Dojo news

Our friend Debby Vigneau informs us that she will soon open her bogu repair shop Ichi Gan. Hers is one of the few shops inside Europe dedicated to repairing parts of your kendo armor, which seems like a good chance to get something repaired quickly.

Debby will be attending the ABKF Winter Seminar in Brussels, on the 15th and 16th of December, where you can hand over kit that you would like to have repaired. She can then take it with her, or even fix it for you on-site.

We would like to wish Debby good fortune with her new undertaking!

A few weeks ago, a television crew visited our dojo to create a segment about kendo. Today, the 2nd of december, the programme was aired on Villa Achterwerk. The same program features a segment on another kick-ass sport: roller derby.

Here, you can watch the episode online. Our part of the show starts at the 46:30 mark.

Dear kenshi,

Tomorrow, saturday the 10th of november, Renshinjuku kendo dojo will host TV recordings of VPRO programme Villa Achterwerk. The show takes a playful look at different sports, where anchorman Tim Haars gets to fully experience how tough certain sports are.

We will slightly adjust our training to accomodate these recordings. Of course, to provide a proper impression of kendo, it’s very important that as many kendoka as possible show up!

Don’t forget to bring your boken for kata training.

EDIT: Photos of the recording can be found here.

Last weekend was an exciting one. First there’s the dutch national championships, but there was also the Dusseldorf Cup junior tournaments! Renshinjuku kendo dojo took part in these competitions and the results are as follows.

Without bogu (no age limits):

• Misako Goto achieved 3rd place in the individuals
• Shotarou Goto received the Fighting Spirit award in the individuals
• The RSJ team of Misako, Yasutoshi, Kawanishi and  Shotarou ranked 1st place!

With bogu:

• Yuki Yokota received the Fighting Spirit award in the individuals (10-12 years)
• Ran Miyahara ranked 1st place in the individuals (16-18 years)
• The RSJ team  of Yuki, Yasuhito Kawanishi, Kouki Tomokiyo, Haruki Yokota and Ran ranked 3rd place

Very impressive results! We can certainly be proud of our young members!

Last sunday the dutch national kendo championships were held in Vlaardingen. A few weeks ago Heeren-sensei had told us all he had an ambitious goal set for our dojo: at least two Renshinjuku members in the finals. Well, our 22 kendoka fought long and hard and we achieved this goal! Not just in the gentlemen’s competition, but in almost every competition there was!

The results are as follows:

Juniors  11-14 years old

1. M. Tanida (RSJ Amstelveen)
2. Y. Tanida (RSJ Amstelveen)
3. B. Waarheid (RSJ Almere)

Juniors 15-17 years old

1. H. Bediar (RSJ Almere)
2. B. Verhaegh (?)
3. ?. Akabu (?) and B. Smit (?)

Ladies

1. K. van Riel (RSJ Amstelveen)
2. M. Wouters (Museido)
3. C. Tanida (RSJ Amstelveen) and S. Chung (Fumetsu)

Gentlemen

1. J. van de Burg (Fumetsu)
2. M. vd Woude (RSJ Amstelveen)
3. K. Tsubota (RSJ Amstelveen) and  R. Nieuwenhuizen  (Fumetsu?)

Fighting sprit

• S. Tanida (RSJ Amstelveen)

 

Great work everyone! That’s really impressive!

Quoting an email sent out by the NKR tonight.

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Dear all,

Unfortunately the central training of Sunday October 21st (tomorrow) has to be cancelled. The hall is not available to us because of the Amsterdam Marathon. We were not informed about this until just now.

Please inform your dojo-mates (especially the beginners) as much as you can!!
We are very sorry to bring you this news but wish you a nice Sunday anyway.

On behalf of the NKR,
Marije Wouters

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Six years ago, yesterday, was the founding of Renshinjuku’s satellite dojo in Almere.

Thanks to the continued efforts of Loyer-sensei, Kris Lazarevic, Hillen Oost and Ayumi Saito their small group has grown to about fifteen permanent students. Every year a few more people stick around, so growth is slow but steady.

With many thanks to Kris for the archival photograph.