New Monday Night Classes

We're adding to the schedule!

Monday night classes will start next week and go from 7:30 to 8:30. That will give us a total of 5 and a half hours of training time each week.

See you on the mat!

Evan's 6th Kyu

My son Evan just took his 6th kyu test Friday and received his certificate. He's the first student to test with us and holder of certificate #1.

Evan started training with us at Kiryu Aikido down in Lone Tree before we started Kinjo Dojo and got a great start on his aikido path with Andrew Blevins Sensei.

I'm looking forward to more tests and demos in the future as our dojo continues to grow. As I said after Evan's test, the hard part is preparing for the test and showing what you know to sensei. The test or demo is about showing the rest of the dojo what you have learned.

Great job, Evan!

2nd Kyu: Halfway to Shodan

I sent out an e-mail yesterday to our incoming kyu ranks that will be testing for 2nd kyu. These are students that, for one reason or another, had to take a break from their training at other schools and are now interested in joining us on the mat at Kinjo.

This morning I did some math on the day requirements for all of the kyu ranks up to shodan (1st degree black belt). Ni-kyu (2nd kyu) is right in the middle. The time spent on the mat up to ni-kyu is equal to the typical remaining time needed to reach shodan. That makes it a major milestone.

Aikido should be enjoyable first, and also provide an opportunity for you to push yourself to get better than you were yesterday. The test requirements set up by Hendricks Sensei follow a natural progression of aikido understanding. Whenever I put you up there to do your test/demo, you've already passed. Now it's time to show everyone what you've learned.

がんばって! (gambatte: "do your best")

Keiko Osame 2013

We will have our last official practice of the year on Thursday, December 19th, so come on out.

This will be a short practice where we will reflect on our brief time as a dojo in 2013 and look forward to a great year ahead in 2014.

Afterwards we will head over to Namiko's for delicious Japanese food.

Facebook event links are below. Hope to see you there!

Event: Keiko Osame

Event: Dinner at Namiko's

Public Documents Folder

I have created a public documents folder for shared dojo items such as general information, forms, and testing requirements:
Kinjo Dojo Public Documents Folder

Currently I only have testing requirements in there, but I'll keep adding more as we continue to get organized.

The dan and kyu documents from the Aikido of San Leandro website are copied in there, and I have broken out the 2nd Kyu and Shodan tests since most people at the dojo so far will be taking one or the other of those.

Mats are In

We picked up the mats last night, cleaned, and put them down in the dojo. Afterwards we had time for a short practice to break them in.

There is still some extra room on either side so we might add another row, or a half row, but we're off to a good start. 

Come on by and try them out!

New Mats

Mats purchased!

We got a smokin' deal on some used mats. As soon as the current owners receive their new set (sometime this week), we'll be able to pick up their old ones (our new ones) and take them to the dojo. I'm hoping we will be rolling around on the new mats by next Tuesday.

We have 40 square meters of usable space at the dojo. Did I mention that I bought 120 or so 1x1 meter mats? That gives us plenty of space for future expansion and seminars.

Come on by class next week and try them out!