"Wednesday 22^nd December 2005

 Hi All, this months blog wishes you a very Merry Christmas. We hope the Dojo isn’t too cold at the moment! Maybe after reading our blog one of you will send us back a Shudan Blog, via Andrew, with all the gossip from the club!!!

 Here we are a month later.....just getting ready for Christmas. Although, we have to say, it doesn’t feel like Christmas here in New Zealand. It’s warm, sunny, light until 10pm and decorations are few and far between. The ‘hard sell’ of the UK Christmas just doesn’t seem to exist here. If it wasn’t for the endless junk mail from local stores coming through our mailbox we could be forgiven for thinking the shops just aren’t interested. The lack of decorations is understandable – you just can’t see them in broad daylight. The carols are interesting – at the local park’s “Christmas at the Bowl” we were treated to traditional carols like “Silent Night” interspersed with songs like “Christmas on the Beach” and “We’re all going on a summer holiday”. But we are trying – today John and James bought a Christmas tree, sold from someone’s 3 acre ‘back garden’. In New Zealand you just choose a tree and chop it down yourself. The guy charged John $5 (£2) and John insisted he take $10. A real Christmas tree for just £4....all we need now are some decorations!!!

As for judo, the junior class broke up for Christmas on 13^th December and don’t return until middle of February. 2 months with no-one for James to practice on – apart from his Dad of course. The children were recently awarded their end of year trophies for Most Improved Boy & Girl, Diligence and Best Attendance. There was an ‘end of year’ function at the Bowlarama which we missed, to say goodbye to Dave, the old coach.

Meanwhile the adult’s class continues though the summer, meeting 2 times a week. Judo opportunities for John are few – the only regular attendee is Charlie, an oil rig worker, and he can only attend for 2 weeks out of every 4 due to his off shore shift pattern. Eru, the coach, turns up when his shift allows. The adults class, due to lack of numbers, is very informal. They don’t have the traditional line up at the beginning – they go straight into a short warm up and end much the same way. Most of the judo we are doing at the moment is Ne Waza as Eru is very keen on this. When Eru is not there Charlie and I follow a programme more similar to the Shudan Club, with a tougher warm up and more Tachi Waza. I have taken the lead on this when Eru is not there and Charlie seems to be happy with this. Charlie is a blue belt which is 2^nd Kyu in the NZ grading system and he is very committed and professional. There are some other guys who turn up occasionally including Rowan, Albert and Eddie – all orange belts/4^th Kyu.

For those of you confused by the differences in belt colours and grades mentioned above, New Zealand belts are as follows:

1 belt per grade going from Yellow (5^th Kyu) to Brown (1^st Kyu). There are no upper and lower grades for each colour. Each belt takes a minimum of one year to achieve. This is also the case for children’s belts although they have a tabs system where it is possible to achieve a tab every 3 or 4 months.

Other differences in New Zealand judo include variations in the syllabus, as follows:

Although NZ use Japanese Gokyo like us, going from one belt to another involves demonstrating at least four tachi waza throws, several hold downs and escapes/counters, four arm locks and “links” (throw into throw combinations). These are purely grading theories, awarded by your club coach or other First Dan or above. All First Dan’s are automatically classed as coaches by virtue of the Dan grading process. To ratify that grade, you have to then demonstrate a general competence of Judo technique through your Randori. You do not go to a grading as such, this ratification can take place during a normal judo class by your coach who, as a First Dan, can grade you up to 2^nd Kyu (blue belt). To achieve First Kyu or First Dan you would need to be graded by a 2^nd Dan or above (either your own coach, if they are 2^nd Dan, or someone from another club). We suspect that this in-club grading takes place because there just aren’t the numbers of judo players in the country to enable regional gradings to take place. For example, New Plymouth Judo Academy is the only judo club in the whole Taranaki region. Also, with so many towns and cities in New Zealand being isolated from each other it’s not possible to have national gradings either. The nearest large town from New Plymouth is around 3-4 hours drive away. National competitions do take place every few months but these are not generally designed for grading (unless you arranged for a 2^nd Dan to grade you above 2^nd Kyu because this could not take place in your own club). Up to a dozen people tend to attend each competition and these range from green belt (the first point at which you can enter competition) and 5^th Dan. They also tend to be older people interestingly.

Children in the club have attended competitions in the past, having travelled 3 hours to Palmerston North, and won some medals. However, this does not take place very often. Again, this is probably due to the distances involved. James has a swimming competition in January and we have to stay over in Wellington for the weekend. Quite costly if you did it regularly! It’s funny to think that we used to find travelling to Walsall a bit of a drag as it was a whole hour away. We actually realise now how lucky we were to have so many opportunities for competition only an hour away! Also, we had a big choice of competitions, with something going on every month it seemed. Here those opportunities are rare, and when they arise they may involve a domestic flight to have any chance of taking part. It’s easier in our club to get parents involved – either taking their children to competition or allowing Eddie to take them along. Here it involves a lot more hassle and organisation...and cost!!! We also have a lot of opportunities in Shudan to make our own ‘friendly’ competitions – such as red belt rumbles - with other clubs. We could have a competition every month if we wished, held at Corby, Kettering or Wellingborough, to give children more experience of competition. You just couldn’t do it here. Who would travel for 4 hours to take their six your old to a ‘friendly’ red belt rumble? Maybe New Zealanders don’t see this as so much of a problem, being used to living so far from each other, who knows? Anyway, Eru does have plans for our club in the New Year – one of these is for the Wellington junior judo group to visit our club (only 5 hours drive away!) and for our adults group to go to a competition in Wellington. We just need the adults to turn up regularly and start training. Seems low numbers in adult judo clubs is an international problem, not just a Wellingborough problem!!! They tried to establish a women’s group a few weeks ago, but only one woman turned up. It is interesting to note that a few years ago there was a large number of adults in the group, many of them women!!!

On a personal note, John is suffering with a swollen neck after coming off worse in some ground work with Eru (he was the victim in Eru’s strangle demonstration or rather ‘shime-waza’ demonstration). Also his Gi is turning yellow. We thought it was the fact that all NZ washing machines are ancient, upright contraptions which only use cold water – assisted by a cold water powder called “Cold Power”!!!! – but Eru claims it is because the judo in New Zealand is so much harder and this is having an impact on his Gi. John’s not convinced as the science doesn’t back it up. However, his last judo lesson involved a bit of Ju-Jitsu, kickboxing and illegal moves! We’ll keep you updated on that one.

 Meanwhile we leave you with a photo, not of judo this time, but rather the mountain which we can see from our lounge window! Also, especially for Damien, we’ve included a photo taken of a local delicacy known as Weta – the specimen shown below, at 3 inches long, is a small one. They are commonly found in back gardens – but they are known to hibernate in Gi’s apparently (turning them yellow perhaps???)

Wishing you a Merry Christmas

John, Channa, James and Hannah"

February 2006