July Martial Arts Newsletter – 2010

July 14th, 2010

Greetings!

I know July has already started and it seems like it’s almost on its way out, however, after being on vacation all last week, I didn’t have a chance to send out the July newsletter sooner.

So, with that said, here is all of our July updates and upcoming events.

1st Annual Summer Potluck

As many of you know we held our 1st Annual Holiday Party in December last year.  We had over 80 people gather at our school with a giant potluck, award ceremony, and video presentation.  Families had fun, kids ate a ton, and we all socialized with others.

We are now going to host our next school gathering for the Summer to get students, families, and friends together again to enjoy Colorado’s beautiful Summer, and just have some fun!

On July 31st from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM, we will have our 1st Annual Summer Potluck at the Big Dry Creek Park.  This is located on 128th Avenue, just south of The Dojo of Karate (within walking distance).

The Dojo of Karate will provide hot dogs with condiments for all guests to enjoy.

All we ask is that every family bring a dish to share with the rest of our guests.  We may expect around 100 people to attend.

Feel free to invite friends and family members interested in attending our 1st Annual Summer Potluck, even if they are not members of our school.

Families can also bring water guns, and we can all have a big water gun fight!

There is also a softball/baseball field at the Big Dry Creek Park.  If anyone is interested in getting together and playing some softball during our Summer Party, please feel free to bring some bats and softballs.  Everyone else should bring their own gloves.

There is a signup sheet at the front counter.  All families please signup to bring a dish to share and the amount of guests that plan on attending.  We want to make sure everyone gets a enough food.

Possible Class Expansion

It is very exciting to watch our school grow, especially in the Beginners Karate Program, since so many kids are getting the benefits of learning Martial Arts.

Since this program is growing during the Summer months, and Back-To-School is around the corner, we will potentially add an additional time slot for the Beginners Karate Program for Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:30 PM to 6:15 PM.

This will than allow for The Dojo of Karate to offer Martial Arts classes 5 days a week for new students.

However, please keep in that Beginning Students are only allowed to attend between 2 or 3 classes per week.

What is Black Belt Club?

Well, it’s our program for students interested in taking their Karate training to the next level.

However, this isn’t just some ordinary Karate Program… There are all sorts of benefits and requirements in being apart of the Black Belt Club.

Students will have the opportunity to receive the following:

  • Unlimited karate training.
  • Special Black Belt Club classes every Friday.
  • Weapons training, such as the Bo Staff, Kamas, or Nunchucks.
  • Custom embroidered, brushed cotton, middleweight uniform with students name on the front and The Dojo of Karate log0 on the back.
  • Eligibility for Demo Team.
  • Eligibility to compete in Karate Tournaments.
  • Eligibility to be on Leadership Team.
  • Discounts on seminars and events.
  • And much more!

How do you become a member of Black Belt Club?

We are now updating the process of our Black Belt Club membership.

The first step is that students must write a letter, in their own words, on “why they want to become a member of Black Belt Club”.

Next, we sit down as a family to discuss Black Belt Club membership, what it entails, requirements, etc.

After we have our discussion, the family will need to go home and have a discussion whether this is going to be something that everyone wants to be apart of.  This is a family decision, not a single person decision.

Why do we do all of this?

Black Belt is a very difficult goal for students to achieve.  It requires a lot of training and dedication, and you need to be mentally, emotionally, and physically prepared.  For most students it can take between 3-4 years to achieve this goal, pending they do not miss belt tests, pass all of their exams and display proper attitude at home and obtain ‘B’ average grades in school.

In addition, we require students to be a minimum of 10 years old to achieve a ‘Junior Black Belt’.

Why?

Kids may “know the moves” but they will not know HOW to perform the moves as designed… until their bodies develop.  Usually that won’t happen until they are teenagers or adults.

If your child is interested in becoming a member of Black Belt Club, please talk to Mr. Lozano, so he can guide your child in the right direction.

Wado Karate Seminar

As many of you may have heard, we are hosting a Wado Karate Seminar on Saturday, August 7th and 8th.  A colleague of mine, Sensei Bob Nash is coming out from Seattle, Washington to teach this seminar.

Sensei Nash is one of only 2 people living outside of Japan that has earned a 7th degree black belt in JKF Wado-Kai.  He has been training in Wado-Kai for nearly 50 years, and brings a wealth of knowledge about our classical Japanese martial art.

He travels around the world, from Europe to Australia, and cross the United States hosting Wado-Kai Seminars at various dojos and facilities because of his technical expertise and understanding in the art of Wado Karate.

