Category: Kempo

The UTS in Bristol was really good fun – a grand total of 14 hours of training over the two days. I got to meet a number of really nice people – hello to Keith and Sarah from Glasgow, Gemma from Southampton, and Nikki and Richard from Bristol. It was nice to meet you!
I passed my grading, as did everyone else from the dojo who tried, so I’m now a mean lean yellow belt (or something).

Training this evening was fun also – Rupert started us off with a number of new techniques. It’s good to start learning new things – the run up to the grading last weekend meant that we mostly spent the preceding month making sure we had our form for the grading techniques correct, and so there wasn’t much variety.

This coming weekend (22-23rd Feb) we’re all off to the University Training Seminar in Bristol for a weekend of training, drinking and (hopefully) sleeping.
In particular, we’re grading, so should everything go according to plan I’ll be wearing a yellow belt post-weekend.

Danny has convinced us (somehow – surprisingly it didn’t involve beating us with a large stick) to do a Dantai Embu – kind of a choreographed performance of multiple techniques, with everyone of us doing the same thing at the same time.
His intention is for us to perform it at the UTS – ever so slighly scary – lots of students watching. Unfortunately, out of 6 of us, 3 are white belts, so it could be interesting to watch. *cringe*
It’s all very impressive though, with lots of shouting and stuff. Dave took a video of our practice on Arthur’s funky new digicam; not sure if we’ll get to see it though.

Practice today was fun, with lots of practice of the aforementioned embu, and a fair bit of Goho practice for the grading. We trained with “do”s – kind of a chest armour piece – so we could kick each other properly. It still hurts a bit when you’re on the receiving end though!

Anyway, I’ve got to look through some SWT examples for my individual project so I can start figuring out how to code the damn thing (unsurprisingly, I still haven’t started).

Kempo was fun this evening – Rupert Sensei is now back in town after a one month world tour of… virtually everywhere it seems. Drinks afterwards were bloody freezing – the Union building was virtually full due to one half being hired out for some company Christmas bash, so we had our drinks on the picnic tables outside. Brrr!
My leg muscles now ache (as usual), and I’ve discovered I’m kicking wrong, resulting in knackered knees. Need to be more careful.

The closing ceremony for the UCLU dojo is tomorrow evening, and the IC dojo is invited, but I anticipate that I’ll be panicking about MCC coursework tomorrow evening, so I can’t really afford the time. Another opportunity to meet Mizuno Sensei (the BSKF Chief Instructor) will present itself on Sunday evening – there’s a Kempo Christmas dinner of some description at his restaurant, so I will probably attend that. It’s an opportunity to meet people from other dojos as well, which will be good.

Managed to get up on time today, to have a brief meeting with Krysia Broda (project supervisor) re. the project work I have to do over the Christmas hols (in addition to making sure I understand this term’s courses). We decided what needed to be included in the outsourcing report, so all that remains is for me to write it! (erk)

Anyway, to bed… 9am lecture tomorrow (groan)