GUKC News

2008-01-09T20:43:00.000Z

Dear all,

We hope you have all had a great holiday and safe new year's celebrations, and that you'll pass any future unmentionables with valour and glory!

Here are a few things fyi:

1. You should all have skin grown back under your feet, so to make up for that GUKC sessions restart next week, 16 January, 9.15pm in the Activity Hall, running for another 8 week course. Remember that a little bit of stick-fighting is the best remedy for pre- and post-exam stress, so we hope to see you all there!

2. The course will be £20 for two weekly practices, or £2 per practice if you want to pay individually, so sign up from the beginning and save £12!

2,5. Any new people joining the club are very welcome! Please just come along to the practice, we have spare shinai (swords) so all you need is yourself and some comfortable clothes.

3. For continuing members, we would like to order armour by February, so please consider that. We'll have a price quote next week, it will probably be about £150-250, depending on how many orders we get. Remember that you can't do kendo without armour; all we've been doing so far is merely preparation. If you can't afford the armour at the moment, you are welcome to keep coming along to practices for as long as you care, but it will probably get kind of boring eventually. We will try to arrange a way of buying back sets of armour at half price if you decide not to continue with kendo at the end of the year, but we can't promise anything at the moment.

Before armour, however, you need a set of gi and hakama plus a bokuto for practising kata. This lot will be about £50-60, again cheaper the more we can order at once. Get in touch with Bob for details.

4. We have been approached by a medical clinic who are comparing treatments of Athlete's Foot, which is a condition common among martial artists. You get £80 plus travel expenses paid plus free treatment in return for trying a new product. This is all safe and run by professionals, so no risk involved, and a good chance to get rid of your Athlete's Foot. If you or any of your friends suffer from this, please get in touch with Sofie so she can pass you the clinic's details.

5. The final boring money issue is that we may have to introduce a small membership fee if we get affiliated to the SRC. We still haven't heard from them, but should do so shortly. This probably won't be more than 2 or 3 quid for the year, so nothing to upset anyone's budget (unlike a set of armour, perhaps ...).

6. As you may have seen on the GUKC page or the Facebook group, the great Glasgow Kendo Seminar will be the weekend of 7-9 March in the Kelvinhall, so put this in your diary! It's absolutely not to be missed. There is a grading from ikkyu and up, but we plan to have a kyu-grade club grading the week after the seminar. This is a fun, informal way to assess your own progress in a friendly environment.

7. Finally, REMEMBER TO RENEW YOUR BKA MEMBERSHIP! This is essential, mainly for insurance reasons. Presumably you have all received renewal forms by post, so please return them asap, which gets you a handy discount. In case you have not returned your form yet, you want the Concession membership (if you're a student, obviously!).

If you have any questions, get in touch, and see you on Wednesday!
Good luck to those with exams.

The GUKC Committee

2008-01-02T13:10:00.000Z

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you have had a great holiday and are ready to start back on all your uni activities shortly.
Once the committee gets itself together in Glasgow in a few days we'll know when we can start GUKC practices again. So far, we plan to keep normal training sessions running at the usual times from 16 January until exams are over (at £2 per practice) and then start a new beginners' course along with a more advanced programme for more experienced people in February.
Everyone who was on the beginners' course last year is ready to get into armour and we will order by the end of this month. We will email you asap with a price quote, but hopefully you have already started saving. No armour = no kendo, and unfortunately we have no club sets to lend to you, so there is only one way forward.
See you all very soon!

2007-12-08T09:31:00.000Z

Remember to finish off your start on kendo in the best possible way, i.e. attend the Matsumoto-sensei seminar Saturday 15 December 2-5pm in the Kelvinhall.
I can't emphasise enough how much you will get out of this so please try and make it. The practice will be £5 for GUKC members to pay on the day.

Please sign up to the Forums (go to the main Taiseidokai pages and find Forums in the menu panel) where you can keep up with bad kendo jokes, post your questions and maybe learn a thing or two of relevance. Also check the calendar section to keep up to date on Glasgow kendo events.