The fact we are able to have Sensei Nash come to our school and teach a seminar is an opportunity of a lifetime for many practitioners because he’s as close to the source as it comes from.

We plan on splitting the group from kids and adults, to make the floor more manageable.

Kids will have about a 2 hour seminar, while teens and adults will have the entire weekend to train, approximately 8 to 10 hours.  The schedule will look something like this.  However, we still need to finalize the time slots.

Saturday: 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM — Kids

Saturday: 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM — Teens & Adults

Sunday: 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM — Teens & Adults

Students must be a minimum of an Orange Belt in order to participate.

We also plan on having a friend of mine, Sensei David Sasaki, bring some of his students from Conifer to attend the seminar too.

The cost of the seminar has yet to be determined, but we will have it shortly.

Please make sure you pre-register for the seminar so we know how many people we need to accommodate.

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March Martial Arts Newsletter – 2010

March 6th, 2010

Greetings!

We’ve had a wonderful couple of months so far at The Dojo Of Karate, which is great!

Last weekend, we had an extremely successful inner school tournament with over 50 competitors, and it looked like everyone had a blast.

We plan on hosting another inner school tournament in the Fall around September / October this year, and make it a traditional bi-annual event.  However, we will probably have to rent out a local gymnasium for a few hours, in order to accommodate all of the competitors and their guests.

So, here’s what’s going on next over the next few months…

Adult Self-Defense Seminar

As many of you know, we are hosting a FREE adult self-defense workshop on Saturday, March 20th, from 10:30am to 12:00pm.  This is reserved for the first 30 attendees, so I highly suggest you guys register now to save your spot.

To signup for the self-defense workshop click on the link below:

http://www.AdultSelfDefense.com

Feel free to pass on this link to your friends, co-workers, or family members, as we want to make sure we have an opportunity to teach several guests some reality-based, easy to learn self-defense techniques.  Our goal is to host 2-3 of these events per year in order to give back to our community.

Open Karate Tournament

The first open Karate Tournament for the year will be Saturday, March 13th in Parker, CO.  Please keep in mind that you must be a member of Black Belt Club in order to compete in this tournament, however, you can go as a spectator to support our school and your fellow classmates.

We have flyers at the front desk that you can grab, fill-out and mail back.

The Dojo of Karate is a member of the Colorado Karate Association, so if you would like to chase points and have an opportunity to win a Colorado State Title in your division, you can become a member for a small nominal fee.  You also save on your registrations during each event.

To learn more about the Colorado Karate Association simply go to the link below:

http://www.coloradokarateassociation.org/

There you can find a schedule of upcoming tournaments, divisions your and/or your child will be competing in, and information about becoming a member.

Super Kids Expo

Local magazine publisher, Yellow Scene will be hosting their 2nd Annual Super Kids Expo on Saturday, April 17th from 10am to 4pm at the YMCA on 95th and Arapahoe in Lafayette.

This expo is a great way for families to learn about local camps and activities you can signup your child for during the Summer.  The Dojo of Karate decided to purchase a booth for the event to promote our Summer Camp Special, which was a huge success last year.

We were also asked to do a Karate Demonstration for the event!

So, all of our Black Belt Club Members will have an opportunity to train for this event and put on a great show… indoors!

Over the next 5 weeks, Black Belt Club classes will basically be Demo Team Practice.  Since many of our students understand what to expect when putting on a demonstration, routines should be learned fairly quickly.

Please keep in mind that students must be apart of our Black Belt Club in order to participate for the Demo Team.

If your child will not be able to perform during the Super Kids Expo, they will train in Black Belt Club classes, as this allows them to learn certain routines.

To learn more about Yellow Scene, go to their website.

http://yellowscene.com

Karate Uniforms

As many of you know, the basic Karate uniforms students wear get fairly dirty quickly, or kids grow out of them.  And, they are practically impossible to get white.  If your child falls in that category, please understand we want our students to look presentable during classes and outside of The Dojo, therefore we are asking all parents and students to invest $30 to purchase a new uniform — if they are about to fall apart, getting to small, or no longer white.

The Dojo of Karate carries all sizes, so feel free to talk to Mr. Lozano about purchasing a size.

If Mr. Lozano feels a student’s uniform has become “wore out” he will let the student and parent know about his too.

Thank you for your understanding.

The Breast Cancer Boot Camp

Last year, The Dojo of Karate partnered with a parent to help raise money for the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer in June.

This year, we’re going to jump ahead and host a Fitness Boot Camp to help raise money and find a cure for Breast Cancer.

