MIT T-Club Lounge Indoor Practices

Recurring MIT Indoor Karate Practices

This summer, we held various trainings and special seminars at the MIT T-Club Lounge! This practice space is a historic one, and we made wonderful use of it throughout the summer. Throughout the magazine, you can read about kata seminars that we organized, teaching Kanku Sho, Sochin, and other advanced kata.

We hosted our dear friends from the Cornell University Karate club, and our friends from the Japan University Karatedo Federation (JUKF). We organized kyu exams for students training over the summer, as well as Dan exams for students gaining black belt for the first time as well as advanced ranks with the JUKF. Read more details about these events in this magazine, and stay tuned for more exciting activities we will host in the fall in the MIT T-Club Lounge!

Outdoor Karate practice at MIT by the Charles River!

Throughout the summer on Thursdays and Sundays, students gathered from various colleges and universities and practiced Shotokan Karate with the beautiful view of the river from MIT campus. Just like the previous summer, Vazrik Sensei offered free Karate lessons outdoors where students go to refine their fundamentals through kihon training, gained a better understanding of applying their techniques at proper distancing in kumite, and learned new kata as well as polished their promotion kata.

This is a continuing effort to foster the passion and love for the art of Shotokan Karate, and to build a broader community with which students can meet fellow Karateka and create lifelong friends through training together. We often enjoyed Thursday dinners and Sunday lunches at our favorite restaurant, the Mad Monkfish and celebrated student birthdays and special days such as when students got new jobs or moved to the Boston area.

Recurring Zoom Karate

While the weather was warm throughout the summer, allowing for wonderful opportunities to practice outdoors near the MIT Sailing Pavilion, and while we had many opportunities to train in the MIT T-Club Lounge indoors, we continued to offer weekly zoom Karate classes. Our goal was to keep providing free Karate training opportunities for our students who have graduated and left the Boston area or for the students who took internships outside of Boston to be able to continue to grow in their Karate as well as stay connected with our ever growing Karate community. Zoom classes focused on helping students prepare for promotions at the end of the summer, as well as teaching advanced kata like Kanku Sho and Sochin so that students who were afar and couldn’t join in person would be able to learn as well. This is part of our continued efforts to keep Karate alive and growing at the college level.