January schedule

Hi all, I hope you and your families are all enjoying happy, relaxing
and peaceful holidays. I wanted to let everyone know the Kendo
schedule for the next 2 weeks. I hope I can count on your presence
during this "recruiting" period, and as usual please call me if you
cannot attend or if you have any questions.

Tuesday Jan 4th: open practice for advanced - Port of Spain
Wednesday Jan 5th: class - St-Augustin
Friday Jan 7th: first official beginner & advanced class - POS
---
Tuesday Jan 11th: demo & first kids class - all advanced are invited - POS
Wednesday Jan 12th: class - St-Augustin
Friday Jan 14th: beginner & advanced class - POS

Cheers

January schedule

Hi all, I hope you and your families are all enjoying happy, relaxing
and peaceful holidays. I wanted to let everyone know the Kendo
schedule for the next 2 weeks. I hope I can count on your presence
during this "recruiting" period, and as usual please call me if you
cannot attend or if you have any questions.

Tuesday Jan 4th: open practice for advanced - Port of Spain
Wednesday Jan 5th: class - St-Augustin
Friday Jan 7th: first official beginner & advanced class - POS
---
Tuesday Jan 11th: demo & first kids class - all advanced are invited - POS
Wednesday Jan 12th: class - St-Augustin
Friday Jan 14th: beginner & advanced class - POS

Cheers

Eddy

Recruiting

Very good response so far from the people I meet (parents mostly, but
some adults too) even without any ads. Wow, a French girl called and
wants to join, as well as a friend of my wife who, in her words, has
been waiting for Kendo to start (I had met her a few months ago and
she had showed a lot of interest in the class...). We'll see how they
handle the pleasures of being a newbie at Kendo ;-). Hope they stay.

I'm thinking more and more about the curriculum for kids these days, I
want to make sure class will be interesting and challenging, while
staying within the boundaries of proper Kendo. One week to go ! Well
probably no class on the first Tuesday (maybe me and a couple of
people) but it officially starts on Friday (the 7th). The following
week we'll do a demo for kids and try to get things started.

The new website is at kendo.ipmtt.net

Accreditation in T&T

I recently registered the name "Kendo Federation of Trinidad & Tobago"
at the company registry, I'm about to finalize the thing and register
it as non-profit. In the meantime, I just spoke with some guy at the
Ministry of Sports who tells me there's no accreditation process,
unless my activity is recognized under one "Martial Arts" governing
body. Ugh, this is going to be ugly...

Historically, Karate has been the main thing here and now with 3 or 4
different federations/associations and lots of politics involved, the
government is waiting for them to "clean up their act" before it will
talk. I know most of the Karate guys, and they probably know me by
now, it's just that I'll have to be involved in their mess...

So now I guess I'll focus on getting us known internationally (in Japan mainly).

"launch plan"

Here's the "Kendo in Port of Spain" launch strategy.
- Target market #1: kids, 12-16 yrs. old, parents looking for
discipline, values, hard training. Similar to Karate parents,
different than soccer/cricket.
- Target market #2: adults, 20-25 yrs.old, curious about the whole
"asian thing", tried karate, TKD, jujitsu, into sword movies,...

Ughh, it's sad, but I need to get people to pay the bills. I know...
"Last Samurai" fans... makes no difference anyway, they'll drop out.
As long as I get 2-3 people to remain every 6 months, that's enough to
build a core group.

Ad:
- Trinidiary.com event listing (to announce start of classes)
- Trinidiary.com 50 word text ad for $100
- Friends network to place flyer in kids' school info board / school newspaper
- catholic newspaper, $1 per word
- University billboards & newspaper

To pay the bills, I need 7 kids and 7 adults minimum. Need to
advertise asap... The problem is that Carnival is right around the
corner; it gives me less than 2 weeks to advertise, hope that people
will show up in the first week of Jan, and four weeks of practice
before Carnival kicks in. I've got some butterflies... Or is it the
fried chicken I ate yesterday?

Send people to website, call or email
Web: http://kendo.ipmtt.net (through atspace.com)
email: kendott@gmail.com

Here we go...

Well it's already the new year and this blog is one of my resolutions for 2005. Let's see how it holds... The purpose is to record and share the process of launching Kendo in a country where it doesn't exist. Hopefully that'll make for an interesting story and will help whoever has similar intents in their own country.
I now live in Trinidad and decided to start teaching Kendo. Nobody's doing it here and there seems to be demand, so what the heck. I'm 3-dan, long overdue to try for 4-dan, and have been instructing for a while so things should work out ok.

Actually I've been here since Dec 2003 and started teaching in a small Karate dojo in the suburbs (well, not prefab suburbs you find in more modern countries, more like a dark, dumpy, high crime area). At first, without any advertisement, about 10 hardcore guys joined all vowing to be there at every practice yada yada yada. The usual... After half a year, there's one left, with occasional visits from 3 others. Standard ratio I figured...

Since then, we moved to the middle of the main city (Port of Spain) and decided to find a place to practice here as well. The half hour drive twice a week is becoming annoying, specially for only 1 or 2 people. So found a nice place, central, nice floor, fairly cheap. Starting January, I'll have classes for kids and adults, as well as once a week at the 'old' place.
Haven't started advertising yet but let's see how that goes. More to come...

Class canceled tomorrow night (Wednesday 15th)

Please note that tomorrow's class is canceled. I am invited to a
function at the President's House and don't want to miss that chance,

See you all Friday

No Kendo on the 24th and 31st of December

Please update your calendars. No practices on the last 2 Fridays of
the month (the 24th and the 31st). This means that until the end of
this year, the only practices left are:
Wednesday 15th
Friday 17th
Wednesday 22nd
Wednesday 29th

Hope to see you there,

Kendo news - Federation - ISPS

Kendo friends, please note that as of November 17 2004, I/we own the
name "Kendo Federation of Trinidad & Tobago". Of course this doesn't
stop some moron from establishing a "Kendo Association of Trinidad &
Tobago" but this is the first step towards getting recognition from
the International Kendo Federation as well as the Trinidad Ministry of
Sports. I also like the idea of being called Mr. President ;-)

In addition, Kendo is on the list of after school activities at the
International School of POS. The person in charge of the activities is
a fan of martial arts and Kendo in particular and wants to see a Kendo
program started. If enough kids apply for the class I'll start
teaching there once a week for 10 weeks starting January.

Little victories...