It’s been over two years since I updated our website and it has been long overdue. In March of 2020, we lost our training space when Core Fitness closed because of Covid. I went back to training in my home dojo and it was just my son Jacob, Sensei Theresa, and myself for about a year. We continued to teach and train on Zoom with limited success and then cautiously began training with others — keeping the dojo doors open and the fans blowing out.
During the Covid shutdown I began training in Okinawa Kobudo (weapons), taking instruction from my old friends Sheree Adams Sensei and Mary Margaret Graham Sensei, who had moved from Austin to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada two years ago and started a new dojo there: North Island Karate and Kobudo. The dojo is a member dojo of Akamine Hiroshi Sensei’s Ryukyu Kobudo Shimbukan. It has been quite an experience to learn most of what I now know via Zoom, and it has probably made me a better instructor to understand what some of my students go through with remote learning. Training kobudo has been such a rewarding adjunct to my karate practice.
Training in Japan has been on hold due to travel restrictions but we are planning to train together this July, which will be the 50th anniversary of Tasaki Shuji’s founding of Seiwakai. While there I am hoping to also visit Okinawa and the Shimbukan Honbu Dojo. If you travel that far it behooves you to travel a bit as well as to train.
Pan America Seiwakai had it’s first in-person gasshuku training and seminar in the new Honbu Dojo in Los Angeles in November. Despite Fujiwara Sensei not being able to be there because of the travel restrictions, Vassie Naidoo Sensei, Seiwakai International Vice-President, was the head instructor. So great to be training face-to-face again!
Things are coming back around. Even my little club here in Johnson City is growing. If you are in the area and interested in training, please check us out: www.KarateSeiwakaiTX.com
