Demonstration Aftermath (1)
The most obvious and direct impact of the event was the media exposure we received. As a consequence of 3 articles with photos and 2 TV reports (one quite extensive) the phone has been ringing everyday since, with people enquiring. Interestingly, about half of them are women. Usually, prior to the event the majority of callers would never even show up to class, but so far the majorty have. Also, when I ask them to stay a whole class and watch the vast majority don't last til the end. This time however, it's quite different: most have stayed the whole class and a very high proportion join and now attend twice a week.

I don't expect this trend to last but at least if in the process 2-3 new "serious" students join then it will have been a resounding succes.

Class size & levels
It's an interesting situation these days with half of the class with less than 3 weeks of experience, and the other half composed of the usual bunch. J&K are not yet able to lead a beginners class comfortably and at the level I would like. At the same time the advanced group needs some special attention, in preparation for the tournament in October. So I'm caught having to split the class in two and run between one group and another. This is currently making things a bit challenging and impacts negatively, I'm sure, on the quality of the class. So depending on how long and how many beginners stick we may or not completely separate the classes. There are different ways to do that:

- start beginners classes on an additional day. The benefit is that there would be no pressure for time and this may be less intimidating to them. The disadvantages are a possible increase in rent, challenges in having some of the advanced guys to attend to give class instead of me at times, and less exposure to "real" kendo could lead to some demotivation.

- another option is to keep the start of the class for beginners and have the advanced start a bit later:
- 6:30 - 7:30 Beginners
- 7:30 - 9:00 Advance class

... I think I like this last option...
Also this is most likely a short term option, as the beginners who remain will be ready to participate with advanced within 2 months or so. When that happens we'll have to see if we have special team training separated from the rest of the team.

Invitation to VZ (MCBO)

Invited by AG to practice with them for a whole weekend. We've been talking about this for a long time but we never got to organize ourselves and when we finally decided we postponed a few times. It DOES require some amount of planning on my side, as such a trip (to the extreme end of Venezuela) takes some time, and time is not something I have much of these days.

I'm going there with the assumption that they're asking me to give classes and train them as I do in T&T. This may be a wrong assumption but I'm going with that in mind and we'll see...

I wasn't able to have much communication with A, which means that there's no formal practice plan. 1 practice Friday, 2 Saturday, 1 Sunday. That's all I know so far, no idea of who's showing up and what level. As far as my past observations go, we're going to have to do a lot of kihon, kirikaeshi and work on other fundamentals such as "straightness". I know etiquette is going to be an issue, as the mcbo guys somewhat suffer from a lack of it...

Check out the pics: http://kendo.ipmtt.net/event/maracaibo-training/

IKF bogu donation

It's been a while since the last post. The major development has been the granting by IKF/ZNKR of kendo equipment for T&T. I received news back in April/May that they were considering and were asking back then if we were able and willing. Of course there was no question! I received an official letter before Christmas stating that the equipment would be received by the embassy shortly and that I should get in contact with them. That was a great surprise, as even before I called them, a gentleman from the embassy called me to query about the class. The following week, two japanese employees of the embassy showed up for practice (she is 4 dan, he is 3 dan). It's been a blast ever since. She shows up pretty much at every practice, and even though her kendo is not very relevant for a bunch of young men, it's still a blast to keiko with her. He is older and less into Kendo than Aikido, so hasn't practiced much. But he shows up every now and then and we have a lot of fun talking and drinking (mostly the latter).

The following week, two japanese employees of the embassy showed up for practice (she is 4 dan, he is 3 dan). It's been a blast ever since. She shows up pretty much at every practice, and even though her kendo is not very relevant for a bunch of young men, it's still a blast to keiko with her. He is older and less into Kendo than Aikido, so hasn't practiced much. But he shows up every now and then and we have a lot of fun talking and drinking (mostly the latter).

It was very touching and somewhat surprising to see all those who attended; many old students, many parents I'd never seen. Also, it really hit me, realizing how this event was important (more on this in next posts).

Check it out: http://kendo.ipmtt.net/event-ikf-donation.html