Practice reopening!!!!!

 Good news!

After having to close our practices for a few weeks to monitor the rising COVID cases, we were recently given the go-ahead to start up practices again! Due to the ongoing situation, all COVID protocols will remain in place, so that means that masks need to be worn at all times in the building, including while practicing!

Our first practice will be Iaido tomorrow (Friday) at 7:00 PM. See y'all there!

Practices Temporarily Canceled Due To COVID

 

Good evening everyone,

On Sunday, the AUSKF sent an email recommending that we cancel our in person practices for a few weeks due to the recent surge of COVID after the holiday travel season.

I regret to inform you that, due to that recommendation, we will need to pause our practices for the time being until the situation calms down a bit, which we hope happens by the end of the month.

One thing I can do in the meantime is to hold practices over Zoom.  I plan on holding one at 7:30 tomorrow for about a half hour if anyone is interested in joining.  Instead of trying to run this like a regular practice due to the limited space and time that we have with practice, I'd like to run this like a seminar of sorts to go over some concepts that we generally don't have a lot of time to explain during regular practice.  If you're able to follow along during the session, that's awesome!  But if you can't due to space limitations, that's also fine.  You can watch and ask questions as well!

Below is the meeting information.  Hope to see you all there!

Christopher M George Jr. is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Kendo And Iaido Practice

Time: Jan 12, 2022 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82275718834?pwd=VGRQalBtdE1qR21iWWxTZXVLQlMxQT09

Meeting ID: 822 7571 8834

Passcode: 641850

Kendo and Iaido Demonstration This Sunday!!

 Good evening,

This coming Sunday, the Aikido of Cincinnati dojo will be holding a Crane Festival, where the goal is to create 1000 cranes during the ceremony.  In addition to that, there will be food, music and demonstrations from the groups that practice there, including Kendo!

The entire festival is from noon-5PM, and we're scheduled to do our Kendo demonstration from 1:45 PM - 2:05 PM.  While only Kendo is on the schedule, we may have some time to do an Iaido demonstration right after the Kendo demo.  If you're interested in seeing what we're about to join us in practice, this is your chance to come visit and get a glimpse of what we do.  If you currently practice and you want to help out, please let me know so I can make demo plans!

Major Updates!!!

The past few weeks have been a bit busy for the club.  Not only are we resuming in-person practices, but our dojo will be moving to the Aikido of Cincinnati dojo starting this week (10/6/21)!  If you've been waiting for your chance to practice with us, that chance has arrived!  

One thing I need to note is that, due to the scheduling at the new place, we've had to move our practice times to the following (times and address has been updated on the "Location and Contact" page:

Kendo:  Wednesday 7:45 - 9:15

Iaido:     Friday        7:00 - 8:30

 If you have any questions or you're interested in joining us for practice, feel free to get in contact with us by phone or email!

Kendo Practice Updates!!!!

 Hello everyone,

Hopefully everyone is doing well!  With Thanksgiving coming up, I'm sure that some of us are busy making plans on how to spend next week.

In light of the Thanksgiving holiday, practice will be canceled on Sunday, November 22nd (Iaido) and Tuesday, November 24th (Kendo).  Practice will continue as usual on Sunday, November 29th for Iaido.

Also, I'm hoping that I'm not confusing people too much about the Zoom rooms and everything.  A few days ago, I decided to make one final change to the scheduling with the rooms.  At first, I had two different links to two different rooms for the Kendo and Iaido practice.  I felt that doing something like that is pretty redundant and a recipe for confusion should someone click the wrong link, so I decided to consolidate the room to hopefully reduce any foreseeable confusion.  I will update the links on the website and Facebook page accordingly.

Updated Zoom Meeting Info

 

Good evening everyone,

Hopefully everyone has been having a good week!  I have a few updates concerning the Zoom practices that we've been having:

1. Having a free Zoom account to run the Iaido practices has worked out well for us so far.  The main issue is that, if I'm not watching the clock, then we're automatically kicked out of the meeting after the 40-minute mark.  Last night, I purchased a subscription to Zoom, so now I can run practices without worrying so much about not going over (even if by a minute or so).
2. Recently, I've thought about running Kendo practices over Zoom as well, and I finally decided to pull the trigger on that thought.  Right now, I have it scheduled for 7PM on Tuesdays.  As I mentioned in the last email, these practices are going to be catered more to the people that already have practice experience, but anyone will be able to log in and watch.  I may try holding practices for beginners, but I need to take some time to figure out formatting assuming that we will still be out of practice for the next few months, at least.
3. The links to the practices will be added to the "Location And Contact" Page
   

Future Online Kendo Practices

 

Hello everyone,

When the COVID situation first started going on, my thoughts was that we would just need to do all that we needed to do and then we'd be right at practice again within a few months.  Obviously, that has not been the case, and none of us are sure when things will improve to the point where we will all be able to practice Kendo in person again.

Despite us not being able to practice in person for a while, I think that it's safe to say that the Kendo bug still remains strong with the desire to get to crossing swords again and enjoying all that Kendo has to offer.  While we can't exactly do that, I can propose starting up online practices so that we all don't have to start up again at zero from not doing much for at least a year.

At this point, I don't have a concrete structure on what all of the practices will entail due to this being new territory, but I know I can at least start off with the basics to get us back into things, and then dive into some of the things that I have been thinking about over the last few months.

At the moment, this practice is going to be geared more towards people that already have practice experience, but anyone is welcome to watch (though I guess it will also depend on how many people are able to be in one online session, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it).  I may add practices for those that have no experience in the future once I can formulate a plan for that.

I don't have a set day that I want to hold these, but I'm thinking either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday starting at 7 and going for about an hour.  Lemme know what y'all think and I will update everyone once I get the ball rolling!

Chris George