DAY 6. IT'S OVER. . .?

July 23rd, and we're back in Omagari. The funny thing about this kind of training is that on the first day or two you sometimes wonder how you're going to make it through an entire week of heat, sweat, blistered feet, and spent bodies. Then a miraculous transformation occurs, invariably without you knowing it, and by the end of the week you're feeling strong and confident and actually feeling sad that this is the last day for another year.

Quite a few will be going on to Sasebo to the JKF Gojukai seminar, shinsa (grading), and the All-Japan Goju-Ryu Championships. But many won't and I'm sure they always feel like they're leaving prematurely. The last day always seems to enhance the feeling of camaraderie that has been building between all of us through the sweat, the fun, the beers. The last day is also the day of the Seiwakai shinsa and a fast and furious day of review, a microcosm of all we've been focused on during this year's training.

Canada, USA, Australia, S.Africa, USA, India

I won't give a blow-by-blow of the training day, because the pattern has held pretty true all week.  It was plenty hot, I'll say that. We ended near 3:00 pm because there were 29 karateka scheduled to grade, but of course, before we bowed out, we started at Sanchin kata and worked the entire Goju-Ryu kata syllabus through Suparinpei. Always when you think it is finished, it isn't! We were pretty soaked by then. See the above photo!

I was on the grading panel, all of us 7th dan except Vassie Naidoo Sensei and Seiichi Fujiwara Hanshi, who are 8th dans.  The 29 candidates were grading from 1st to 8th dan, so we observed all levels of experience and most were very impressive. In the lower yudansha ranks, some who were not as impressive in kata, were very impressive in kumite, or vice-versa. Of all of them, my unscientific observation was that the 5th and 6th dan candidates were most impressive, but the shodans were the happiest by far.  It pleases me to know there is an entire new guard of karateka who are moving up the Seiwakai ladder and who will no doubt assume future leadership roles. Kudos to their instructors! I know we are in good hands in the future.

And congratulations to all of you who passed!

Then it was back to the ryokan to soak our aching bodies in the sento bath and enjoy another fine dinner. There was a wee bit of toasting to Fujiwara Hanshi and our Seiwakai family. Some were leaving early tomorrow morning to all points of the globe, or heading for Sasebo. The professionals among us decided it was a good night for one last get-together downtown. Tomorrow is a travel day, which means you can sleep on the train or plane.

HOT, clear sento water

Kampai, Vassie Sensei!

Jay and me

Last night! And that's a wrap!

2015 JAPAN TRAINING - Day 8

Saturday, July 25, 2015.  1100
Omagari, Japan

Today is supposed to be our rest day, but Fujiwara Shihan informed us that anyone grading for 6th or 7th Dan needs to come to the dojo today at 1300 for more training.  His take on it is that a day of rest is not what we need.  I’m going to trust him on that even though my body is whining and whimpering to do nothing.  I just finished a Kundalini Yoga set called “Awakening Your Ten Bodies”, which is quite difficult but I credit with getting me ready for this grueling training.  Kind of like a cat with nine lives, I figure I’ll need every one of those ten bodies to get me through it!

I’m sitting in my room at the ryokan writing this on a very low table.  I have the window and shoji screen open to air out my room, but to also hear the outside sounds.  It’s raining again, so I’m hearing raindrops, crows cawing, and the incessant sound of the gas station attendants a block away greeting customers in a typically high-pitched chant.  It is Japanese custom to vocally greet their customers and any business you patronize goes out of its way to welcome you.  Coming from the land of self-service, it’s refreshing.  I watched the gas station attendants and they swarm a car like a well-seasoned Formula 1 pit crew, guide you in with hand signals and go to work washing all the windows, checking the engine, tires, etc.  Here’s two photos of my room from where I sit…still damp karate gi from yesterday hanging on the door.  I bring two karategis even though they are heavy and take up too much luggage space, or I would be doing laundry every day.
P

P

Yesterday’s training was very hard but over the course of the six hours of training I went from being very pessimistic about grading to at least feeling better.  You have to be careful not to let fatigue start talking bullshit in your ear.  After the usual first 45 minutes of hard moving basics, your gi is soaked, the chafe points are starting to wear on your knees and armpits, your (choose one or more) knees, toes, shoulders, back, hands, fingers, hangover, menstrual cycle, hamstrings are really starting to bother you, and then the realization comes that you aren’t even through the first hour.  THAT’S when you have to not listen to your human operating systems, which are begging to shut down, and create a zone for yourself.  All you have to do is look around you and know that everyone else is feeling the same things.  I always think of Demura Sensei’s classic  advice:  “it’s okay to quit.  You just can’t be first.”  So nobody quits.  You think you can’t do one more of whatever it is you’re doing, but you do.  You do a hundred more if that’s what it takes.  It’s character building 101, the same as boot camp.  The body always tries to get you to stop.  It is the mind that can keep you going.

I won’t try to give you a play-by-play of everything we did, but it was grueling.  Shihan Takehashi has a number of his kids training with us who are going to compete in Oita, and
They were put them on the front row several times so we could observe their timing in kata.  Ha ha.  Nothing makes a middle aged gaijin feel more inept than to try to keep up with 8 to 16 year old Japanese kids who have been training since they were 4 and are so fast you feel like a slug.  But it was really good for us and we picked it up to a degree.  I can really tell the difference in my katas after only three days.

