Keiko Hajime, New Year’s Opening Practice.
120 Students Enroll in First Semester Beginner’s Classes!
Denver Rescue Mission Recognizes Nippon Kan as another Milestone is Passed
Denver Public School Tours Begin for 2004
Nippon Kan Storm Team Demonstration
Nippon Kan Starts the Year Off with a Bang!
Nippon Kan New Years Party.
January 3rd, 2004
Students, families and friends started the New Year off in grand style with Nippon Kan’s traditional New Year party. This year was special as Nippon Kan invited Instructors of other martial art disciplines in the Denver Front Rage area to join us in bringing in the New Year. Including Nippon Kan students and special guests, over 200 people attended this special event.
After everyone had eaten their fill from a buffet that spanned the entire length of the dojo, the tone for the party was set with the arrival of a professional seven piece Mariachi band whose music soon had toes tapping and hands clapping around the room. This performance was followed by song and dance performed in traditional costume by Ari, who played the Morin Hur and Dawa who delighted the audience with the mysteries sounds and movements of Mongolia.
Inspired by these performances, students and guests in groups or as singles rose to the challenge to perform songs and dances and even comedy routines to the amusement of everyone within earshot! Morris Brown, Nippon Kan’s most senior student at 80 years of age, wrote his own words to a song about his practice of Aikido which made everyone cheer! One of our special guests Grandmaster J.T. Runes Sensei, 73 also honored everyone with a Tai Chi demonstration.
 Busy, busy Homma Kancho! |
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 Guest Instructors making introductions. |
 The Cloakcheck kids! (Childrens class volunteers). |
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 Rehearsing for the big show! |
 Singing… |
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 …and more singing! |
 The next generation… the dojo babies put on a show! |
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 Runes Sensei’s Tai Chi demo. |
 A forty-eight foot buffet! |
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 Guests introduce themselves to students and friends. |
 One happy Mariachi Band! |
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 Lecture on the Mongolian instrument, the Morin Hur. |
 Guest Instructors relaxing in the Mongolian Ger. |
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Keiko Hajime, New Year’s Opening Practice.
January 4th, 2004
Almost all Nippon Kan students attended this special opening practice. Homma
Kancho opened the practice with the special Shinto traditional prayer Amatsunorito.
After an hour of practice, ranking certificates were awarded to students, and
New Year messages were delivered by Nippon Kan President, Doug Kelly and other
senior advisors. In closing, students with outstanding contributions both on
and off the mat in 2003 were recognized with certificates of achievement and
gifts. After the practice, twenty three Nippon Kan advisors gathered for their
annual New Year meeting and celebration party.
 Homma Kancho delivering the Amatsunorito prayer. |
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 Keiko Hajime students at practice. |
 Mr. Morris Brown receives recognition award for 2003. |
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Many thanks to all of the Nippon Kan staff who made these New Year events a
great success. We also wish to thank our special guest instructors and their
students for joining us in bringing in the New Year.
Shihan Joko Ninomiya Sensei, Enshin Karate
John Holwager Sensei, American Isshinryu Karate Schools
Don Symanski Sensei, Ryuko Kyudojo
John Bolosan Sensei, Japan Shotokan Karate-do/ FSKA-CO
Randy Weekley Sensei, Ninpiden Dojo
GrandMaster J.T. Runes Sensei, Runes Kung Fu Institute
Hanshi Ron Carlson Sensei, Edgewater Martial Arts Kempo First Foundation
Ken King Sensei, Shugenkai Colorado
Victor Banks Sensei, American Seibukan Karate
120 Students Enroll in First Semester Beginner’s Classes!
January 5th, 6th, 10th, 27th, 2004
Nippon Kan’s first semester of beginner’s classes began this
month of January. On par with past years, over 120 new students enrolled
for the
four beginning January sessions. New students range in age from 16 years
to 62 years, with an average age of 29. The percentage of men to women
was 70%
to 30%.
Joining our new beginners were recent graduates of beginners classes held in
2003. We also had many returning senior students whose personal and work schedules
had kept them from practice in 2003. For all of Nippon Kan students, old and
new, this January had a feeling of New Year challenge and resolution in the
air!
At the end of 2003, a survey was sent out to 365 of attending beginning
students. The focus of this survey was to gain insight into the “beginner class
experience”, and to assess improvements for curriculum and presentation
for beginning classes in 2004. Homma Kancho led in this evaluation with
a team of instructors, assistant instructors and senior students. To help
implement
new ideas, and monitor response for 2004, Homma Kancho personally instructed
each of the four beginning class opening sessions.