Last but not least, it is time to begin thinking seriously about buying armour. You need armour to do kendo and you will need it by February. We plan to make the order mid-January so please start saving now. The price will be less than £200 incl. a bokken (wooden sword for kata), but Bob will give us the exact price after the vacation.

Have a great holiday!

2007-11-13T07:04:00.000Z

So, this Wedensday evening is still off - and we may have to skip the Friday one as well as there is new GUSA/SRS problems.
The committee is working hard to sort it out but watch this space and your email inbox for updates.

2007-11-11T13:11:00.000Z

What ho, all -
Please remember that the 14 November Wednesday evening's practice is off, instead there will be an informal morning session from 7.45-8.45 am in the Exercise Studio. Feel free to drop in when you can. Or not.
Also, RSVP about zekken (name tags) to Bob immediately. They're only £20 and fab, it's a complete bargain.
Sofie

2007-11-06T17:52:00.000Z

Hi guys,
The latest act of obstruction from the sports facilities is that we are not allowed to bring bags into the halls as they provide ... you guessed it - a fire hazard. So in the future please leave your bougu bag in the changing room lockers and just grab men, kote and shinai (in bag is ok) to bring to the practise. I know this is a complete nuisance but it's either that or we can't practise at all. Sorry!
I'm having a meeting with the person in charge of nit-picking this week but I doubt there's anything to be done. Please help humour them for the moment.
Sofie

2007-10-17T09:42:00.000+01:00

The Taiseidokai Club shop now has GUKC t-shirts!

http://www.cafepress.com/taiseidokai

2007-10-01T17:56:00.000+01:00

Hello all,

Remember that the kendo practices start this week with free practices
Wednesday 3 October 9-10 pm in the Activity Hall and Friday 5 October, extraordinarily 3.15-4.15 pm in the Exercise Studio.

Regular Friday practices will be in the Activity Hall, 5-7pm.

The change this week is due to a visit from the new British squad coach, Matsumoto sensei (7 Dan Kyoshi = fab!!) this weekend. There is a fighting practice ("keiko") 8-9 pm in the Kelvinhall on Friday which will be a unique opportunity for you budding kendoka to come and see the real thing, so you're all very welcome to come and watch that. We will all be going out afterwards so join us for that as well.

However, your own participation is much more important, so don't forget to show up Wednesday and get started!

And remember, you need to be a member of the gym in order to do anything in there, club member or not. Gym membership is £30 for a whole year's use of the excellent facilities - an exceptionally good deal, we think, so don't miss out on that.

If you have a shinai, please bring that and wear comfortable clothes.

To have an idea of numbers it would be great if you could RSVP to let us know if you plan to come or not. This does not tie you down either way, just so we know roughly how many swords to bring.

Thanks, and see you very soon!

Sofie & the Committee

2007-09-28T18:24:00.001+01:00

PLEASE NOTE:
Our second free trial session has been rescheduled to

Friday 5 October 3.15-4.15pm in the Exercise Studio of the Stevie Building.

Sorry for the inconvenience and hope to see you all there.

2007-09-28T12:57:00.001+01:00

If you're on Facebook, please visit and join our GUKC Group.

Cheers,
Sofie.

2007-09-21T23:57:00.000+01:00

Hello and a warm welcome to GUKC to everyone who signed up at the Freshers' Week Sports Fayre.

We hope to see you all at the first week's free practices, Wed 3 October 9-10pm and Fri 5 October 5-6pm in the Activity Hall of the Stevie Building.

The GUKC committee for 2007-08 consists of
Sofie von Hauch, Captain
Niall Moore, Treasurer
Alicja Cioch, Secretary.

Please check back here for more info and subscribe to the rss feed. The site is under development so new content will be added regularly.

We also recommend that you visit the main Taiseidokai site (a link is in the menu on the left) where you'll find lots of interesting kendo information and links.

Also click through the Google Ads which has some good martial arts shops advertised so you can start drooling over your first set of armour straight away.

We look forward to seeing you again!

Welcome

2007-09-20T15:48:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the new GUKC Website