Where does the time go?!?

Well, another couple of months have passed. With the number of events that have been going on lately, it's no wonder that we lose track of time.
We've had two black belt gradings lately, a club grading, a number of tournaments and seminars, and basically a whole lot of fun. Now summer's almost here (only seven days of school left for the elementary kids as I write this) and it's time to play.
We started off with a Hide N' Seek night at the Nitschmann's which was tons of fun. We had a great bonfire, roasted marshmallows and played hide n' seek in the dark! Wanna feel invisible? Just hold really still and watch people walk right past you on the path! Then try your luck running to home base, knowing full well it will be well guarded. Or you could try Tori's technique of crawling on your belly all the way there - she wasn't detected at all until someone tripped on her!
We plan on starting up ball hockey soon, that's always a lot of fun. What a workout! And the trash talk ....and the nick names....well, you have to see it to believe it!
Time to head outside with families to enjoy the summer air (well, somedays) and enjoy our karate training without worrying about snow covered roads to get there!
For all of our students who will be away this summer: Play safe and we'll see you back in September!

Family Night 2009

Wow! Last night was our first Family Night at PDMA. This was a night for us to invite in all of our friends and family so that they can see a small portion of what we've learned. We had over 25 students put on demonstrations (some put on more than one!). We had a great selection of kata, self defense, board breaking, all with great technique and purpose. It was especially nice to see we weren't lacking in the humour department with some of the demonstrations being extremely funny while also showing amazing karate skills. This just proves once again what a fantastic group we have, the energy is so positive.
It's hard to pick out a couple to talk about as everyone did so well. Sensei Tom's 6-board break was definitely a highlight of the night, however. Sempai Gail and Sempai Tyler (mother and son team) performed a super fight scene after hurling insults at each other that had us cringing. Terrible that a fight over proper technique in their kata could escalate to that! :)
Dave and Ben (father and son team) performed katas using swords and then kalis. This had more than a few people gasping in awe. It was incredibly well done. We loved the humour that they incorporated into the second part. The Little Warriors even braved the crowd showing off their skills in technique, pad work, sparring and kata. They finished their performance with board breaking.
The last performance will not be easily forgotten as Sensei Bruce showed that at Fourth Degree Black Belt, it was time to put his skills to the test. Coming out of the dressing room, with the soundtrack to Rocky playing, he warmed up for the test amid cheers from the crowd. A huge bag, which was easily 6 feet tall, was then placed over him. In his attempt to fight his way out of a paper bag, there were many tries to break the bag, cheers of encouragement from the crowd and a thorough wet-down of the bag by Sensei Mark (a wet paper bag might be easier) . He did emerge victorious from the bag, blood stained and worn out, but was revived quickly when the music started up again. An amazing performance that had us laughing so hard our cheeks were hurting.
A big "thank you" goes to everyone for coming out to Family Night and to our students who showed courage by getting up in front of so many people and for performing as well as you did. We appreciate the effort you put into your performances and we are already looking forward to next year's Family Night!

Just humming along...

Everything at PDMA has been just humming along nicely. We had quite a few people grade in February (Congratulations to Samantha, Andy, Chris, Dana, Silas, Dave, Kalil and Melissa in our regular class and congratulations to Lincoln, Davidson, Angus, Aydan, Lilli, Annaka, Julianne, Blake, Baraka and Dylan in our Little Warriors Class). Everyone did extremely well - all of the hard work and preparation paid off!
Coming up in March is our Family Night. A chance to show your stuff to family and friends! This will be a night to remember as everyone has something special planned. This is our chance to take what we learn in class and really start to play around. There will be an interesting presentation from the PDMA Demo Team (involving a frog), some board breaking demonstrations and an interesting challenge for Sensei Bruce. Don't miss it!
We are hard at work on preparations for our tournament in April as well. Saturday April 18th is the date, it will be held at St. John's Elementary School. We are having divisions in kata, team kata, sparring, grappling and self defense. Don't forget about the Red Man! If you are looking for something to do between your divisions, go pound out some aggression on the Red Man. (Sorry Andy!)
Spring is always a very busy time for karate. Let's all have some fun and enjoy this wonderful art that brings us together with amazing people!

Too busy having too much fun!

Wow! Time passes so quickly when you are busy! I am very grateful that I can say our busy schedule has kept me from blogging and it wasn't because there was nothing to blog about!
Christmas season went extremely well. We started the season off with an awesome Christmas party on Dec 6th. We had a great slideshow presentation, trophy presentations (Congratulations to Michaella and Silas for Most Dedicated Student, to Deborah for Most Improved and to Andy for Best Etiquette) as well as the winners announced for our Sensei Baby Picture Match Up (Congratulations to Samantha, Rachel and Hanna - the only ones who guessed every picture correctly). The kids did a gift exchange and then they tore apart a beautiful pinata (it took them about 10 minutes to break it - it took me a week to make it!). Now, the food......we have some truly amazing members and the spread we had was fantastic. Thanks so much to everyone who came, it was a great time and a fabulous way to get the Christmas season off to a wonderful start!
We didn't cancel many classes around Christmas. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve were the only two nights we missed and we were quite pleased with the attendance on the nights around Christmas. We have some very dedicated students!
We certainly didn't slow things down in January. We started the New Year off at the Perth Legion on the morning of Jan 1st to watch one of our members, Andy Streekstra, bring in the New Year by jumping into the Tay River. We all agreed that Andy is the bravest person we know.
A new year always brings about the desire to do better and to incorporate changes into our lives that will make this year the best one yet. We hope to make this a great year for the club. All in all, this will be a year for great training, having fun and making new friends!

