October 2007 Edition

November 2007 Edition

December 2007 Edition

February 2008 Edition

March / April 2008 Edition

Welcome and all the best for the New Year.

Thankyou all for the support last year and now with holidays over I'm sure you're all getting back into routine. Hopefully with the building of the IBF Australia in South Australia it will become the first point of reference for the public and we can direct them to you and increase your memberships.

Two of my new members came by referral from Terry Warke after they had looked up jujitsu in this state. Having come from interstate and overseas they had googled up the AJJA site. This shows the importance in having membership in a well recognised "style specific" organisation that focus's on your own style of karate, kung-fu, judo, weapons or even tournaments and at the same time having membership with a creditable "all style" organisation to broaden your knowledge and recognition in the larger Martial Arts community.

It would also be great if you all had a reciprocated link back to the www.ibf.com.au

It's your community and it's better to be "one of the many" accepted in an internationally recognised pool of serious martial artists than to link yourself to some of the groups that struggle for creditability.

Thank-you Nino Pilla.

For all of you who missed out on the "Legends Tour" with Dan Insonato, Francis Fong and Jean Jacques Machado it was a terrific seminar with non stop activity throughout the 4 hours.

I'm sure there were over a hundred participants that evening and worth every cent. It was attended by Dante Roccisano, Glen Middleton and myself at Nino's invitation and hope he'll continue bring some of these world celebrities to our state. Nino resides a lot of the time in Los Angeles now days and has clubs in Italy to look after. Let's hope he'll accept our invitation to join the IBF.

We wish him all the best in his Hollywood career and that his neck injury comes good.

Training Day.

I have trained continuously now for 36 years and I still learn something new at these training days. Remember it's not just for the higher ranks but open to all your students. When it comes down to it we are all new to some of this ourselves. Does anyone have a syllabus in "knife throwing" or weapons training? If so contact me for a future training day on weapons.

After some research into available dates Karol has organised to host the training day on the 6th of April, 2008 at the Payneham Youth Centre in Turner St., Frewville. Keep an eye on the "events" section for more details.

Steve Miranda, Dante Roccisano and others have already bookmarked this day for their students to attend.

We have organised this to not interfere with your training and entry into the NAS tournament or with Easter (it's in March this year!) I'm sure Mick Murphy and his team will do well again in the NAS comp.

Terry Riches is currently booking his flights and hopefully we will have other guests. Some of them are participants in an internationally recognised tournament style and will be introducing us to the rules and equipment.

We are approaching another instructor in Canberra who remembers a lot of the history here concerning martial arts and the Moss Hollis era. Hopefully he can be involved in another training day.

All this will be sorted and put on the site with plenty of notice.

Memberships.

I hope you're all doing your bit to encourage people to join or at least attend our training days. The money raised is for web-site upkeep, printing and administration.

Hopefully as the South Australian membership grows we can raise funds for equipment to host tournaments etc. but our main aim is to promote you, the members.

Memberships are due in January each year and I have asked Terry to extend some of your memberships beyond the 12 months to bring them in line.

Did you know that as the principle of a registered club/organisation with the IBF you not only get a badge and a passbook to document your history that is recognised internationally, but are also covered personally with "student accident cover?"

Insurance Cover.

If any of you are unsure where to get the best deal checkout the main website or bring it up at the training day and some of the members will give referrals at the BBQ afterwards. A good one found by Glen Middleton for clubs just starting is premiums paid by instalments over 6 months and they are a local broker! Want to know more? See you at the training day :

First Aid Certification.

Time to get a few numbers together so I will bring it up at the training day.

Photos.

We encourage everyone to support your martial arts community and if possible use photos of the events. If you see any on the site that you would like please contact me or check with your instructor.

Pass Books.

In all cases when recording your information into a passbook initially we rely on all that you can supply us with to enter your history and grading correctly. Sometimes if an instructor dies or retires or simply if you want to start your own club the only peers are those in your own martial arts community.

Karol Stojko, Steve Miranda, Dante Roccisano and myself have each been involved with the South Australian martial arts community for over 35 years.

In recent times one member was being intimidated with the threat of withdrawal of his gradings but we upheld his ranking.

Another was found to have doctored his certificates and was ejected from the IBF Aust.

Other members certificates were of little creditability when it was found that the instructor had never trained or graded in the internationally known style quoted. Just imagine the consequences of all those people who paid for their "dan" grades and won't be recognised and can't be insured as an instructor in the peer organisation.

All of these were in South Australia and demean those of us who have done the hard yards. With computers anything can be made to look authentic but thankfully through the peer group of creditable martial artists such as ourselves we'll keep the charlatans at bay. (Hence the importance of training days etc.)

Kym Reid
SA President