Ohio Budokan

Our movie club meeting went well today and we've picked out our films for our June meeting. We will be watching The Tale of Princess Kaguya and The Wind Rises, which are not only the first Ghibli films for our group but our first animated films from any studio! While most of our group members have seen somewhere between a little and a lot of anime, it isn't familiar to everyone. So hopefully over the next month or so we can introduce people to a new avenue of cinema to explore that they may not have considered!

Our next meeting will be held near the end of July, with the date being determined as we get closer. If you're interested in joining out movie club (or book club, or Japanese language study group, or any of our classes), just send us a message and we'll help you get started!

Our karate classes’ monthly kobudo training is still going strong! This month we practiced with the bo and it was all about kihon, movement, accuracy and stance. We helped each other test the stability and accuracy of our thrust techniques and spent a lot of time moving while performing basic strikes and thrusts to get more comfortable with the weapon and make sure we can hit the intended target while moving from stance to stance.

A big thanks to Brenda-san for hosting an informative and engaging self-defense seminar for the members of Ohio Budokan! We laughed, we squirmed, we wrestled around on the mats, and we choked each other too… it was really a great time.

Brenda-san spent many years teaching a general self-defense course at the collegiate level and was kind enough to offer a free 2hr~ crash course for the dojo. From situational awareness to making sure you’re on the right side of the law when defending yourself, the information gleaned from this training is something every martial artist should know and we’re very fortunate to have our own expert in house.

At Ohio Budokan we function like a traditional Japanese dojo, we’re non-profit and every member shares their time and skillset to keep the dojo running and help each other along in our martial journey. It’s a real community and you’re welcome to join us, check the website for more info.

Our book club met yesterday to discuss Malice by Keiga Higashino. While a smaller than normal meeting, the consensus was positive and we'd recommend it. Especially to fans of detective novels.

Our next book will be The Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura. Some of her most famous works (outside of Japan anyway) focus on the complexity of things people often take for granted as being fairly straightforward, such as editing a dictionary and running. But they also place heavy emphasis on the relationships that form from being part of a team or a community. This one has been on the list for a while and we're excited to start it!

If you're interested in getting involved with our Dojo book club, just send us a messag and we'll get you all the information you need to get started. And it's free! The books aren't always though. Libraries can only do so much.

Thank you to everyone who attended our Iaido seminar this weekend! The instruction was excellent, the attitude was wonderful, and our circle of Iaido continues to grow.

Thank you as well to all the people who helped behind the scenes! There's more to a successful event than just showing up on the right day and this seminar would not have been this much of a success without so many people pitching in.

We're all looking forward to the next one already!

Due to unforeseen circumstances the Aikijutsu and Kenjutsu classes will be cancelled this evening. Classes will resume as normal on Monday the 4th.

Members of our adult karate class joined the children’s class to teach them the basics of bo technique. This is one of the beautiful things about training in the martial arts, passing on tribal knowledge from one generation to the next first hand. The children who begin learning these techniques today become the Sensei who teach others in the future!

We currently have room in our children’s class (ages 8-14) and anyone’s welcome to come learn from us. We’re a non-profit so pricing is cheap at $60/mo for one class per week or $70/mo for two per week and we offer discounts to low income families and our local Northridge school students. Check the website for more info, or DM us if your ready for a trial class.

This morning our kids Karate class got to do some extended outdoor training, followed by a potluck lunch. The lunch was particularly special because it was also an opportunity to celebrate Michele-shihan's (belated) 40th anniversary of training in Genwakai karate. In honor of her years of training, instruction, and helping to lead Ohio Budokan we have dedicated our common area to her. She has worked most of her life to teaching in one form or another and we are grateful that she has spent so much of that care and attention to detail on our students.

Our Iaido study group will not be meeting tomorrow, November 22nd. Sessions will resume as normal on the 23rd.