 First semester of 2004, first class of the Mon-Wed session. |
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Denver Rescue Mission Recognizes Nippon
Kan
as another Milestone is Passed.
January 18th, 2004
The tradition continued into 2004 of meal service to the homeless at
the Denver Rescue Mission. On Sunday January 18th after morning practice,
students
gathered
in the Nippon Kan garden to prep vegetables and meats for the upcoming
meal service later that evening. In a HUGE pot, meats and vegetables
were added
to make enough curry for 350 people. Commercial sized rice cookers steamed
continually through the day, making five very large pots of rice for
the evening meals. The first meal served at the Mission is served at
5:00 pm
for the 60
to 70 residents living at the Mission. The menu for this meal consisted
of beef meat balls in a chili tomato sauce, bacon and cabbage sauté, pork
and vegetables in oyster sauce, Vietnamese style spicy chicken, chicken teriyaki,
chicken curry, fried dumplings and rice. At 8:00 pm., meal service for 250-300
outside guests began. For these men and women, jumbo chicken curry and rice,
bacon and cabbage sauté, fried dumplings, desert and bread were
served. More important than variety to our outside guests are foods that
are easy
to chew and digest, and LOTS of it!
Except for the chicken curry, all of the other foods were transported and prepared
at the Rescue Mission kitchen. Homma Kancho, aided by uchideshi students arrived
at the mission about 3:00 pm. to finish preparations for the first evening
meal. At 7:00 pm. Nippon Kan volunteers arrived to help serve the larger second
dinner to outside guests. After these many years, volunteers know the tasks
at hand, and busily prepare for the rush of guests. By 9:00 pm., all of the
meals are served, the counters wiped down, and everyone returns home after
a job well done.
Nippon Kan and Homma Kancho received commendation this month by the Director
of Volunteers at the Denver Rescue Mission for 36,000 meals and thirteen years
of service. We estimate that over these last 13 years, Nippon Kan students
have raised and spent over $54,000 for the materials used to serve these 36,000
meals. Over 2,300 volunteers have donated their time to this cause. This project
while meant to serve the homeless population of Denver, has also served to
increase awareness for this concern within the Denver community by involving
many hundreds of community volunteers.
Please also read Homma Kancho’s new article, Reflections on 13
years of service to the homeless.
 Click to enlarge. |
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 Click to enlarge. |
Denver Public School Tours Begin for 2004.
January 22, 2004
Nippon Kan is a very popular field trip destination for children in
the Denver Public school system. We have been doing field trips for
schools
in Denver
for twenty-seven years. In the beginning, the purpose of the fieldtrips
was to expose school children to the martial art of Aikido. Today,
at Nippon Kan’s
new facility (built in 1996), children of all ages have a chance to
learn about many aspects of Japanese culture including origami, brush
calligraphy,
aikido,
Japanese folk culture through the folk art museum, traditional Japanese
gardening and partake in a tradition Japanese lunch. The fee per person
for these fieldtrips,
including lunch is $10.00. $3.00 of this is donated to AHAN (the Aikido
Humanitarian Active Network) for use in worldwide humanitarian projects.
(Click here for
other Ahan activities). The fee for groups of children with special
needs that attend these tours is $7.00 for the traditional Japanese
lunch.
In January 2004 alone, about 450 children participated in this school
tour program. This year, the movie “The Last Samurai” has
helped to make Nippon Kan an even more popular destination for learning
about
Japan.
We even have our own masked Samurai that keeps the children on their
toes!
The masked samurai joins the tour! |
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 Explaining the roots of Japanese brush calligraphy. |
Folk Art Museum culture lecture by Emily Busch Sensei. |
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Nippon Kan Storm Team Demonstration
January 31st, 2004
Nippon Kan Children’s advanced class members are also members of a special
team called the STORM team. STORM stands for Special Team of Role Models, and
the Storm team proved that they are indeed role models with this demonstration
for the young marines held at the Denver Police Academy. The two hour demonstration
also included a hands-on class for the attending young marines. Tom Dammen,
Nippon Kan’s Children’s Class Instructor, assistants
and fifteen STORM team members led the young marines through elementary
Aikido techniques
and philosophies.
The STORM team was created as a way to acknowledge achievement in our advanced
children students, and a way to promote self confidence, pride and leadership.
Currently Nippon Kan Childrens classes have about seventy members, of which
about fifteen have earned the rank of STORM team membership. Many thanks to
Tom, and his assistants Scott, Kathy, Mike and Jim for their support of these
special STORM team members!
Storm team demonstration. |
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Storm Team members teach the young marines. |
 Tom Dammen, Children’s class instructor, leads the class. |
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