What's going on?

So the madness continues for a few more weeks. Our recent visitors include: an Australian TV travel show; some rookie pro baseball players with a media mob; a famous martial arts magazine from France and our sensei Master Chinen Kenyu Sensei has returned. All this coupled with our first show performance. It's been hectic but very exciting.

I'm slowly getting used to doing the interview/TV stuff but its always a bit nerve-wracking. However I have to say that the visit by the baseball rookies was very disappointing. There were about 3 camera crews a mob of journalists a pack of photographers. I expected to meet 3 young, fit and (over) confident young men with plenty of energy enjoying the media attention. However the three players didn't show any enthusiasm and didn't put any effort into the Karate we were trying to teach them. As a result we spent about 10 minutes just doing a basic punch before time ran out. Typically there was about 30 minutes of interviews afterwards about how they understood the "Karate spirit." I know I shouldn't be that surprised, it's a fairly standard media bit, but it just highlighted to me that "Karate spirit" means doing your best, working and trying hard. It doesn't matter if you're weak or strong, young or old, beginner of expert, just that you give it your best shot. Maybe the baseball players were embarrassed, well me too! But we should see it as a challenge and opportunity and therefore give it our best effort.

Anyway I always try to see every risk as an opportunity and remember that "Karate spirit" should apply to everything you do in life, not just your time in the dojo.

Peace.

I'm cold

Well, as I said in the title, I'm cold. My sempai warned me during the hot summer months that it would be cold during the winter here, but I didn't believe him. But I have to admit it's a little cold here and as we are sleeping in a little wooden shack with one small electric heater it seems pretty cold. It's no big problem but it makes getting up and training a bit more difficult!

Otherwise everything is going well, the training varies day by day as we have to fit in various activities - Karate experiences and talking to visitors; trials of our Karate corporate training exercises; practising for the show; Karate project meetings and discussions; and going live on TV! (see the photo below).

We are getting more and more exposure on the tv, radio, newspapers and internet these days. It's great for Karate and great for Okinawa, but it means the pressure is on us to perform but I know we can. Other project members joke about making me a movie star, at this current rate of progress I wouldn't count it out, but I think that's stretching the imagination.

Also we had a new poster made up for our dojo (see photo). Out colleague did a great job making it and I had a great night out posting them up in various bars - with a few drinks along the way. Its always nice mixing business with pleasure. Its really important to grow our dojo, with all the activities going on I've been reminded that Karate is all about doing Karate. You can only learn through experience so I need to get people in our dojo and practising.

See you.

2012 A year to look forward to

Happy New Year Everybody!

Well I've been here in Okinawa for 6 months now. I cant' believe how fast its gone. But in only 6 months I have started training under Chinen Sensei of the World Oshukai Federation and I have begun to learn real authentic Okinawan Karate. My dream come true. In addition I have begun learning Kobudo from my sensei and sempai, starting to learn weapons such as the Bo, Sai, Tonfa and Nunchuku. Very cool. Not only fun and interesting but I feel the practice is enhancing my Karate through similarities in technique and through further application of my body.

Furthermore, I have become involved in a project to promote Karate through shows, training experiences and promotional activities, including radio and internet interviews. I will even be on TV tomorrow! Look out on NHK (Okinawa & Kyushu) live at about 6:30pm, Thursday the 11th of January.

All this and I have been settling into life here in Murasaki Mura, Yomitan, Okinawa. I have been learning about Okinawa's unique culture and history, meeting lots of great people, making friends and (slowly) improving my Japanese.

All in all I've had a great 6 months here in Okinawa. My plan is to work hard, train hard, study hard and stay in Okinawa for the next 4 or 5 years at least. I want to thoroughly absorb Karate, Kobudo and the culture that gave birth to them. That way I can take forward the teachings of traditional Okinawan Karate and Kobudo, helping others to benefit from them the way I have.

And I have a very exciting 2012 to look forward to. Karate events, international training seminars, Karate project activities, a possible trip back to the U.K. and who knows what other surprises.

I hope you all have a great 2012, may all your dreams come true, except the scary ones!

In the newspapers!

More craziness! We were in the two major newspapers last weekend. As part of our ongoing project to promote Karate, we (the project team) held a press conference last week. We talked about how we plan to hold corporate training events using traditional Okinawan Karate as the means to learn those qualities valuable to the work place. These include, team work, communication, problem solving and not to mention determination and hard work.
We had our first trial of the corporate training this week. Stay tuned for pictures and further updates.

Radio show

So today we went to our local radio station, Yomitan FM, and we were interviewed by Mr. Nakasone. He's a really nice guy so it was easy to talk with him about Karate and our efforts to promote traditional Okinawan Karate. It's great that we had this chance to get our message across to a wide audience. I hope we have many more opportunities like this in the future. We really want everybody do understand what makes Karate, and traditional Okinawan Karate in particular, so special. As the birth place of Karate, we also hope that Okinawa can better exploit the massive worldwide appeal that Karate has.

Karate show rehearsal... and me in make-up!

So we had our first full rehearsal of our show this week. It was a lot of fun and the team did a fantastic job. It was my first experience of anything like this so I was pretty nervous, but we have a good team and everybody helped me a lot so I managed to get through it without falling off the stage or any other major mistake.

The show is part of a project to promote traditional Okinawan Karate. There are various other activities which I will be helping with. Watch this space.

Hello!

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

I would like to tell you all about my life here at the dojo. In the future I will tell you about training and teaching Karate; giving tourists a taste of traditional Okinawan Karate "Karate Taiken"; Karate demonstrations; as well as life here in Okinawa and my experiences in Murasaki Mura.

Please feel free to message me with any questions you have.

Now I'm off to do some Karate training and practice for a new Karate and Okinawan dance show we are creating.

See you!