Happy New Year! It's 2010!

Richard here, just wanted to share Shiramizu's New Year's postcard (nengajo - see Erica's post for details).

It lists the major happenings of 2009 - all of which are have been written up in our internship blog.

January

- dojo walk to the shrine

- dojo participation in the Kagami Biraki at the Nippon Budokan.

February

- 10th Annual Shiramizu inter-club tournament & participation at the Wing Cup.

March

- Kanto Wadokai Regional Tournament

April

- New Members! (most new members join in April at the start of the Japanese school year, as most new members are elementary first graders who move up from one of the five kindergartens that Shiramizu teaches at).

May

- JKF Saitama Tournament, where the Shiramizu Junior High Boy's Kumite Team took first place

June

- Arakawa Sensei's trip to Germany

- intern's Carl and Amy graduation

- new interns Louise & Erika's arrival

July

- Shiramizu gasshuku - summer camp - at Nikko.

August

- 2 members took part in the JKF National Youth Championships

- some members were part of the Sakae High School's 3rd Boy's Team Kumite place finish in National High School Interhigh Championships

- JKF Wadokai National Championships at the Nippon Budokan

- JKF National Junior High School Championships Boy's Kumite Team 5th place, as part of the Kita Kyushu City team (I suspect they from the Shiramizu dojo in Kyushu run by Arakawa Sensei's father and old brother)

September

- Arakawa took 2nd place at the JKF Master's tournament in the 40-44 year old Kumite division

October

- Sugito City Karate Championships

- Kanto Region JKF Junior High School Championships

November

- Tobu City Championships

December

- member Rie Hirai took part in the JKF National Championships as part of the Tochigi Prefectural Team.

- 1000 punches at the year-end training session

A few final notes about Rie Hirai making the JKF All-Styles National Team, other high school student's success, the reasonable cost of the Shiramizu Summer Camp in Nikko, and the 2500 athletes who compete in the Wadokai Nationals where this year the club wants to get some friendly revenge with better results.