Intern termination and new hire

The intern hired for this year, Erica Jones, had her internship contract terminated completely on September 2.

Due to the requirement to find a new intern immediately since the various English classes are starting up again after the summer break, we were successful to find a suitable candidate to start from today who has the right qualifications and karate experience, plus who is already in Japan.

For any unresolved issues related to the previous intern, please contact the Shiramizu office manager directly.

The new intern will complete the remaining six months of this year's contract ending in March 2012.

The application and selection period for next year's intern (2012-2013) will begin in October. For those interested, please check this internship blog then. Thank you.

Richard

New Intern Selected: Pete Williams!

Richard here!

I want to congratulate Pete Williams from Exeter, Devon in the UK for being selected as the next Shiramizu Karate Intern from June 1.

Pete is 27 and a graduate of Exeter University, where he captained the karate club. He's been doing martial arts for 15 years and currently he learns Wadoryu Karate from Paul Hammond Sensei, as part of the British Wadokai Association. A professional Copywriter and Graphic Designer, Pete was also a Boy Scout leader for many years.

In the coming weeks I will ask one of the current interns to do a pre-arrival e-interview with Pete so we can all get to know him a little better (and see what misconceptions he has of Japan just for fun - for those who have been to Japan, they will know what I'm talking about).

The runner-up for the internship was Josh Paszkiewicz from Kansas City, Missouri, USA. Hopefully we will also be able to invite Josh from April 2011.

Also thank you to those many people who contacted us about the internship. Everyone is of course welcome to visit us anytime!

Amy, 4.1!

Richard here;

Before I make the announcement next week regarding the new intern who will come to Japan on June 15, 2009, Arakawa Sensei and I have decided to give Amy Coulson (the fiancee of the current intern Carl), internship status for the next 7 months while Carl is still here. Since Carl is Intern 4.0, then Amy can be Intern 4.1.

Amy came over from England with Carl last June and she herself is doing really well in the dojo and at work. Everyone is impressed with her work ethic, her desire to mix it up with everyone and her new abilities with the Japanese language.

Congratulations Amy! Keep up the great work!

Again, the announcement for the new intern from next year will be made soon, with a new twist to the internship added, stay tuned!

Internship Reunion Party!

Richard here!

l-r Mark, Richard, Arakawa Sensei, Kei (back), Lawrence, Natsumi & Paul

During the Wadokai World Championships week in Vancouver, Canada, the three people to have completed the internship - Mark Taylor Intern-1, Paul Atkin Intern-2 and Lawrence Liang Intern 3 - got together with myself, Arakawa Sensei, Kei Suzuki and Natsumi Tanaka on Thursday, August 21 for an internship reunion party at the North Vancouver Cactus Club on Pemberton.

Kei is actually an original Shiramizu adult class English student from when I started the internship even before Mark arrived in early 2005! And Natsumi is Paul's girlfriend whom he met while he was an intern, and she followed him back to Kelowna! Kei came to Canada on this trip to go visit Paul and Natsumi in Kelowna, and then come to the Wadokai Worlds to see her two sons compete in the Junior events.

l-r Mark, Paul and Lawrence

During the dinner, Arakawa Sensei and I were able to surprise the 3 post-interns with completion certificates, created in both Japanese and English!

Mark's certificate!

Paul's certificate!

Lawrence's certificate!

For some updates on what the guys are up to now, Mark returned to Canada in August 2006 to take over the Simon Fraser University Karate Club (SFU) while entering a carpentry apprenticeship program, Paul returned to Canada in July 2007 to help his father's Shotokan Karate Club in Kelowna and Lawrence stayed on in Japan in July 2008 to help me with the International Department at Seiritsu High School in Tokyo.

Actually, since Lawrence now works for me at Seiritsu, his desk is beside mine in the staff room, so I had to work on these certificates in secret every time he wasn't squatted beside me slaving away, from work I had given him of course!

Once I was done, I sent them to Arakawa Sensei for layout design with logos and printing on to proper Wadokai certificate paper.

Seriously, our internship is the only structured program I know of in Japan for karate, so we are very lucky to have it! Each of the interns spoke glowingly about having completed the full year at Shiramizu and each said he wants to return again one day.

So future interns, you too might receive an Shiramizu Internship Completion certificate one day! Soon we will begin accepting applications for Intern#5 for next year after our English-English current Intern#4 Carl!

(And yes, we are very interested in accepting applications from women too, we just haven't to date.)

Richard