Shinkō Karate-Kai

A very weird day began with snow, school bus delays in the city, and school closures in the rural areas. 511 indicated highways were covered in snow. But by 6pm, there was hardly a trace of the earlier snowfall in Charleswood, and we carried on with karate class as usual. We are missing our adults due to the latest cold/flu bug, and our out of towners, so it was a rare "kids only" class this evening. You wouldn't have known it to watch them. They worked hard on yoko-geri keage, uraken uchi, enpi uchi and shuto uke combination drills inspired by Heian 2 & 4. And not one of them said "can we play a game?" Great effort tonight kids!

REMINDER: RWP School is closed on Friday April 10, so there will be no karate class this Friday. Classes resume on Monday at our normal time.

We love spring break, but it has a downside. With schools closed this week we don't have access to our gym. Thank you to LaRoyce Sensei and Kildonan Karate for hosting a few of us who just couldn't bear a whole week off from training. She delivered a great class on the 10 points of body connection. These young fellas did us proud tonight, worked hard and hopefully made some new friends.

Shinkō Kai wishes you a happy St. Patrick's day! If you're feeling bloated and gross after too much green beer, come sweat it out with us tomorrow evening!

We were up early to hit the road at 7am for the 3.5 hour drive to Russell Manitoba this morning for the 10th anniversary seminar at Inglis/Russell Karate Club. Three of us from Shinkō Karate Kai proudly represented Winnipeg.

This was Callum's first seminar road trip with us, and it was great to have him along!

Huge thank you to Bruce Hutton Sensei for hosting us! We had a great day (as always) and enjoyed meeting up with many of our karate friends from Brandon and Inglis/Russell area.

We're looking forward to attending the annual Tri-dojo Seminar on the weekend of January 23-25. Members wishing to attend, please connect with Jackie Lee to register.

2026 Tri-Dojo Seminar Winter Seminar | 3 days, 3 dojos | with Scott Middleton

Classes resume tonight at 6:30pm, River West Park School.

We hope you've had a nice break over the holiday season and are ready to get back into your training groove.

What are your training goals for 2026?

Look what arrived in the mail today. Come to class on Jan 5, 2026 to find out how you can get one (hint: they are not for sale, they can only be earned), and to see the first one awarded to a deserving individual.

Well, that's a wrap on 2025! The weather seemed determined to stop us from holding our windup class before the holiday break, but we persevered! Even our out of town students braved the weather to make it to class.

We are pretty consistent about training in uniform, but this time students received a t-shirt upon arrival, and were allowed to train in it.

It wasn't our usual class, this one was a little more fun and festive. With just a little competitive spirit, as members competed for the Jackpot of Trophies. Well actually a festive Gnome named "Jackpot" but clearly a worthy trophy, as everyone seemed motivated to claim it as their own.

A series of competitions were held to gain or lose points to determine the ultimate champion. Shout outs go to Richard for winning the fastest belt tie, and to Liam for the nicest belt knot. Kaden earned the first (and only?) high-five of the night. Congrats to Lily for the most spirited catwalk and karate pose for our judging panel, to Lachlan and Callum for their recitation of the dojo kun (in Japanese!), and to Amy for her perseverance (and win!) in capturing the black belt from her opponent.

Competitors went head to head in contests of speed, balance, and agility, as well as tests of knowledge and spirit.

But there could only be one winner! Congratulations Lachlan for winning the Gnome trophy. Honorable mention to Liam who was only a point away from claiming it himself.

Thanks to our parent spectator group for their assistance with judging.

It has been a wonderful inaugural year for our club, and we have our members to thank for that. Your support and encouragement are what made it possible to emerge in a time of change and uncertainty. Your continued commitment to learn, practice, and grow together are what make it possible to operate, and I truly appreciate each and every one of you for allowing me to be part of your karate journey.

Thank you all for a great first year, and I can't wait to see where 2026 will take us!

-Jackie Lee

Members: uniform/equipment order has been received and items will be available for pickup in class. Reach out directly if you want to make alternate arrangements.

In Wednesday evening's class, we started our post-seminar debrief with a review of the following:
- key elements of ashi-barai
- Nijushiho-inspired tai-sabaki, but simplified for all-levels
- evolving one of our own drills into the recoil-focused pattern explored at Seminar

We'll continue the debrief on Friday evening, with a look at some kihon elements from one of the featured Heian kata, including some applications of one of my favorite morote-waza (you can try and guess what it is).

There were quite a few stance transitions I wanted to explore further than the seminar time would allow for, we may briefly touch on some at Friday's class, but most likely do a deeper dive in a tachi-waza focused theme in the near future.

If you had any unanswered questions from Seminar that you would like me to address, please bring to class. See you then!

5 of us attended WTKO Canada's Fall 2025 Invitational Seminar this weekend. Saturday was a road trip out to Brandon, and Sunday was right here in Winnipeg. As you can see from the smiles, we loved it! Thank-you to WTKO Canada for continuing to offer these these great events right here in Manitoba!

Our bodies may be sweaty, sore, and tired, (a sure sign of a great seminar) but our spirits are high and we can't wait for the next one!

The theme of the late is "Get comfortable with being out of your comfort zone."

Tonight, everybody was uncomfortable at some point, whether it was trying to perform a new(-ish) technique, adapting to an unfamiliar scenario, feeling silly and awkward, or being put on the spot when you'd rather be invisible.

Of course we need to have moments where things just click, feel right and good, but that is not where growth happens. Real growth happens outside the comfort zone.