Ein Besuch von Herr Fabian!

Peter Here:

On Tuesday 13th July Arakawa Sensei, Yoshihara Sensei and I went to Narita Airport to pick up our latest guest: Juergen Fabian 4th Dan Sensei from Germany. He stayed with us to train for the Wado World Cup in Nagoya, 14-15th August.


Although Fabian Sensei was naturally exhausted from his flight, Arakawa Sensei took the opportunity to take us to the Nippon Budokan. Impressively large and imposing, it doesn't take much to inspire one to train or work hard here.



Fabian Sensei had his first taste of training in Japan that evening, where his comments on the children were: "they're very fast, aren't they?" They are indeed! Fabian Sensei also presented a gift to Arakawa Sensei- a landscape photography book of Germany. Kireii!

Former intern versus the world!

Team Canada (l to r: Richard, me, Peter) on the podium.

It's Lawrence again and though I'm not technically the intern anymore, I keep forgetting that fact. But sometimes that comes in handy, especially at the Wadokai World Championship where, aside from just being a competitor, I tried my best to return the favour to Shiramizu by helping out as much as possible.

Richard Sensei's already described the event so while I was running around a lot (the tournament week was really hectic, balancing competing seriously with seeing my friends not-seriously), I did make it out there for 4 days in a row to take in the whole event.

From a purely competitive point of view, I thought that it was great to be able to see what the rest of the world's karate was like. Having spent a year in Japan surrounded by seemingly endless numbers of champions, it's easy to forget that all over the world there are people of various levels training just as hard. Unfortunately, as Richard said, lots of matters both preventable and unpreventable kept a lot of countries from competing but, despite that, there were still some strong competitors determined to do their best.

In keeping with the competitiveness, the men's adult individual kata division was all I could think about in the days leading up to event. With the draws not being shown until the morning of, I couldn't really plan which katas I would do in which rounds. Beyond that, it seemed there was some confusion with the division ladder as well. But even so, I was extremely happy to make it to the finals for the day after!

The finals were especially great because all the action was focussed on one ring and was mixed with some very good demos by various groups. It was a great showcase for martial arts and some of my friends who went, who knew little about the sport, enjoyed having a chance to see for themselves what the intricacies of the sport are.

My final round against Furuhashi Sensei (as Richard said, 6-time Wadokai National Kata Champion) went exactly as I thought it would, but I was more than happy to walk out with a silver medal. It's always a nice feeling to finally see the fruits of your labour and this time around, because it was in Vancouver, it gave me a chance to really offer a good first impression to lots of people in the Canadian karate world. I was never that involved with that group much before, but I will be when I'm back in Vancouver, so this was a great chance to open doors and just to build relationships with people I will be working with in the near future.

The team kata event was even more fun! I had seen the girls practicing everyday leading up to the tournament so I knew what was in store, but instead of being down about the loss, I was happy for the girls for their win. What I didn't really understand was why there were no other teams. Lots of countries had shown up with lots of adults and team kata isn't some kind of impossible event. With some earnest training to get the timing in order and working out a bunkai (which is great fun in itself) and a team can be semi-competitive. And a lot of dojos had the benefit of their members being together whereas Team Canada was separated by the Pacific... but then again, we did get a gold medal for the effort we put into training and it's always nice to be recognized not just for the result but for the process.

But really, I can't thank Norma Sensei, the other organizers and the volunteers enough for helping put together the tournament. Something of this scale isn't easy to pull off and, like any major event, there were issues that had come up. But most of the people I talked to left with a good impression and I'm sure many of them got a lot out of it, as did I.

Also a lot of fun was the day out that I planned for Shiramizu the Sunday after the tournament. Though everyone was a bit tired from 3 straight days of watching or competing in the tournament, we still managed to visit the Vancouver Science World, Gastown, and Stanley Park. There was also time, of course, for shopping on Robson Street and dinner before they returned to their hotel.

How many people did it take to remove that blue collar from the dog? Let's just say it was harder than it looked...

And in the end, there were lots of smiling faces. Faces that I hope to see at the next tournament.

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

Richard's Wadokai Worlds '08 Report!

l-r Japan Women's Kata Team: Yuki, Kana, Rie
l-r Canada Men's Kata Team:Richard, Lawrence, Peter

Richard here!

The details:

Thu Aug 21 Juniors (open to any style)
Fri Aug 22 Wadokai Worlds adult kata and kumite eliminations
Sat Aug 23 Wadokai Worlds adult kata and kumite finals-only, plus demos

Location: Hollyburn Country Club, West Vancouver, Canada

Arena: Hollyburn Tennis Centre (4 karate rings, finals 1 ring)

The good news is we did bring back some hardware!

Men's Team Kata - gold (myself, Lawrence and Peter)

Men's Individual Kata - silver for Lawrence and bronze for me

Men's Over 35 Kata - 4th place for myself

l-r Men's Open Kata: Richard (bronze), Takuya Furuhashi (gold) & Lawrence (silver)

The Japan Women's Kata (actually high school girls) team all smiles!


These girls had worked so hard for so long getting their team kata ready, you could tell this really meant so much to them, like the end of the journey with a positive result!

l-r Johnny Tesoro, Richard, Kevin Floyd, all former Kenzen Vancouver instructors

At least I got something. And the blue belt I was wearing had 'Vancouver Karate Cup' written on it, which I found in a tournament box that looked really familiar. Well, the Van Cup used to be my event, so really, I was wearing a belt I bought 8 years ago for my old tournament!

Enjoying the very nice patio at Hollyburn!

l-r back row Steven Muskwa Johnson, Kevin Floyd, Lawrence Liang
l-r front row Richard, Mark Taylor (1st intern!), Johnny Tesoro

SHIRAMIZU GOES TO CANADA

I’m writing this post on the same day that the Shiramizu dojo is heading to Canada for the JKF Wadokai World Karate Championships - over 20 kids are competing in the junior open tournament on Aug 21, and a few older ones are on the official Wadokai Japan Team competing in the adult Wadokai Worlds Aug 22 & 23.

If this wasn’t enough to be keeping busy with, the dojo has also had a number of students try for a Dan grade in the past few days too! I think therefore, that it’s a good time to reflect on the past few weeks where ‘competition fever’ has been gripping the dojo.


It’s been a very busy time at the dojo. Everyone has been in overdrive to make sure everything is as it should be, from the travelling details to the students kata and kumite standard. To add to the pressure on the Shiramizu students’ shoulders, a small number of them will be performing a demonstration at the World Championships. This is a great honour for the dojo, and something that Arakawa Sensei and his demo team have taken very seriously. Almost every day that I’ve visited the dojo over the past few weeks, the demo team has been busy practising.



I would also like to mention the Shiramizu ladies kata team (being the official Japan Women's Kata Team) dedication and expertise has inspired me, a devout kumite-only competitor, to appreciate kata competition. I have particularly enjoyed watching the bunkai, or application of the kata which under the WKF kata rules is necessary for team kata finalists. Their bunkai performance is technically very good, and with just the right amount of theatrics thrown in, even a non-Karate-ka will be able to appreciate the performance.


Photo taken from the blog of Arakawa Sensei

I think it’s fantastic that one dojo, albeit a very successful one, can enter a large squad into both the JKF Wadokai World Championships in Canada AND the JKF Wadokai Japan National Championships over the same weekend. It is a testament to the hard work that everyone here puts into their training and teaching. I simply feel privileged to have been a small part of the build up to both tournaments; you simply can’t help but be inspired by so many talented and self motivated athletes training every day.

Carl