Some have continued to support us with your tuition while unable to train during the pandemic.  Many others, knowing that the dojo is facing financial realities that will challenge us for some time to come, have made generous charitable gifts – you’ll read one very special legacy donor’s story in this newsletter.  In addition to financial gifts, your support over these past months via notes and words of encouragement has kept the rest of the staff and me going strong.

Over the summer, we have transitioned from an exclusively virtual schedule of classes to one that includes many outdoor training opportunities for adults and children alike in area parks.  While the virtual classes have and will continue to provide us with a good way to continue our practice, getting together in person has been a treat.

We’ve also conducted some inspirational promotion tests, both virtually for children and adult color belts and recently in small gatherings in person for our junior and adult black belt group of candidates whose tests were postponed back in April.  Their continued training and diligence despite the disappointment of a test that could not happen as planned is a testament to the strength of character our training instills.  You’ll find photos from all the tests in this issue of our newsletter.

Re-evaluating the ways we are serving members during this time is a constant project – our actions have been governed by the guidelines of public health officials as well as member input.  We’ve moved cautiously as we resume in-person activities and will continue to take it slow.  We must continue to do our part to help keep Chicago healthy and safe.

Our recent member survey showed that about ¾ of our adult members and just over half of kids would be comfortable in small group in-person classes in the dojo.  We also know that the days are already growing shorter and soon the temperatures will make outdoor training less desirable.  So the schedule we have just released includes hybrid classes for adults, when up to 9 students in person and one teacher will be on the dojo training floor, distanced and masked, while others participate via Zoom.  If all goes well, our next step, later in the fall, will be to start offering these hybrid classes for children. In the meantime, we’re also continuing outdoor and virtual classes for all.

The end of this month will mark the end of Sei Shihan Nancy’s tenure as Head Instructor at Thousand Waves.  I know you share my gratitude for her steady leadership during this challenging time. She’s stepping away having seen us through the back-to-back crises of Sensei Alan’s resignation and the onset of Covid-19.

Despite the best efforts of all of us, these crises have taken a toll on our organization – we are much smaller than we were at the beginning of 2019.  As such, the luxury of supporting a mostly administrative role like mine, with minimal teaching duties, is not one we should sustain as it has been.  Of course Sei Shihan’s departure leaves us with a need both for leadership and teaching effort in the karate program.

I’m now in my fourth year serving as our Executive Director and I have also served as our Seido Branch Chief for almost two years.  After extensive conversations with Sei Shihan Nancy, our Board of Directors, and our elected Council of Senior Leaders, we agree that at this juncture it makes sense for me to step into a larger role within the karate program.  While I’ve been the titular Branch Chief, Sei Shihan Nancy has remained our liaison to the World Seido Karate Organization, so going forward I will take on that role. In addition to continuing as the primary supervisor of our teaching staff, you’ll see me teaching more. I will serve as the program coordinator for Adult Black Belts (a role Sei Shihan has filled), while the coordination of the other programs will remain in the capable hands of our staff instructors. Finally, we’re excited to have some of our newer teachers moving into larger teaching roles. I hope you will continue to reach out to me with your questions and concerns about our karate program.

On Wednesday, September 30, we will hold a special, multi-purpose event.  Sei Shihan Nancy will present nine of our senior black belt members with the new ranks for which they have been testing in a special process created by Kaicho and Nidaime in lieu of their New York test, which was scheduled to happen back in the spring.  They range from candidates for Nidan all the way up to Jun Shihan Sarah testing for Sei Shihan.  Sei Shihan Nancy will also use the occasion to offer some farewell remarks, and, finally, we will also launch our major annual fundraiser – Spirit Challenge – at that time.

Many of you have generously supported our fundraiser for years – others are new to the school and are hearing about Spirit Challenge for the first time.  I’m thrilled to report that we’ll be launching this year’s event with a first of our own – an extremely generous donor family has agreed to match the first $20,000 raised during the event.  Thanks to their generosity, we think our $75,000 fundraising goal for the event is well within reach – we hope you’ll hit the ground running with your fundraising so we can take full advantage of these matching funds.

The rest of the staff and I remain more grateful to you for your commitment to our success than words can convey – how wonderful it is that Thousand Waves gives us all a chance to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.  I look forward to continuing, with each of you, to build a strong future for our great organization.

OSU,

Senpai Ryan

Ryan Libel
Executive Director
Thousand Waves

Senpai Jordan initially came to us with the idea for a virtual event similar to our annual Spirit Challenge. Our goal was to connect members of all ages and keep our dojo spirit strong. In order to make this happen, we met several times over Zoom for the next two weeks to discuss planning strategies and divide work among the six teen coordinators. 

Without access to the physical resources of the dojo, we were hard pressed to design activities that would be a good mix of physical work, stress relief, team building, and karate. An additional challenge was presented by the fact that all of it had to be communicated, organized, and recorded entirely online. To make this possible we spent two hectic weeks creating (probably too many) google forms, spreadsheets, folders, and documents to organize all the information we had to distribute and record. 

By the time the event officially began, we had 51 members (15 kids and 36 adults and teens) signed up, who we organized into six teams. Over the course of the challenge, the teams participated in many physical challenges and activities designed to support emotional and spiritual health. The final day of the challenge was a virtual Punch-and-Kick-a-thon run by the teen coordinators that was attended by nearly all the participants! Witnesses (us) say it was completely exhausting and tons of fun. 

Throughout the challenge, participants took a total of 378 virtual classes, collected hundreds of photos from around the city, did art projects, read books, meditated, and worked out as a community. We’d like to extend a huge thank you to all the participants for making this such a lively and fun event! Osu!

Senpai Ezra and Senpai Willa Marie are Camp Kokoro counselors and 1^st degree black belts.