Wow!

Last night we held our November Grading. We had 16 people grading; from yellow up to brown with two stripes. And I have to say...I was very nervous. And judging by the level of energy in the club from about 5:30 to 6pm, I would say I was not the only one. You could feel, without a doubt, the nervousness, anticipation and excitement.

Working with almost every student individually over the last month, I was pretty much positive that I knew what they would do well at and where their weaknesses were. But last night I was blown away. When the grading started at 6pm and the drills were being called hard and fast, everyone moved as one. The concentration and focus were clearly visible. We could see their hard work and preparation paying off.

Going through a grading takes courage. It is definitely a nerve-wracking experience. It's never easy to get up in front of everyone and have your skills and knowledge put to the test. Not to mention that the Senseis, who are normally so free with their words of encouragement and smiles, are up at the front with serious expressions and clipboards with grading papers, watching your every move. We know how hard gradings are. We've all been through them. And we also know, that unless we push you until you start to push back, you will never feel as though you truly earned your belt. That feeling of accomplishment will not come unless you know in your heart that you did your best. It's our job to help you do that.

It was a long and intense grading and we were pleased to see that everyone was up to the challenge. There were no belts or stripes simply just handed out last night, they were all earned. Everyone should feel extremely proud of themselves today as we are all very proud of you! We can't wait to see all of the new colours out on the floor.

A quote that I always felt was especially applicable to gradings says "Do it trembling if you must, but do it." We might have seen a little bit of trembling last night, but you guys definitely did it. Good job!

Almost Ready!

Our November grading is coming up and after last night's classes I am thrilled to say that everyone is very prepared and looking really good! We started doing individual pretests about a month ago to get a feel for where everyone was in their training. It was very important to us that people not only have their time in (and required number of classes) but they know their stuff as well. And there is a lot they need to know.
We've adapted our belt requirements to include breakfalls, takedowns, throws, knowledge and bunkai. It is a lot more to ask, but we feel sure that by including these techniques into our gradings we will be helping people to become better martial artists.
So...the pretests. We pretested people a month ago to find out what they knew and what they still needed to work on. We've spent the last month incorporating techniques into classes that aren't done often enough (so our pretests told us) and we pretested all of our grading candidates again last night. The students blew us away! They were so eager to show how much more they knew that they were almost shaking. I'm sure they have been working on their list of requirements at home as well, their preparation is very obvious. We are very proud of them and we are sure that next week's grading (which Sensei Mark has assured everyone numerous times will NOT be a cakewalk) will be awesome. We hope everyone comes out and pours their heart and sweat into the grading and we will be even more proud when we get to tie new belts on everyone! Good luck next week to: Eldon, James, Michaella, Nicholas, Rachel, Cassie, Eric, Ben, Korry, Jonathon and Oliver!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I have to admit, October got a little crazy. We had a ton of stuff planned and with the exception of Saunders Farm getting cancelled (darn rain!) everything went off without a hitch. We had so much fun and we are looking forward to another month of hard training and hard playing as well.

To recap: We started off the month on a great training note with Guest Instructors Sensei Steve and Sensei Cam McLellan. We followed that up on October fourth with an incredible first night of PDMA Ball Hockey which led to two more ball hockey nights before we decided last night to call it a season.

We started both of our Demo Teams this month to a fantastic turnout with a lot of enthusiasm. Both the adult and youth Demo Team have something they can already present, with excellent music. Creating demos and learning them turned out to be so much fun. It's hard to put on those serious fighting faces when you are straining not to laugh out loud.

Sensei Niki Greenstreet's class on October 15th was awesome, the kids will love to have her back. It's not too often we can get her, though, as her students are reluctant to have her leave them for a night!

Sensei Bruce, Sensei Mark and I went to Sharbot Lake on October 26th for Sensei Greenstreet's Sandan grading. Sensei's sister, Michelle Greenstreet, was also grading - for Shodan. The grading went very well and we were honoured to have been invited. Sensei Mark, especially, as he was used as Sensei Niki's uke. Now the Sharbot Lake Karate Club boasts TWO Sensei Greenstreets!

We ended the month on a fantastic note with our Haunted Dojo on October 29th. Almost everyone came in costume (which were amazing - you guys never let us down!) and we did a kali stick class. After which, the kalis were used to destroy a pinata. Apparently all of the karate training has made our students into very strong and very accurate strikers as the pinanta lasted only one round through the lineup. Great job guys!

So, as we take a quick look at our November calender, we can see there are more fun things planned. Already we have some excellent classes planned, a Grading on November 19th, lots of specialty classes, Martial Quest on November 22, Sensei Ted Theelen as a guest instructor on November 26th and Sensei Rebekah's Nidan Grading at the end of the month.

Thanks so much for all of the amazing support everyone has shown over the course of our first month. It's going to keep getting better and better!