AKR Update August, 2015

Post date: Sep 02, 2015 4:22:35 AM

AKR Update August, 2015

Dear AKR Members,  

To begin this edition, first of all, I would like to send my respect and condolences to the family and friends of the late Liam O’Brien sensei (kyoshi 7th dan, UK) who passed away on the 28th of August.  The official announcement of his passing away has been posted at the KFF section.

I would like to apologize for not publishing the AKR Update for two months, June and July.  I hope all of you have been well since then.  Those who attended the seminar must have returned home with good experience, learnings and excitement.   They must have brought back a lot of teachings from the senseis and such teachings must have been shared with your friends.

I am sending my sincere gratefulness to the SCKR, the AKR officers, members, the AKC members and affiliates from Latin Americas for their support and their help.    Such cooperation is inevitable to bring the seminar to success and I also would like to thank the MNKR for their hosting the 2016 seminar in Northfield in Minnesota.

This edition includes some new articles and reports.  I hope to share such info with all of the AKR members and  friends in Pan American countries.

Sincerely

Yoshiko Buchanan, AKR President

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From the AKR:

1)  New The 2015 IKYF/American Kyudo Seminar report.

Blackwell sensei has been asked to write a brief report but he is out of the country right now.   I hope he can contribute his report next month.

The 2015 Andrew West Memorial Award was given to Erika Alejandra Castillo Licea from Mexicio.         

2)  New The 2nd Pan American Kyudo Taikai report: (Tomio Kato) Result:   

A Group winners        1st,   Raul Martin  Saet,   (mudan)          Southern California/AKR    4/8 hits

  (up to sandan)           2nd, Manuel  Quiroga,     (mudan)         Chile

                                    3rd,   David  Hong     (2)                            Northern California/AKR

                                    4th,   Alvin  Pun   (1)                                  Canada

                                    5th,   Michael David  Kennedy (3)           Canada      

 B Group winners         1st,  Tomio  Kato  (ren-6)                     Georgia/AKR  5/8 hits

   (yondan & above)      2nd, Mie  Takahashi (ren-5)                Canada  4/8 hits

                                         3rd,  Fumiko  Takeda (5)                      Virginia/AKR  4/8 hits

                                         4th,  Reiko  Blackwell  (ren-5)              South Carolina/AKR 2/8 hits

                                         5th,  John Born     (4)                             Minnesota/AKR   2/8 hits          

Thank you for all participants and volunteers.              Tomio kato, Taikai organizer. 

Thanks to Kato sensei and all the volunteers the 2nd Pan American Kyudo Taikai was operated in a friendly manner and the attendees looked like they enjoyed the event.   It will be nicer if there is some more time that allows for performing both Yawatashi and Nohsha which are ceremonial shooting of events to announce the opening and closing of the taikai.  Also I would like to ask organizers in the future to create a better scoring/tallying system that can indicate accurate results in a short time.

This is the first time the AKR asked for an admission fee to participate in the taikai.  The total entry number was 54 people and that made an income of $270.  The expenses were $256.80,   which made a $13.20 surplus.  It was added to the AKR Seminar fund.   Thank you.

3)  New The 2015 AKR Regular Meeting of Board of Directors:  Please see the attached                                  meeting minutes (by Jannette Curran)

I would like to thank all the representatives, the AKR officers and all the other participants to the meeting.  Special thanks to both Jannette sensei for organizing and preparing the meeting agenda and Joseph Reid to act the Chair.  

4 ) New Shinsa report: (Yoshiko Buchanan) The technical examination went very smoothly and on time.  The operation was rather simple comparing to the exams in the past because the written test had been finished separately prior to the technical exam on the 30th.      The results are: shodan 100% (35/35, one absentee), nidan 100% (7/7, one absentee), sandan 53% (9/17), yondan 44% (4/9) and godan 0% ( 0/4).

The written exam was a take home test with questions that had been given in advance.  The answer sheets were collected at the seminar registration and distributed to certain senior AKR members to be scored.  The written test will be given in this fashion (take home test) from now on and the question list has been distributed to all the federation and  affiliated countries already.

It should be posted to the AKR website also.  Please share the question list with your members.

