20th-21st November - AMAC Australian Titles

James Kell and Alex Vij represented us at the this tournament. James Kell did his best but unfortunately didn't do as well as we'd hoped. Alex did quite well, having competed in everything he could possibly compete (and picked up a few trophies too). He's even earned the dubious title of Australian Sword Combat Champion for his age group - the division where you get to hit each other with foam swords. Full results are on the AMAC website.

13th November - NZMAC North Island Titles

Congrats to Alex Vij, who went over to NZ for their North Island Titles. He got either 1st or 2nd in all of his divisions. Results will be in the November Newsletter. 

19th September — AMAC NSW State Titles

Too late for the September Newsletter, but here are the Kuro Obi results for the 2011 AMAC NSW State Titles. All of these people qualified for the Australian Titles in November on the Gold Coast.

Xavier Stocca	3rd 8-10yrs Adv/Blackbelt Freestyle Sparring
Alex Vij	2nd Traditional Weapons 14 yrs and up all grades 3rd 13-15yrs Point Sparring 2nd 13-15yrs Adv/Black belt Freestyle Sparring 3rd 13-15 yrs Sumo 1st 13-15 yrs Sword Combat
James Kell	Qualified for the Australian Titles
Taeko Pegios	2nd Female Adv/Black Belt Freestyle Sparring 2nd Female Adv/Black Belt Points Sparring 3rd Veterans All Grades Hard Forms
Simon Allaway	4th Middleweight Mens Open Full Contact

13th September — Grading Results

We're pleased to announce that 4 people from Kuro Obi dojo graded successfully. From Petersham we have the first two "native" Petersham students, Natalie and Ned, who graded to 9th and 10th kyu respectively, and El (who started at Newtwon but is now Petersham) who graded to 8th kyu, and Isobel, who got her 9th kyu. Next grading, we should have plenty more of you ready to go for it!

16th-25th July

Sensei Shah will be with the IFK Australia team in the UK at the 3rd Junior World Championships. During this time, children's classes in both Newtown and Petersham will not be running. Tuesday and Friday adult classes will still be running with either Senpai John or Senpai Ben teaching the class.

25th June

The latest IFKKA Newsletter is available now from http://www.ifk-australia.com/downloads/IFKKA_News_June2011.pdf

6th June 2011

Members of Kuro Obi dojo recently competed at the All Australia Championships, an Australian Martial Arts Championships sanctioned tournament run by the Kempo Ryu Karate organisations, and I'm pleased to report that a number of us managed to win a few places.

Sensei Shah	1st - Veterans Black Belt Men's Kata 1st - Open Black Belt Men's Kata 3rd - Veterans Black Belt Freestyle Sparring
Shigemi Nakamura-Simms	1st - Veterans All Grade Female Freestyle Sparring 3rd - Adult Advanced/Black Belt Female Kata
Taeko Pegios	2nd - Veterans All Grades Female Freestyle Sparring 3rd - Veterans All Grades Female Points Sparrring
Alex Vij	1st - 13-15yrs Advanced /Black Belt M/F Points Sparring 2nd -13-15yrs Advanced /Black Belt M/F Freestyle Sparring