We plan on hosting The 1st Annual Breast Cancer Boot Camp in May (date to be announced).  However, we  would like this to be a community and school event.

If you are interested in participating in a Fitness Boot Camp that is for a GREAT cause, I highly suggest you keep your ears peeled because this is going to be a stellar event… and a killer workout!

An example of getting the school involved is having ‘Breast Cancer Awareness Week’ where students can purchase PINK belts to wear during their training sessions to show their support.

Within the next few weeks, we will have more information about this.

Bolder Boulder 10K

Do you plan on running the Bolder Boulder this year?  Do you want someone to run with you during the Bolder Boulder?

Well, we would like to put together a group of adults, parents, and kids interested in participating in this annual event hosted in Boulder.

Mr. Lozano ran the Bolder Boulder a few years ago and had a blast!  Even if you’ve never ran a 10K, you’ll have some fun because several families get together to run this event.

The Bolder Boulder is hosted on Memorial Day Weekend, so if you’re in town, you should make an attempt to run it!

We’ll have more information about this too.

Well, that is pretty much it for now.

Until next time!

Sensei Lozano

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February Westminster Martial Arts Newsletter – 2010

February 6th, 2010

Greetings!

So January is already behind us, and now we are sitting in on a short month of February.

We started off the year with some very exciting announcements, such as having our 1st Annual Board Breaking Seminar last weekend.  We will have some footage and pictures up shortly, but in the mean time feel free to checkout our FaceBook Fan Page, since we had a student post some videos and pictures by going to: http://www.FaceBook.com/TheDojoOfKarate.

If you have some pictures from the seminar or any other school events, please feel free to share them on The Dojo of Karate Fan Page and be a FAN of The Dojo!

Than, when we thought it couldn’t get any better, The Dojo of Karate was featured on Fox 31 Good Day Colorado and Channel 2: Day Break On The Deuce with Feature Reporter Dan Daru.

To watch some footage of students breaking boards please click here.

The kids loved Dan Daru.  He was a pleasure to work with at 5:45am, and he wants to do another Feature Report in March when we host our Adult Self-Defense Seminar.  More to come on that later!

With that said, I want to thank all of our parents for your support and bringing your kids SOOOO early!  So far we’re starting off the year very well, and can’t wait to see what February has to bring.

1St Annual Inter-School Karate Tournament

What is this you ask?!?!  Well, it’s a Karate Tournament that ALL students of The Dojo of Karate should compete in.  Students will be competing in Kata (forms) and Kumite (sparring).  All students most compete in both categories because we want to focus in developing well rounded martial artists.

Date and Time of Karate Tournament

Saturday, February 27th from 10am to 1pm

Students do not need to be here the entire time, but continue reading and find out WHY they should stay the entire time!

Cost To Compete In Karate Tournament

Regular Members – $15/student

Black Belt Club Members – $12/student

Spectators – FREE

Karate Tournament Divisions

To make the competition as even as possible for everyone, this is how we will break down the divisions.

Lil’ Ninjas

Beginners, All Ages – Students will perform Attacker & Defender of their Kiso Katas

Intermediate, All Ages – Students will perform the 1st half of Pinan Nidan

All Ranks will do Bunny Ears Competitions

Kids Karate – Forms

Beginners – All ages, White and Gold belts.  Perform Kiso Katas, Attacker & Defender.

Intermediate / Advanced – 6.5 to 9 years old.  Perform entire Kata of Pinan Nidan or Pinan Godan.

Intermediate / Advanced – 10 to 13 years old.  Perform entire Kata of Pinan Nidan or Pinan Godan.

Kids Karate – Sparring

Beginners will do ‘Bunny Ears’ Competitions

Intermediate / Advanced – 6.5 to 9 years old.

Intermediate / Advanced – 10 to 13 years old.

Adult Karate

All Ranks, Men & Women will compete together in Forms

All Ranks, Men & Women will compete together in Sparring

Volunteers for Referee, Score Keeping & Time Keeping

In order to make this as smooth as possible, we need parents to help volunteer.  If you have previous martial arts or sporting experience, we would appreciate your assistance.

We will need about 12 judges, so we can interchange them periodically

Each division will need a total of 3 Judges for both Forms & Sparring. We will also need volunteers to keep score for competitors performing their Katas, than both Score Keeper & Time Keeper for sparring divisions.

There will also need to be additional volunteers to substitute judges for divisions that one’s child may be competing in, again to keep the competition leveled.

