My Third Club II

So I was Sensei of my third club. Made the deal that somebody would take it over eventually. My hope was that I'd be the instructor for a year, give or take. Then I could be a student in the line.

Athena, our Brown Belt organizer, got her Black Belt parents attending.

Everybody wanted to have a kids' class running at the same time as the adults, so people could join with built-in day care. (Evening care?) Athena's mom, Cherry agreed to take that part of the group. So far so good.

Training two nights a week at West Sechelt School.  Soon, added a third class Saturday afternoon in a church hall. Managed to get Ogawa Sensei to agree to come to the odd Saturday session. Sweet. He's one of those guys that can show you how something you'd been doing for decades is a bit off. And he's always right.

Needed to join an association so our students would get real rankings. I was leaning to my old one JKABC, but Athena's clan wanted their old one of ISKF. Both are fine, so we joined ISKF.

Ninth Dan Yaguchi came for a seminar in Vancouver before Xmas. Somebody had to go show the flag for our baby club. Guess who that was? Joe Dixon, the BC head agreed to come visit us and would do our testing locally. Better and better.

I surprised myself at how un-rusty I was. Started re-learning Katas with blinding speed.  I think so anyway. Cherry and her husband, Armando, started real rusty, but pushed right through that. Their injuries seemed to be OK, so we had three operational Black Belts.

A bunch of us went as a group to watch the Provincial Championship. So many keeners.

Late January, Athena let me know that Cherry felt ready to take over the Sensei role. They all seemed really nervous about hurting my feelings. Karate people are notorious for being touchy. I didn't mind, but was a bit concerned about how ready she really was.

I stopped teaching, and joined the student line. Was pleasantly surprised at how well Cherry did. After a class or two, I had no concerns left at all.

Just had our first set of exams.  Of six students grading, six passed. We had done something right.

So now I get to work on my own Karate without thinking all that much about the other people. Haven't been in that position since before I inherited my First Club. People are not shy about asking me for help, and I am happy to do so.  This includes Cherry and Armando, who sometimes want help with Kata. I might end up being the Kata reference guy.

I could dig that.