5)         2015 Seminar T-Shirts!!  Thank you very much for your support.  The AKR could raise $537.95.

 $    .   This fund will be used for the 2016 seminar.   There are more request orders and the AKR will take additional orders.  Pease send your order form to Junko Kurita BY THE END OF SEPTEMBER.  The order form will be sent separately.

6)         Creating an AKR annual tournament:  This topic was unfortunately missed from the AKR Board meeting agenda.  However the result of the taikai has been recorded and this record  will be helpful when we need to select US team members for the 2018 IKYF Taikai in Japan. 

There is a proposal from the AKR office for a national kyudo tournament.  Kato sensei has updated his idea to begin discussion for all of you: Since there has not been any response from my e-mail, I have drafted some quick ideas.  I will come up with more ideas with my assistant.  

 AKR Taikai (Competition and Recording) Plan.         Draft 12/28/14  Tomio Kato

 The committee will provide an Excel sheet for keeping records and competition rules.

 Events should occur twice a year such as: (Spring and Fall) or (Spring and AKR seminar Taikai).

  Rules:       8 arrows competitions.

                   No practice before competition except for makiwara.

                   Observers will record the results and archers will verify and sign.

                   Rules will be based on AKR competition requirements 

 The committee will recommend US team members for international events, based on the records from the competition

I would like to ask you to pay attention to the idea and bring up your thoughts.  Please contact Kato sensei and share your ideas.   Your participation in the project will provide you with a different type of training and this chance is very much welcomed and appreciated.

6)   New Finally we may have one or two volunteers, Great!!  Haitham S. (NCKF) has been approved as the lead editor by the AKR Board at the 2015 meeting.  He has contacted Carly sensei and begun working on the website.  The AKR Board has agreed to eliminate one of the current domains, kyudous.com, and to move the contents to the other domain which is “kyudousa.com”. 

 7)    Creating a translation committee group/report from the 2015 seminar New

Carly sensei and her team worked hard at the seminar to provide the translation of the instruction as accurately as they can.  The hardest portion was the “Kihontai” training that required a translation literally from the Kyohon into both English and Spanish.   As we experienced the difficulty of translating for the entire class (100 participants of two different languages) and the time loss for the Spanish speaking participants who gathered in the same spot to receive the translation. In this way they could work a little more efficiently.  In the future the committee should think ahead and come up with some efficient method of translation.  There may be Portuguese added to the 2016 seminar.

Volunteer wanted!  The committee should be able to plan to ask those volunteers to contribute their translation skill and post some articles from the Kyudo Magazine in the future.   It will help to make the AKR website more informative and useful.  If you are interested in translating articles please contact Yoshiko Buchanan at eclayyoshiko@gmail.com. 

From the ANKF:

1) New            Fletching issue   Mr. Harada, ANKF office manager, who accompanied the teachers for the 2015 IKYF/AKR seminar briefly, explained about the  “Fletching Issue” and what points overseas students should pay attention to.  Making a very complex story short, the guideline from the ANKF is that we cannot use the “Ojirowashi (White tail sea eagles) and “Ohwashi  (Sea eagles)”  at any ANKF events.   “Feathers Certificate of Traceability” is available for those who have natural fletchings.  Also, besides the above mentioned strictly protected eagles, owners should use this certificate to list the fletching that they are currently using and to carry the certificates with them when they travel.

The federation presidents, shogos and representatives attended this meeting with Mr Harada.  Please ask for more detailed information about this issue from the participants of the meeting.  Those who attended this meeting are requested to share the information, which will help to prevent any violations in the future.

The AKR office is planning to post the document (English) from the ANKF to the AKR website.

2) New            Donation from the Takahashi Kyugu to the AKR.  As such donation money was introduced in the May edition, the AKR received $540 (70,000 yen) from the ANKF.  The AKR Board decided to donate this contribution from Takahashi to the SCKR for their 2015 seminar operation.

d)  The ANKF is charging kyudo equipment stores a concession fee for booths, 70,000 yen since 2013. (It was 100,000 yen in 2013).  The ANKF is offering this fee to the American IKYF/AKR 2015 seminar to support the event.  They are suggesting that the seminar organizers could use it. 

