2013 Seiwakai of Texas Seminar and Grading

28 August 2013

 

Dear Goju-Ryu Practitioners:

I am pleased to announce the 2013 Seiwakai of Texas Training Seminar, featuring Vassie Naidoo Shihan, 7th Dan Kyoshi, president of USA Goju-Ryu Karate-do Seiwakai, as the lead instructor.  Assisting will be James Pounds Shihan, 6th dan Kyoshi, head instructor of Seiwakai of Texas.

The focus of the training seminar will be Goju-Ryu kata performance and execution, and also kata bunkai with a slant toward Seiwakai founder Shuji Tasaki's unique and effective fighting style.  This seminar will serve as a good tune-up for the Seiwakai Training Seminar in Guadalajara, Mexico in November, or a training opportunity for those who cannot attend.

If you have trained with Vassie Naidoo Shihan, you know the depth of his understanding of Goju-Ryu and his effective teaching style.  If you have not, this will be an opportunity to learn from one of the best senior instructors in North America, if not in the world.  He has been training karate since 1966, received his Sandan rank from Gogen Yamaguchi in Japan, and is also the CEO of KICK (Karate for Inner-City Kids) a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to keep kids out of gangs through the positive principles of traditional karate.  Additionally, he is on the Seiwakai International Testing panel and Director of Seiwakai International.  Naidoo Shihan trains annually in Japan and is head instructor of the Seiwakai USA Hombu Dojo in Santa Monica, CA.

If you will be attending, I urge you to begin a hotel search and reserve airfare as soon as possible.  This is unavoidably the same weekend as the Austin City Limits Festival, so we were unable to reserve any blocks of rooms this close to the festival. 

We hope you will consider attending our training seminar.  If I can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.  For our planning purposes, please return your registration and payment check by September 15th.

All the best,

James Pounds

Seiwakai of Texas

www.KarateAustin.com

mail@karateaustin.com

Post Japan Training Observation

Since I've returned from training in Japan, I've been consciously stressing basics in my classes. After hours of daily moving basics in the Budokan, you finally begin to understand just how helpful it is.  After just three weeks working with my own students, the improvement is obvious, especially in how their stances have rooted them to the earth and how that translates into more power and stability.

Of course, I've most noticed those same changes in myself.  I've also kept to my  resolution to get to the gym three times a week to work specifically on my lower body strength and I'm feeling the change already.  I was at our country house doing chores this weekend, which is all up hill and down, and I could tell the difference mainly in less knee pain.  So, of course I'm committed.

Barn's burnt down --
now
I can see the moon.
~Masahide~