Good news all around 
I got back from the Australian National Iaido and Jodo Seminar and Championships in Perth nearly two weeks ago. Time for an update.
The weather over there was nice and warm all of the week. The skies were a bit dirty on the first Sunday, from the bushfires and all.
It was hosted at sacred heart college, maybe 150m from windy Sorrento beach. I stayed in the boarding house, and had a double room to myself.
The sensei (teachers) were awesome. In the seminars, the beginners had Ota-sensei and Shyoji-sensei for Iaido, and Nagayama-sensi and Shyoji-sensei for Jodo. They all had different teaching styles. For example, Shyoji-sensei would always talk the way through the techniques while demonstrating (in japanese), while Nagayama-sensei would teach 95% through slow demonstration, which I found most interesting, in how he could teach so much without saying a thing.
This is me and Ota-sensei, a 8th dan in Iaido (also 7th dan Kendo), and is 70+ years old. As we were leaving the dojo on Sunday, as I thanked Ota-sensei, he gave me his tenugui (its like a cotton band that goes on the head in kendo) 
This is Shyoji-sensei and I at the dojo. She’s 4th dan Kendo, 5th dan Iaido, 6th dan Jodo, and I believe 10th dan Kenbu.
This is Nagayama-sensei and I at the Saturday night dinner at Ramond’s restaurant. He’s 6th dan Kendo, 7th dan Iaido, and 7th dan Jodo. He might be visiting adelaide mid this year to teach some Jodo :).
We trained for a week, every day from 8am to 4-5pm. As the week went on, I got less and less sleep; first sunday night was around 9 hours, wednesday 7.5 hours, friday 6 hours… My knees and feet were killing me come Wednesday, but on Thursday and Friday, it was like I’d gotten used to it, and wanted another week of training :P. I’m feeling fit as a ‘fiddle’ now, and am back into kendo training, although my three year old shinai broke last Monday :S. On tuesday, I was beginning to find Iaido noto (putting the sword back into the scabbard) extremely difficult. This was fixed soon thereafter by oiling my sword for the first time, letting my finger slide :). After the weeks’ training, I managed to earn a grade in both martial arts (6th kyu in Iaido and 4th kyu in Jodo), which both usually take a number of months :). I also competed in the championships, and while I made the second round in Jodo, I stuffed up the 4th kata (technique) in Iaido 
(we hadn’t been taught the 3rd and 4th kata during the week, so I did what I had remembered from ~6 months prior).
I also learnt some Naginata on Thursday night, which was rather interesting (a Naginata is like a spear with a sword on the end). Nagayama-sensei brought out a real one on Monday and had us make a circle around him. He gave a short demonstration of how it can be used (cutting and swirling it around in every direction, etc), and it was scary to see how effective it is over such a large distance. On Tuesday night I filmed some Kenbu - which is basically a sword dance, which also includes a fan and recital of traditional song.
In total I filmed over 4 hours of footage, and and managed to burn around 23 dvd copies during the last few days for a limited amount of people (2 hours per dvd). If I manage to get to next years championships, hopefully I can get more out.
On Monday I walked around Perth’s CBD and shopping malls, and went to Swan Bells, which was quite an interesting bit of architecture. I was surprised at the amount of Japanese restaurants there are in perth ;). I stayed Monday night in a backpackers place in a room for four (which was interesting), before leaving on Tuesday morning.
This year I’ll be doing Kendo, Aikido and Iaido, through the AUKC and Aikido Adelaide. My Media Honours supervisor, Patrick, teaches Aikido at Unley Primary School, as does his wife Yvonne, and Ward-sensei (whom I have not yet met) teaches Iaido there on fridays. Should be fun.
Lee-sensei, who let me borrow his Jo (wooden stick), Bokuto (wooden sword) and carrying bags for them, has allowed me to keep them for as long as I want! Domo arigato gozaimasu!!!
In other news, in around 15 days or so, I shall be on wireless broadband :), which also probably means that I’ll have to change web hosts (ihug to iinet).