3) New The Kyohons and the ANKF pins were distributed to the students who ordered.  The ANKF paid $200 to ship such a heavy package and to gave the AKR some discount.   The discount amount which is 118.50 will be added to the AKR seminar fund.   There is a good demand for kyohon among especially amount the first time seminar attendees and I hope the ANKF will help us in 2016 also.

4)         Permission for translation has been asked to the ANKF.  

According to the ANKF officials they will permit us to work on the articles of the Kyudo Magazine.  Due to the copyright of each article we are not allowed to create complete translations of the articles but “Summary of articles” is allowed.   How we summarize is the question but there are many capable AKR bilingual members who are willing or interested in translating and contributing their work to the AKR.  If that works it would be very helpful to the AKR members to deepen their study. 

From the IKYF:

1) 2015 Overseas Special Shogo seminar in Tokyo will take place at the Chuodojo from 10/27 – 30.   Details have been distributed to all the federations and to the affiliated godans outside of the US. 

“This event is open to kyudo members with the rank of Godan and above. 

Please send one Excel sheet including applications for all of for your group members who plan to attend to maria.peterson123@gmail.com by Sept 21 (this is one week ahead of the IKYF deadline).  Please send application fees to AKR Treasurer Andrew Platzer according to his instructions.  Sincerely,  Maria”

2) IKYF ID:  The ID cards for those who first attend the IKYF/American seminar in July, 2015 have been issued. 

From the EKF:

As you have been informed already Liam O’Brien sensei (kyushi 7th dan) passed away on the 28th of August.   I would like to announce here again this very sad news.  The AKR office obtained the place where we and individuals can send our condolences.   

Our condolence email was sent already.  It is posted after the announcement.

----- Original Message -----

From: Gérald Zimmermann

Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2015 2:05 PM

Subject: Kyudo: passing away of Liam O'Brien, Kyoshi 7th Dan

Dear Presidents and National Representatives of the the ANKF, IKYF and EKF

I have been informed by the United Kingdom's Kyudo Association of the passing away of the former EKF President, UKKA chairman and senior teacher Liam O'Brien Kyoshi 7 dan. The secretary of the association, Ray Dolphin, has asked me to convey the sad news:

"It is with great sadness, that we have to inform you that the United Kingdom’s Kyudo teacher Liam O’Brien Kyoshi 7th dan  passed away, on the 28/8/2015

Although this loss will be felt most acutely by all the members of the United Kingdom Kyudo Association, O’Brien sensei’s influence was far reaching. With unparalleled Japanese dojo experience under the direct guidance of Takeuchi sensei, no one else had that depth of knowledge of Japanese culture and old school Kyudo training.

Would you please inform members of the EKF Shidoiinkai and IKYF member countries leaders of this sad news.

Kind regards,

Ray Dolphin"

On behalf of the EKF I would like to express my sincere condolences. O'Brien sensei as senior teacher in Europe will be dearly missed.

Gerald Zimmermann

EKF President           

Our condolence email to the UKKA:

Dear Dolphin sensei and all the members of United Kingdom Kyudo Association,

On behalf of the American Kyudo Renmei I would like to send our deepest condolences for the loss of your teacher, Liam O'Brien sensei.  The news of his death was quite sudden to us and we are saddened and shocked.  O'Brien sensei was one of the early pioneers to introduce kyudo outside of Japan and was a towering figure in the international kyudo community.  We also feel a great loss of the strength of kyudo that we have all been relying on for a long time.

He will be dearly remembered by all of us and we will certainly carry on his teaching, dignity and legacy.

Since we have no contact information for his family we would greatly appreciate it if you could extend our condolences to his family.

With my prayer

Yoshiko Buchanan, President, American Kyudo Renmei

From the Affiliates:

1)         There were 14 participants from the Latin American countries to the 2015 IKYF/AKR Kyudo Seminar, Argentina (2), Chile (2), Mexico (5), Panama (2), Paraguay (1) and Uruguay (2).  In addition to those Latin American affiliates there was one participant from Austria.  Ishikawa IKYF president was very pleased to see the development of the ANKF kyudo in the Americas.   

2)         The report on the joint seminar of Kyudo-Kai Chile and Kyudokai Asuncion will be in the Sept. edition.

End of August edition