Welcome
Our training year is almost over. 2024 has been a year with a lot of changes and the Instructor team would like to extend our thanks and deepest appreciation to everyone who has adapted so well, and who have offered and assisted with the changes.
Important Dates
Our final class for 2024 will be Tuesday the 17th of December.
Classes will begin again on Monday the 20th of January 2025.
We will be requesting a change of schedule for 2025.
To make classes more accessible for people, we will be requesting to change our Tuesday night class to either Wednesday or Thursday.
Before I make this request, I would like to offer members the chance to provide feedback on preferred days for the second class. Current feedback is equally tied for Wednesday and Thursday classes, but unfortunately, we can’t run both.
Please email or txt your thoughts to help us decide which day to request.
Also, the request may not fit in with the needs of the church. We will do our best to make this change, but ultimately, it is their call.
Organisation Update
We are continuing to develop Community Martial Arts NZ Inc as our vehicle for future success.
We are interested in engaging with other community groups to help offer what we can, and get our message out there to let their people know what we offer.
Our bank balance is looking healthy as we move into 2025. Thanks to everyone who has made donations for Term 4 classes.
We’ve talked about it a lot, but in 2025 we WILL be seeking more help to get our message out there. If anyone has skills with Canva, Poster my Wall, Photoshop or other creative outlets, or if you are happy to come take photos or video in class every now and then, it will all help.
Anyone who wants to be an admin on our Facebook and Insta pages and help establish regular, positive messaging to build our class numbers – please get in touch as I would love some help with this.
Admin Information
We continue towards collecting everyone’s contact and membership information. Thanks to those people who have either helped out by filling in the online membership form which you can access using this link.
Printed forms have being handed out in class. If you haven’t completed a membership form, please request a form.
We need one form per person please.
Upcoming Events
Gradings:
We are still aiming to offer our next grading opportunity before we finish classes in mid-December. This will require a lot of effort for most students. As Instructors, we see a lot of training time being sacrificed for playing tag outside, and as we tell students almost every week “make smart choices”.
T-Shirts
The t-shirts order has been placed and I am waiting for final pricing. We did get more than 10 orders, so the price should come down a little.
The next t-shirt order will be mid-2025.
Student Drive for 2025
In January, we will begin a push to recruit more smiling faces to our classes. If you know anyone who might be interested, please keep them in mind.
We will make a solid push on Facebook and Instagram, and we will aim to have printed flyers available also.
Banking Information
For any new students who need the details, our class bank account is:
Bank: Kiwibank
Acct Name: RYUKYU KEMPO KARATE
Acct Number: 38-9012-0728171-00
Suggested Donations are:
Kids / Students: $30 per school term
Adults: $60 per school term
Again, we would also like to shout out thanks to those people who have donated beyond the suggested amounts – it means a lot and we are very grateful.
If you’re a new member and have been attending for 10 classes or more, please consider adding your donation to the account. Feel free to chat with us if you have any questions or concerns.
Social Media Links:
You can find more information and learning material on these links:
General Information:
(We’ll keep this here for people to refer to)
Uniforms:
A few people have been asking where to get uniforms, so let’s look at what the options are:
- Trackies and T’s
Plain black track pants and a plain black or white TShirt are perfectly fine for training – this is the cheapest option. I haven’t checked lately, but if I’m still correct, The Warehouse have budget brand trackies and tees for about $10ea. This is perfectly fine, and for students who aren’t sure they want to invest in a full uniform, this is the best option.
- Dojo TShirt
From time to time we will place orders for dojo tshirts. These will be well publicised and cost around $45 per shirt. The colours available are:
White
Grey
Green
Blue
Pink
Coral
T-shirt prints have the dojo kanji on the front, and big logo on the rear:
- Karate Uniforms
If you wish to have a full uniform, you have the choice of either an all-white or all-black uniform. Check out the links below for places to purchase:
Belts:
Following the donations-based approach, we have a few options for belts
- Belt Library
We would like to establish a “belt library”. The idea is simple. Unless you wish to keep each and every belt you earn, when you’re done with a belt, you donate it to the library and we can recycle it back to another student in the future. At the moment, we only have a few belts of a few colours, so this will take time to build up a stock.
If you’ve got belts you would like to donate to the library, please drop them to us in class.
- Borrowed/Gifted
If you’d like to lend or gift one of your belts to a fellow student, feel free to make those arrangements with the instructors. For example, if ‘Bob’ is an orange belt, and ‘Bill’ is a yellow belt, ‘Bob” can gift “bill” his Orange belt when ‘Bob’ grades to purple. ‘Bill’ still has to test, but he gets to wear ‘Bob’s’ gifted belt when ‘Bill’ passes the test.
- New Belts
If you prefer new, we can order new belts or provide links for you to order them yourselves. Sizing belts can be a tricky affair – it’s really easy to get confused and order the wrong size. We’re happy to help and in time, I hope to buy a set of “test belts” for people to try on for size.
Training Equipment:
The biggest expense for people is always the gear. Remember, we aim to keep this as affordable as possible.
The following gear is needed as students progress:
Beginners:
Mouthguard and gloves – any sports mouthguard is fine. Consult a dentist for further information if you have braces or dental problems. For gloves, we use Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) gloves – these are lightly padded, fingerless gloves and are (unfortunately) one of the most expensive pieces of equipment. Until students have both, and wear them in class, we have to restrict some levels of training for safety reasons.
Bo Staff:
The first weapons people need will be a 1.8m staff. The cheapest and easiest way to buy one is at Mitre 10 or Bunnings (link for Bunnings) – dowel is about half the price of a hardwood staff, however they do break. If you can afford a full bo/staff, please consider purchasing one as it will be cheaper in the long run.
Students under 1.5m tall: Youth Bo
Above 1.5m tall: Regular Tapered Bo