Pages

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Tonights Lesson - A twist!

Little bit of a twist tonight guys. I am extending the knowledge I have by sharing it with you. We will need to work together in order to move forward. Probably 95% of you would not have done this before.

Oss!

Saturday, July 27, 2013

TSKC Leaflet Drop

I have thought long and hard about the proposed leaflet drop and have decided to defer it until the last week in August / first week in September. The reasoning behind this stems rom the fact that hopefully, more people will be back from their holidays preparing for the new school year and therefore will receive the flyer with interest, rather than picking it up off the mat with numerous other flyers, after returning home from holiday.

The next thing to decide is the best method to instigate the distribution. I was thinking of arranging 3 to 4 groups of people, each group with 4 or more people, meeting at different dojos on the same day and doing a mass drop. This is instead of a large group hitting just one area.

I will provide street maps for the group leader and as roads are completed, they can be marked off on the map so if that area is not completed, we will be able to see at a glance what is left to do.

What are your thoughts?

Enjoyed Class

So why on earth did a basic lesson actually feel so good?

Todays lesson was focussing on Brown & Black belts in a way. Firstly, we tried a few combinations to get the basis of what we were going to do first. So what did we spend our time on doing? - Ushiro geri! So much detail is involved. The Junior grades concentrated on proper technique for Mae geri and Yoko geri keage from Kiba dachi.

The second part of the lesson concentrated on Tekki Shodan to count - preparing some of the students for the Instructors course in October. The Junior grades concentrated on the katas for their grade.

Felt really good.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Kata Fest

Totally different! Decided what I was going to teach at Winslow this evening and set off for the dojo. Got there way too early but that's not a problem, I canary out what I want to put into practice later.

Students arrived and it dawned on me 3 minutes before the lesson was about to start was that I needed to drastically change my lesson plan. So I did.

Turned into a bit of a kata fest! Boy did they need it. I'm sure a lot of good has come out of that lesson.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Bierton - Honbu

Not a huge turnout this evening but those who turned up, trained hard! I cannot ask for a lot more. 13 students split 6 / 7 between big grades and 4th kyu and below. The lesson started off after a great warm up by Carlos but I don't think the students were expecting the basics they got. Ramped it up a bit for the lower grades and something totally different for the high grades - just like Tuesday and Wednesdays classes.

Everyone was lead through a version of Taikyoku Nidan / Sandan and having got halfway through, left the lower grades to work the rest out for themselves. Meanwhile, the high grades were taken through Ji'in. Thankfully, due to the weird combinations I made them go through at the start of the lesson, this made teaching the kata so much easier. Only one of the students had done the kata before but this was years and years ago.

Ji'in is important for the execution of many simultaneous techniques and the often-repeated stances, enabling swift changes of direction while maintaining balance, power and steps of equal length. It has, however, been removed from the Japan Karate Association teaching and grading syllabus. Despite that, it is such a nice kata.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Winslow class this evening

Thought I would try something a little different tonight, just to see if it works and whether the students take to it. 

Hmmm. Feedback was good but whether I can apply this every lesson is another question. 

Really enjoyed the class though. 

Weather

This weather gives no inspiration to train. OI can understand why students don't want to train in either this heat or humidity but more so I understand the students who do turn up and train.

Thank you.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Who actually goes to the Website?

There are days when I think I am the only person in the whorl (with the exception of Lloyd and Nick) who actually looks at the website!

Bierton Combined School

Why do they appear to be the only school in Bucks that will not hand out flyers / leaflets to the students whether its free, for payment or a donation. I can't understand, either, why they complain when you stand outside their school and distribute to the parents. Surely they caused the situation in the first place by not accepting to distribute the leaflets.

So I spent 45 minutes handing flyers for the Summer School to the parents before I was confronted by a very young female teacher. Just the right person to confront a very large man handing out flyers. Took them long enough to be 'vigilant'.

I was called in to see the Head which I agreed to do. I explained to him what was happening and his response was: "Well we wouldn't distribute your flyers anyway as we run our own Summer School".

Choice!

Sunday, July 21, 2013

No more Updates!

At 5.45pm on this glorious Sunday afternoon - glorious because it's not too hot - I have finally decided that there is nothing else I can do to update the website.

I have added IFTTT to update Twitter and FB whenever a TSKC event is about to start which I suppose is totally pointless unless you're less than 10 minutes away from the event!

It's technology and I need to utilise it. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Anyone else completed my online form? I'll go looksie!

TSKC Website


I am sure I spend far too much time on the website!

Almost daily I am either updating the site with news; training updates; fixing errors or, mor recently, making small updates to the sites look & feel.

I get a lot of pleasure from 'tweaking' the site. Whether it's just adding a fixed logo to the site; hiding content on the site; creating a blog - I just find it fun to do. The problem is, it tends to either

  • Keep me up to silly o'clocks in the mornings
  • Break the existing site in some way which takes me another hour or more to fix! (Secretly, that's probably one of the most exciting bits!)

So what are the latest updates?

  1. Branded Logo that stays in a fixed position bottom right.
  2. Easy access to the Top of the Page via always visible link
  3. Dynamic floating menu at top of the main pages
  4. New Kata page consisting of videos of Enoeda and Ohta Sensei's
  5. Updated Events list
  6. Embedded Google Calendar of events
  7. Reminder Post-It note on main page re Summer School
  8. Change of Members Details form to update club records
  9. FAQ link on main page
  10. Updates of forms on Downloads page
  11. Not as recent: addition of Promotional Video
  12. Twitter account created and Twitter Feed added to Website
  13. NEW Blog
  14. Updated Interactive Noticeboard / News feed
  15. Club Mailing List
Is there anything you think should be added / removed? Let me know.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Annual BBQ

Whilst we are on the subject of "do's", last years attendance at the Annual BBQ was pretty poor compared to previous years. It could all be down to the fact that we had bad weather.

TSKC is holding the BBQ again this year, in the same spot in Wendover Woods.

Are you going?

Christmas Do

Any ideas what we can do for Christmas this year?

Summer Training

Why are class numbers down so much during summer? Obviously students go away on vacation / holiday but this doesn't account for all the missing students, does it?

Are students too lethargic with the hot weather?

Do they find something else to do rather than train?

Competitions: What IS the problem?

JKA England in the past has not been a great supporter of competitions. It has also gone as far as to 'lump' both the National Black & Brown Belt Championships and the Kyu Grade Championships onto the same day.

Fortunately, we are also having a 10yr Anniversary Cup this year and hopefully, something more permanent in years to come, giving us 3 comps over two days each year.

In preparing our students for these, Sensei David Paulus and I have agreed to host a friendly Interclub competition between TSKC and Yushikai. This year, it is to be held at Hertfordshire Sports Village, Hatfield and is aimed at encouraging ALL our students to experience competition karate in a less formal environment.

I have created an online form for ALL members - of both clubs -to complete letting us know who wishes to compete or not, as well as assisting in the running and officiating of the competition.

We have nearly 200 active members, so why after 4 weeks of promoting the competition, have I only received 12% of replies?

Why are people so guarded against entering a friendly competition?

Welcome to the TSKC Blog!

There are times when I would like to 'rant & rave' about things and I thought this might be the place to do it.

Hope you enjoy!

Oss!