Monday 27 April 2015

Podcast update ...

Just posted a short podcast over at www.pmicast.podbean.com which will shortly appear on iTunes and all goo pod catchers (search for 'PMICast') giving some info on why there has been no PMICast for several weeks and why there isn't going to be one for the foreseeable.

I will definitely carry on podcasting but frankly the format I had just began to bore me and I couldn't be bothered keeping it up to date. Currently working on a new idea/format and hopefully will launch something new over the summer.

Where's Wilson, my semi-regular SF podcast is definitely still alive and kicking and so probably is Afternoon Train - but no plans at the moment to record episodes of either in the next few weeks.

Watch this space for more info !

You Tube Karate Videos

As well as using this blog to publicise my main medical insurance business (shameless plug for my Premier Choice web-page) I'm not above going for some additional pushing of the karate club in Leeds that I am now running.

We train twice a week at Yeadon Westfield Infants School - Monday and Wednesday - Beginners at 6.00pm and Main Class starting 6.30pm.

There is a You Tube video of me here - which introduces me and the club.

However the Yeadon club that I run is part of a larger club which is based at Halton on the authorised of Leeds. They train at the Leeds Premier Fitness centre, owned and run by my college : Sensei Michael (Tat) Tattersall - 6th Dan instructor.

I came across this video, also on You Tube which shows the Halton location and the first half of the video is concentrated on the karate club and you can see Tat demonstrating a take down and then some sparring from around 30 seconds into the video. Have a look and see the kind of training we undertake over at the Yeadon club as well.

Sunday 26 April 2015

Blimey O'Malley - 232 view on my blog yesterday !!!

I have absolutely no idea what happened yesterday but for some reason I had the most hits ever for a single day on this blog - a total of 232.

Wish I'd been advertising my business more (for assistance on all aspects of new or existing medical insurance call me on 07792 075748 or e-mail : philknight@pch.uk.com) or had talked about my new karate beginners class - tomorrow or Wednesday at 6.00pm for 30 minutes at Yeadon Westfield Infants School in Yeadon Leeds.

If you did visit yesterday please come back and buy medical insurance from me or join my karate club !

Friday 24 April 2015

Karate Update

As I mentioned in previous posts my karate beginners class which began at the start of 2015 is going down very well.

I already have a number of people who have progressed to yellow belt (four in total) and a new bunch of people confirmed as starting next week plus one or two thinking about it. We accept new beginners at any time so there is no waiting for a place to come up - just call or e-mail me and I will run you through how to join up !

I have also performed a series of school assemblies around the local area with (hopefully) more to follow to get in a new younger generation of karate ka. Nothing more terrifying than standing up in a go in front of 300 five to eleven year olds !!!

If you or anyone you know is interested in karate training please direct them to us - we train twice weekly at Yeadon Westfield Infants School LS19 7NQ with the beginners class starting at 6.00pm for 30 minutes and the first two lessons are free to see if you like it !

If you have trained at martial arts before I would probably suggest you actually join the main class (which trains 6.30 pm to 8.00 pm) as pro-tem yellow belts whilst I assess you and see where you need to begin - as always with people with some experience of the marital arts it isn't always right to start you off as white belt beginners again but of course we need to get you up to speed with kata and stylistic differences - our Shukokai style is pretty easy to pick up and if you've done Shotokhan, Wado Ryu etc you will probably recognise a lot of the basics, Pinan Kata's and so forth.

As an aside prior to training in Shukokai I trained in a Wado Ryu style for many years so I went through all of the issues with starting a new style from scratch some years ago so I can definitely help wit this aspect of things if you want to come along and try us out.

For more information just call me on : 07792 075748 or e-mail : pkn4395@gmail.com

Look forward to training with you !

Sensei Phil Knight
Club Instructor
Leeds Premier Karate Club (Yeadon)

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Apple Watch update

So been fairly radio silent on the blog recently and wanted to update on a few issues in one go today.

Firstly Apple Watch : on the pre-order day last week I hmm'd and haagh'd before finally ordering on the second day and as a result my watch ;

The 42mm black sports watch with the black band is now not available until June earliest - by then I may well have gone off the idea to be honest - I've had the iPhone 6+ (which as you might recall replaced my stalwart Note 3 in December) for five months now and am a bit bored again and considering a change. If Google get's it's finger out and has the IOS app for Android Wear available in the next few weeks I might end up selling the phone, cancelling the Apple Watch order and going for a new Android and Moto 360 watch all for what I would sell the 6+ for - we'll see.

If I do eventually get the Apple Watch I will do a proper un-boxing video this time as well so watch out for that too.
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The PMICast podcast is not dead just resting. To be honest got a bit disillusioned with it - the time it took and the format I think got a bit stale and with everything else just kind of lost interest in taking the time and effort to plan content, record and edit (haha) then upload. I still regularly think of ideas and wonder whether they would be good features in a podcast. At the moment I am in the early stages of re-imagining my three podcasts : PMICast (medical insurance, boring work podcast), Where's Wilson (comedy SF and TV podcast) and Afternoon Train (crazy train of thought ramblings) into one coherent longer show with a number of features from each with maybe some tech involved - it's just time and inclination. If someone with some mutual interests wanted to help out by co-hosting that might make me more inclined to crack back on with it but I would need to record during the weekday - let me know if you're interested ? Leave feedback to this post or e-mail me : pmicast@gmail.com.
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I've now taken my first tranche of beginners through the assessment process to yellow belt. We ended up with five new beginners of whom one dropped out (although she may be coming back as she left for financial reasons) and four are now yellow belts.

This leaves me without any any beginners at the moment but marketing for new ones is underway and I am doing another school assembly on Friday to see if we can pull any kids in - I've also offered to do assembly for a number of other schools as well.

So well done to the four new yellow belts, now in the main class 6.30pm to 8.00 and if anyone out there wants to try karate just let me know - details as above.

Wednesday 1 April 2015

Karate Demo yesterday evening

Presented two demonstrations at a Sports and Activity Fair in Leeds yesterday evening and had a small team of senior belts/instructors with me manning a stand to discuss our karate club with visitors.

The event went very well and I am hopeful we will pick up new members on the back of being there.

Spotted something a little unusual at the Fair though. As well as ourselves in attendance there was also another karate club, a taekwando club, aikido and thai boxing.

So of the five 'martial arts' represented only two took the (free) option of putting together 15 minute demonstrations (ourselves and the thai boxers) and in addition during the rest of the event all of the clubs were able to put mats down and perform some exercises for visitors who were mingling around the stands.

My club did some pad work for kids, demonstrated kata, self defence techniques and advanced kicking against the pads. I actually got as good a work out in amongst chatting to people as I do in a training session I think.

The other clubs, by and large did very little.

My impression was largely that they were a little unsure about showing off what they did. It also occurred to me that maybe we were a little loud for them ?

Regardless, if the point of the event is to put your martial arts style forward I'd rather be up front, chat to people and show them what we do.

Kind of like life generally !