Australian Karate Academy - Salisbury

Saturday morning family class number one - everyone having a great time!

Ryukyu Kobudo training - bo basics!

The calm before the storm...

Over the weekend instructors from Australian Karate Academy - Salisbury travelled up to Cairns for the Kizuna Seminar.

It was a massive weekend of Okinawan karate, kobudo, training, learning, catching up with old friends, and building new relationships with karateka from around Australia and New Zealand.

All up, there were around 125 participants at the seminar, with people travelling in from all over Australia and New Zealand. It was great to be surrounded by so many people who are serious about karate and still hungry to learn.

The seminar was run by our friends from Asato Dojo in Okinawa, along with some fantastic guest instructors.

We trained with James Pankiewicz Sensei, who taught Tomari Passai and applications. James runs Asato Dojo in Naha, Okinawa, and has done a lot of work connecting karateka from around the world back to Okinawa.

Dan Antonsen Sensei taught Sanchin, body conditioning, and Ryukyu Kobudo kihon. He brings a huge amount of experience in Goju-ryu and Ryukyu Kobudo, and there was plenty to take away from the way he explained body structure, conditioning, and basic weapon movement.

Andrea Klementisova Sensei taught Suparinpei and applications. Andrea is originally from Slovakia and now teaches Goju-ryu at Asato Dojo in Okinawa. Her movement, detail, and understanding of kata were fantastic to experience in person.

Toshihiko Tamashiro Sensei taught Naifanchi and applications. This was a great session for us, especially because Naifanchi is such an important kata in our own training. There was a lot of detail around posture, close-range movement, and how the kata connects to practical self-defence.

Tatsuya Tamaki Sensei taught Motobu-Ryu, a very old Okinawan fighting tradition connected to the Motobu family. This was a really interesting look at pre-karate movement, body control, weapons, joint work, throwing, striking, and close-range combative ideas.

Tuari Dawson Sensei from New Zealand taught Tensho and close-quarter drills. Tuari has a deep background in Goju-ryu, Ryukyu Kobudo, and Māori martial arts, and his session had a great mix of structure, flow, pressure, and practical connection.

For us, trips like this are important.

We don’t go away just to collect more techniques. We go to learn, to sharpen our own training, to improve how we teach, and to keep building the depth of knowledge we bring back to the dojo.

It also keeps us connected to Okinawa.

Karate can become very isolated if you only stay inside your own four walls. We have a strong dojo, but part of keeping it strong is making sure we keep learning from good people, keep challenging our own understanding, and keep bringing fresh ideas back to our members.

We came home with plenty to work on, plenty to think about, and plenty to share with you all over the coming weeks and months.

We’ve made a small adjustment to the adult timetable.

From now on, Tuesday and Thursday nights at 6.15pm – 7.15pm will be All Grades classes.

As an instructor group, we realised some of our more advanced students could benefit from having a few extra training options during the week. These All Grades classes will usually have 2–3 instructors on the floor, which means we can split the class when needed and focus on specific areas for different levels.

Monday and Wednesday nights will stay the same, with separate classes for beginners, advanced students, and high school students.

We’d also like to invite Orange Belt and above to join the Thursday night Kumite class at 7.15pm. This will give you more access to training and an early introduction to kumite/sparring in a supportive environment.

There will be multiple instructors there to help, so there’s no need to feel intimidated or worried. It’s a great chance to ease into it and build confidence.

The updated adult timetable will look like this:

Monday
6.15pm – 7.15pm: Advanced Karate — Cheyne
6.15pm – 7.15pm: High School — Isaac
7.15pm – 8.15pm: Beginners Karate — Mitch
7.15pm – 8.15pm: Kobudo — Cheyne

Tuesday
11.00am – 12.00pm: All Grades Karate — Cheyne / Steve
6.15pm – 7.15pm: All Grades Karate — Cheyne / Steve / Mike
6.15pm – 7.15pm: Jiu Jitsu — James
7.15pm – 8.30pm: Yudanshakai — Cheyne

Wednesday
6.15pm – 7.15pm: Advanced Karate — Cheyne
6.15pm – 7.15pm: High School — Isaac / Brendan
7.15pm – 8.15pm: Beginners Karate — Rod

Thursday
11.00am – 12.00pm: All Grades Karate — Cheyne / Steve
6.15pm – 7.15pm: All Grades Karate — Shannon / Beatriz / Emmilly
7.15pm – 8.30pm: Kumite — Scott
Orange Belt and above

Friday
6.15pm – 7.15pm: Jiu Jitsu — James

Saturday
8.30am – 9.30am: Karate — Mike / Shannon
9.30am – 10.30am: Karate — Mike / Shannon
10.30am – 12.00pm: Kobudo — Cheyne

This should give everyone a few more options and allow us to keep improving the quality of training across all levels.

See you in the dojo.

Some of the photos and certificates we have up at the dojo.

After more than 35 years, we could honestly fill every wall with photos, memories, certificates, awards and stories.

This is just a small snapshot of the memories we’ve built over the years.