45th Anniversary Gasshuku
The Gasshuku at the end of this month celebrates 45 years of Chidokan in Australia. Soshi Sensei Hudson commenced his training at the North Sydney PCYC in 1969 and is still going strong. And I mean strong!
So with the Gasshuku is at the end of the month and there’s still plenty of work to do on our techniques and speed. This months training focussed on Kihon and the basics.
We worked on our main Kihon; Tai-Sabaki, Kara-Zuki and Kihon-Uke-Kame and used them for a number of basics plus moves out of Kata.
The 3rd move from Heian works well in all of these Kihon so we trained hard in this. We also worked on a number of applications, making sure the ‘feeling’ of each move was understood, before going back to the Kata again.
Australian Federation of Traditional Karate (AFTK)
Every martial arts club must be a member of an organisation such as the AKF, JKA, AFTK, etc.
Chidokan are a member of the Australian Federation of Traditional Karate (AFTK) which has been around since the 1990’s. Whilst not as big as, say, the AKF, it’s roots are deep and principles are strong.
The current committee have decided to move on and a new committee was to be formed. The AGM was held on 16th October and a new committee was called for.
I was lucky enough to be elected President of the organisation. Daniel Taylor from Practical Karate-Do Systems Australia in Mt Isa was elected Vice President and Glenn Smith from Bubishi Martial Arts in Piabla, QLD was elected the Secretary and Treasurer.
Whilst this change won’t affect much of what we do in the dojo, I hope that my involvement will allow us to benefit more from the AFTK in the future. I will be working with the other committee members to introduce cross-member collaboration and other knowledge sharing concepts. There are also plans to introduce seminars and events that will bring together students from other member dojos.
