarten kids a small present from Shiramizu. After posing for a group photo everyone disbanded and we quickly went and got changed again.

Kids and Adult training
Straight after the kindergarten class was everyone else, at a rough count I would say maybe 250 – 300 students, mostly kids and cadets but with approximately 20 adults.

The hall was jam packed so we were pretty limited in what we could do. We started off with a short warm up and some basics. Then we moved onto kata, at this point the students were split in two. All the Dan grades trained first. We went through a number of kata a few times slowly and each one at full speed. It was like a massive performance of teem kata with everyone synchronised in their movement.

Next up was the kyu grades, which followed a similar program to us, though they did different kata.

After a short break we started on the year-end tradition of 1000 punches, which was relatively easy to keep count. Each row had ten people in, and each person gave a count of ten. Two of the parents had microphones and they overlapped each other to keep a continuous count. This system worked really well until they got to the end of a row, where they weren’t quick enough to get to the next person so all the students just continued to punch without a count. The adults at the back of the hall gave louder ‘kiai’s’ to keep the rhythm. The punches were finished in less than 15 minutes and I think we actually done maybe 1250!

After the training we all got together for the customary group photo, me being one of the tallest got the job along with Ueno-san to hold the Shiramizu banner in the background.

Summary
It was really fun and everyone had a great time. The fact that everyone, students and instructors do the 1000 punches side by side makes it a great team build for the dojo.

I’ve borrowed this idea for my own dojo Hartlepool Wadokai. In January, my dojo will gather at our local training venue for a special start of year training course. I’ve dubbed it a ‘Hartlepool Wadokai Technical Seminar’ because the course will cover all the basics, all the pinan kata and a bit of kumite. The finale for the course will be, yes, you’ve guessed it 1000 punches! As a special present from me I’ve also insisted that they perform 1000 kicks too! (Richard here - at my own dojo and at Toshiaki Maeda Sensei's dojo we do 1000 kicks to at the year-end practice, but with so many kids at the Shiramizu club, it might take too long to cycle everyone through.)

I think this will be a great way to kick start the new year and get rid of the excess Christmas poundage!