News & Commentary

Chikushinkai at the 2010 Iaido & Jodo Seminar & Championships

The 2010 Australian Iaido & Jodo Seminar and Championships were held to yet another year of resounding success for Chikushinkai.

Nine of us attended the event including Mick Clarke, Matt Wickham, Paul D’Intino, Leanne & Kevin Walsh, Jarrod Sibbison, Ben Sawers, Rebecca Lim and Marcus Lee-Steere. The week-long seminar in Perth saw us training in the extreme conditions at the height of a Western Australian summer with a number of days over 40 degrees that certainly took their toll.

As usual the seminar was a time to catch up with old friends from Australia and of course from Japan. Again this year the contingent of 8 visiting sensei from the All Japan Kendo Federation included Iaido technical advisor, Oda Katsuo Sensei (Iaido Hanshi 8th Dan, Kendo Kyoshi 7th Dan) and Jodo technical advisor, Nagayama Kuniaki Sensei (Iaido Kyoshi 7th Dan, Jodo Kyoshi 7th Dan, Kendo Kyoshi 7th Dan).

I was enormously pleased with the focus and performance of all our members both on the dojo floor and off during the course of the week. As always I appreciate the effort and commitment that you all show during the Seminar, but importantly the same goes for every one of you during the course of our training throughout the year, whether you are able to go to the National Seminar or not.

As noted above, we were successful in a number of events this year and congratulations firstly to those who were successful in the Champions and well done on the medal tally. Competition results are as follows:

Iaido 4th-6th Kyu

Matt Wickham (1st place)

Iaido Shodan

Paul D’Intino (1st place)

Iaido Sandan

Rebecca Lim (1st place)

Iaido Yondan

Marcus Lee-Steere (1st place)

Iaido Teams: Victoria “A”

Marcus Lee-Steere, Rebecca Lim & Tim Wilson (Melbourne Budokai) (1st place)

Jodo Open Dan Grade Pairs

Rebecca Lim & Marcus Lee-Steere (1st place)

International Goodwill Iaido Taikai

Marcus Lee-Steere (1st place), Rebecca Lim (2nd place)

And a special congratulations to our new yudansha on achieving success in their Grading. We look forward to your continual progress.

Iaido Shodan

Ben Sawers, Jarrod Sibbison

Iaido Nidan

Kevin Walsh, Leanne Walsh, Paul D’Intino

Jodo Nidan

Kevin Walsh, Leanne Walsh, Ben Sawers

I am sure you all agree that we have a very strong Club, both in terms of ability, and especially in terms of the spirit and good will that you all show. That’s something that takes a long time to build and is entirely due to the commitment of every one of our members. And judging by the number of (very positive) comments that I and others received in Perth regarding the Club, that commitment was noticed by many attending the Seminar.

Next year the Seminar and Championships are here in Melbourne. I hope that you will all start planning early, both in terms of your training and to allocate the time necessary to attend. This opportunity only comes around once every 5 or 6 years and a local event is a great opportunity for those who cannot usually attend an Interstate event. It also means that the Seminar is a little cheaper for everyone to attend.

Thanks again to everyone, whether you attended Perth or not, for making Chikushinkai such a great place to train and to be a part of.

Click here for more photos

[Posted on 15th March 2010]