On Friday, February 26th at 7:00 pm we will have Judges, Time Keeper, and Score Keeper training.  Mr. Lozano will go over how to perform each duty correctly.  Black Belt Club class will be canceled that day.

Forms Competition

Competitors will have to memorize an introduction of themselves, as well as follow a floor routine of basic bows and procedures.  At the end of their performance, competitors will receive a score (like in gymnastics or figure skating).  The scores will be totaled, with the person having the highest accumulated scores receiving 1st place, 2nd place, and 3rd place.

Sparring Competition

Our sparring will be a bit different than normal sparring matches one will face at Open Karate Tournaments.

The Dojo of Karate decided to do a “Spar-A-Thon”.  Students will spar the remainder of the day, after the forms competition take place.

The Spar-A-Thon will go as followed:

All students will be divided into age groups, however, ranks Orange through Green will all compete against each other.

During each match students will score as many points as possible.  They will also have a Score Card that tracks all of their points.  After each match, a Score Keeper will tally the points they scored and keep a running total throughout the day.  Competitors that reach certain milestones with points scored during all of their matches will be eligible to receive medals for Gold, Silver, and Bronze.

Points Needed To Achieve a Medal.

Gold Medal – 60 total points

Silver Medal – 40 total points

Bronze Medal 20 total points

This format of competition will teach all students about setting goals and achieving them.  It will also help develop their confidence and determination because they will be allowed to spar as many matches as necessary in order to reach their goals.

Bunny Ears Competitions

All Students that can not spar will participate in Bunny Ears Competitions – which is very similar to sparring.  Students will tuck the end of their belts into the part around their waist.

From there competitors will need to pull each others “bunny ears” during a 1 minute match.  For each “bunny ear” a competitor pulls, they will be awarded one point.  All competitors will have a Score Card that will keep track of points scored throughout the day.

Below are the following points students will need to score in order to achieve a medal:

Gold Medal: 30 total points

Silver Medal: 20 total points

Bronze Medal: 10 total points

Rules To Karate Tournament

Sportsmanship will be the most important Black Belt Principle for BOTH parents and students to practice.  We are trying to teach kids goal setting skills, as well as helping them achieve their personal goals, so we want to make sure all students have fun and get recognized for their hard work.

Placings For Tournaments

There will be 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for all competitors in the forms divisions, as well as finalists placings.  All students will go home with a medal of some sort for competing, but elite competitors should be recognized for their excellence.

Adult Self Defense Seminar

Mark your calendars!  The Dojo of Karate will host an Adult Self-Defense Seminar on March 20th from 10:30am to 12:00pm.  This will be a FREE event for all parents, friends, and members of the community.

We will be looking at partnering with a non-profit organization to help raise money, so if you would like to make a small donation, that would be greatly appreciated.

This will be for both Women and Men interested in learning basic self-defense.  Please tell your friends, as we would like to make sure we have a diverse group of participants.

And, if you would like to continue your training, The Dojo of Karate also offers our Self-Defense Black Belt Program.  This is an elite program designed to give you fast results for those learning how to defend themselves with moves and techniques that are easy to perform, with reality based training.

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Snow And Karate

April 22nd, 2009

Last week, on Friday, it was snowing in the Denver/FrontRange area of Colorado… It was your typical Spring storm… sorta slushy with a snow/rain mix.

Anyways, I had planned to stay open that day because the snow hit hard in different areas, and most students are less than 2 miles away… if that.

Well, we had our normal mixed kids & adults class at 5:45pm, and than at 6:45pm we had our Black Belt Club class for all of my BBC members.  The snow was coming down the entire evening during class… Students were calling asking if classes were cancelled, and I was telling them “no, class will be at the normal time.”

After class, as usual, some of the parents stuck around to chat with other parents, and myself.  And the kids… well, there was plenty of snow on the ground for them to figure out what to do with it.  However, there was ONE instigator who is in my Adult Class…    She decided to start a snowball fight in our little shopping center.  It was great!

I gotta say, though, watching those kids running in the snow, dodging snowballs, laughing, yelling, and all the things that kids do… made me smile.  No joke.  Its those instances like that that I realize how LUCKY I am to be apart of these kids lives & be their role models.  Watching them play, grow, smile, frown, and everything that a child experiences — is simply AWESOME.

Though this hasn’t happened as much lately, but I get stressed out with the school, for obvious reasons.  But when I sit back and savor those moments of joy, there is nothing like it.  It is true that the present is a gift, which is why it’s called the present.

So for everyone out there… enjoy today for what it is.  Tomorrow has its own worries.

Love what you do and smile because people can tell how passionate you are about anything. 

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