Ryukenkan Dojo - Tauranga New Zealand
"Karate in Paradise" - It's a rough task, but someone has to do it!
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Ryukenkan Dojo - Tauranga New Zealand "Karate in Paradise" - It's a rough task, but someone has to do it!
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2007 Class Awards - The Friends & Family Evening What better way to wrap up 2007 than with our annual Friends & Family evening. Every year, our students give up time with their friends and family to come to classes and study our art. At the end of the year, we offer a chance for class to show their loved ones what they've achieved with their time and efforts throughout the year. 2007 saw our class change and grow in an unbelievable way. We saw our numbers increase, we saw many people change rank and we saw everyone grow as both Martial Artists and people. The evening kicked off with demonstrations of basic kata and exercises...
The Group prepares to demonstrate Naihanchi Shodan The group demonstrated basic kata and exercises, followed by a demonstration of the kuzushi kata by Sensei Standish and Sensei Irvine. Family members received an explanation of the history of our art, and the meaning behind the motion of kata and the difference between the basic and kuzushi kata from Renshi Rickard. Following the empty hands demonstrations, several members of the class demonstrated their weapons skills. Many of these people learnt the kata they were demonstrating at Spring Camp in October.
Teresa Harrington and Brad Price demonstrate Bo Exercise The weapons demonstrations kicked off with a demonstration of Bo Exercise - the first weapons kata taught to all students.
Nicole Rickard and Renee Hodges-Ginns demonstrate Combat Bo Sho and Ni Applications of th ebo kata were demonstrated by way of the Combat Bo sequences. While Combat Bo Sho (the first set) has been seen in New Zealand many times over the last few years, the second set, Combat Bo Ni had not been demonstrated in New Zealand prior to this evening. Renee and Nicole learnt Combat Bo Ni only two weeks prior to the demonstration.
Paul Torwick demonstrates Jo Kihon Paul Torwick demonstrated Jo Kihon, which despite being the basic Jo kata, can be quite difficult to learn. Paul then teamed up with Sensei Standish to demonstrate some applications of motion from the kata.
Gavin Collinson and Martin Simpson demonstrate Tonfa Kihon The Tonfa Kihon kata was intrudced in New Zealand in June following Summer Camp in the US. Gavin and Martin both studies this kata during Spring Camp in October.
Daniel Rickard and Kyle Brown demonstrate Nunchaku Kihon Kyle Brown, a recent immigrant to NZ from the US, joined our class a little over one month prior to the demonstration. Kyle is a Junior Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and was asked to demonstrate his TKD Nunchaku kata. He also learnt the Nunchaku Kihon kata from Daniel Rickard only two weeks prior to the Friends and Family evening. The two boys, although very nervous, put on a good show and followed it with some classical bunkai for this popular, yet often misunderstood weapon.
July Kingi demonstrates Matsumura Eiku Being only the second person in New Zealand to have any understanding of the kata for the Eiku, July Kingi demonstrated a portion of the kata and managed to show a true warrior spirit as he flowed through the motions. He also demonstrated some basic applications with the help of Les Irvine. Following the demonstrations, the student awards for 2007 were handed out.This years award list was much longer than 2006, which shows firstly how much the class has grown, but also the effort and dedication of our students. Each year, we give recognition for the Most Improved Adult and Junior students and for Best Attendance (called the Nintai Award - Nintai means "perseverance"). In addition to this, we also introduced two new awards. The first being the Bushido Award which is awarded to the student who has proven themselves by constantly demonstrating the effort, perseverance and spirit embodied in our Dojo Kun. The second new award was the Kaicho Amor Special Recognition Award which is given to students who show their commitment and "go the extra mile" during Kaicho Amor's visits to New Zealand, their attendance at Spring Camp, and feedback fro their Instructors. Most Improved Adult Award:
Most Improved Junior:
Nintai (Perseverance Award for Best Attendance)
Bushido Award (Best All-Round Student)
Kaicho Amor Special Recognition Award (For Effort and Commitment)
In addition to the class awards, we also recognise achievement outside the class during the year. The 2007 Merit Awards recipients were:
The last Merit Award was a special request from the recipients parents who wanted to show a special thanks to their son during a long and testing relocation from San Diego. Kyle Brown's parents asked Renshi Rickard if there was some way to recognise what Kyle had put up with during their relocation. Renshi awarded Kyle with a Merit Award for Demonstrating Dojo Kun #3 - Cultivate a spirit of perseverance or a will for striving. In addition to the award, Renshi had commended Kyle on having the humility to put aside his Tae Kwon Do training in order to learn our art - a trait not often shown in adults, let alone children. The evening closed with snacks and drinks with the family and friends who had given their free time to support their loved ones. Everyone left looking forward to a relaxed Christmas before launching into another year of training in 2008!
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