Hello everyone!
With the entirety of March now gone, our recruitment period for this season is unfortunately now over. However, good news! During this season, many new faces have joined us here at the Sydney University Kendo Club, great to see so many people interested in Kendo and trying out something like no other! With O-Week, BBQ’s and competitions, here’s a quick re-cap of what has happened this month (Kohya and Internal Shiai will be excluded, as they are separate posts!).
O-Week re-cap:
Due to COVID restrictions, we were a bit more limited with what we could do this time around – but that didn’t stop us from trying our hardest to show off the best side of Kendo! Many of us wore full gear, handing out fliers and explaining what Kendo is to everyone who looked our way. We even managed to perform our demonstration show this year, despite the circumstances. Thanks to everyone who visited and joined us through our stall, we hope we were able to leave a great first impression for you!
One part of our demonstration session where we let the audience take a few swings at us wearing protective armor!
Our Kendo stall for O-Week! (From left to right: Fujisawa-sensei, Kyte, Fabian, Makoto)
Even the SUSF mascot seemed interested to give the Shinai a few swings! (It was terribly windy day! Right to left: Reizo, Makoto, and the SUSF Mascot)
Fabian pouring his heart out advertising for Kendo!
Secretary Suzie (right) and Commercial Officer Aji (left) manning the store, wearing USYD Kendo shirts! Go team!
Trial lessons during O-Week:
We also had massive turnouts at our trial sessions hosted throughout the O-Week period, where many of the people who visited us at the stall turned up to try the fundamentals of Kendo first-hand, joining soon after! Glad to see that many people were interested and got to meet and make new friends!
Many new faces joining us for Kendo at our trial sessions this season! Thank you all for coming!
Social events with our new beginners:
A few weeks after joining our club, our new 2021 beginners got the chance to meet and talk with each other in more detail, as well as converse with our senior members of the club at our main social event for this year: enjoying delicious Japanese BBQ at Kohya! (Have a look at that post for more details and a compilation of photos from it!) Everyone shared a bit about themselves and celebrated a good time with drinks and good food!
Despite the global pandemic known as COVID19 affecting us all in many ways, I hold hope as this year is looking to be exciting and promising for our Kendo club! To everyone in our club and our new members of 2021, thank you for making this season as exciting as it can be, looking forward to the future!