Hello everyone, I hope this message finds you well, and that you are getting ready and excited for our upcoming event weekend as I am!

This is going to be one of our biggest and best events to date and I can’t wait to see you all in a couple weekends. We are sitting at over 140 participants for the weekend so far, with over 110 at our Saturday evening banquet.

Our amazing lineup of so many talented, and experienced guest instructors will be looking forward to teaching and training with you all very soon!

However, we have one significant update/change to notify everyone of, and if you are planning on participating in any of the Iaido instruction throughout the weekend, or even for small parts, please read the message fully, in detail below.

Due to the number of participants planning on attending, and the amount of work needed to produce a much better quality seminar for everyone involved, we have changed the day of the Iaido Tameshigiri practice to the Saturday afternoon.

This will also mean that Hanshi Davis will be working with Kyoshi Ricketts all afternoon on the Saturday to help with the Tameshigiri seminar as it will be a separate and much more involved entity on the Saturday, and require the majority of the four hour Saturday seminar window for the participants to complete.

All other regular Iaido seminars have been switched to, and will be provided on the Sunday. They will be run by Hanshi Davis, with Kyoshi Ricketts and Shihan Lafrance assisting as well.

To add this much more involved seminar to the Saturday, it will provide each student with more time and multiple opportunities of learning; including the safety lesson with handling a real live blade, test/practice cutting, and then the real mat cutting itself.

Each student will receive at least one full mat of their own, getting more chances to practice cutting this year then has ever been available anytime before.

Due to the additional cost of materials and time involved in producing the mats and other items for the seminar, we kindly ask all students wishing to participate in the Saturday Tameshigiri seminar to donate $25 to help offset this event cost. This donation can be made in advance online, or in person anytime up to the afternoon of the event.

Please read the attached documentation from Kyoshi Ricketts who will be running the Seminar, to help with your preparation in advance of the lesson.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me directly and I will help the best that I can.

Thank you, and see you all very soon!
– Renshi Kyle Cochrane

Tallack Martial Arts

kyle_cochrane[at]cogeco.ca