At the very end of the day, when you are so tired your legs are like rusty anchors and seem to weigh about as much, we are organized into our groups by rank to work our prescribed katas.  Two of my dear Aussie friends and sempai, Glenn Stephenson and Jamie Duggan were amazingly helpful to me yesterday in my grading kata Seisan.  So much so that I was able to look fairly adept when our group finally had to demo it.  That’s the kind of camaraderie that exists here.  By the end of the day, I was actually somewhat optimistic.  Two years ago when I graded for JKF Gojukai 6th Dan, only 3 of our group of 18 karateka (3 gaijin and 15 Japanese) passed.  The standards are quite high.

Last night we ate here at the ryokan and it was amazingly good  as always.  Everyone was upbeat because of the rest day.  We always end up in someone’s room lining the walls and drinking.  Usually it is in Sensei Leo’s or Sensei Vassie’s because it seems to be the tradition.  Or maybe it’s just their charisma.  You think?  Anyhow, there were maybe 18 of us in Sensei Leo’s tiny room.  Eight were Australians and can fill up a room with size and craziness faster than even Texans can.  We started a game we called “Sing or Tell a Joke” and since nobody could sing worth a damn, we heard way too many bad jokes last night.  Everyone also received their honorary redneck names from me.  If I remember correctly, Duggan is now Jamie Joe.  We were rolling with laughs.  Of course, after the hard training and a wee dram or two of sake,  I slept very soundly afterwards.

Tonight is our Seiwakai party and I presume we will see much karaoke afterwards.  I hope the training today doesn’t wear me out too badly.  Or maybe that is Mr. Fujiwara’s plan to get us in bed early?  If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay under the porch…

Have to get ready for training.  Over and out.

JAPAN TRAINING 2015

2015 Japan Training
Omagari, Akita Precfecture
Weds.  July 22.   0615. Day 5

Up early as always, since the sun is up at 0400 and there are no curtains over my shoji screen windows.  I’ve been doing miserably at blogging on this IPad.  I’m such a Windows guy that the
Little things mean the difference between losing everything you’ve written on for two hours or not.  Grrrr.  It’s happened a number of  times and with limited time to write, it is maddening to lose it.

Training begins today at 0930.  Yesterday was 90f and the heat index was about 100f, so we will be sweating profusely.  No air conditioning in the Omagari Budokan.  Just a big cavernous hot place.  Today will have us all doubting our conditioning.  Since my knees are far from 100% it is just one more thing in the balancing act when you train.  I am going to try and moderate myself over the next week before Oita and the JKF grading.  That’s not an easy thing to do when you have always been exhorted to give 110%.  I’ll know better by end of training today.  The good thing about arriving early is you get rid of the jet lag over several days, but you also eat and drink too much and start to feel that you are losing your physical edge.  It’s all a balancing act, isn’t it?

Dinner last night at the ryokan was fantastic as always.  I found out that Fujiwara Shihan has spent over 10 years as a sashimi apprentice.  I was watching him cut fish yesterday and know he could work at any top flight sushi bar if that was his calling.  He and his wife are such hard workers.  He is a top tier karate instructor and coach, travels the world, they run the ryokan and have parties and banquets here almost every night because their food is so well regarded.  And in the midst of all that, here come 25 foreigners to also stay and another 50 staying in the local hotels who have shown up to train.  I have so much respect for them and their family.  I am pleased to say that Fujiwara Shihan looks very well.

Dinner last night also filled the dining room with karateka.  So nice to meet up with old friends.  Last night we had Americans, Russians, Australians, Portuguese, Polish, British, and Japanese at the tables.  I have no idea how many will actually show up for training.  I’m missing a few I thought would be here and am surprised to see some I didn’t expect.  Shihan gave us orders to be at the Budokan and get warmed up as he is going to start straight-away.

Okay, I’d better get some food in me.  More later.


LATER:  Thursday morning 0600

Sitting by the wifi in the ryokan lobby, watching the outside, drinking a can of Boss coffee, and waiting for people to start showing up downstairs so I can Face Time with my sweetie back in Texas without disturbing anyone.  I’d stay in my room but I’m at the end of the hall and the wifi is spotty.

The training yesterday was very good and very hot.  There are probably 60 karateka here right now and we are joined by several Seiwakai senior Senseis who will also be grading in Oita.  In the afternoon we are also joined by several Japanese high school kids who will be competing in the All Japan Gojukai Tournament.  The largest international contingent is the Australians.

We started off straightaway with many moving basics and then  Sanchin kata, which has you sweating profusely after the first one.  This year, Fujiwara Shihan had us get to the Budokan early and warm ourselves up so we could start right in on karate, which was most brilliant.  All our  time was spent on karate that way and I wasn’t nearly as taxed as when we spend the first hour on hard calisthenics.  Most of the morning was taken up with moving basics and Sanchin.  I felt as good about my Sanchin as I ever have, and it seems that the recent tweaks by the Gojukai is moving more in the direction I am most comfortable with: a bit more circular and the emphasis on timing and power…not just the power.

The afternoon was spent on Tensho kata, Kumite (sparring) combinations with partners, and fast, continual attack/defense drills in which one after another attacks the person at the front of each line and eventually, Mr. Fujiwara will yell “Switch!” And you relinquish the hot seat to another karateka.  Good stuff!  I don’t know how much water and Pocari Sweat (a Japanese style GatorAid) I consumed, but it was a lot.  I’m so glad I’m from Texas because some of the people from Russia and England were pretty taxed by the heat.  I believe the heat index yesterday was right at 100F.

We finished the last hour in groups of like rank, working our proscribed grading kata.  Black belts grade on Sanchin, Tensho, and a proscribed kata.  For my 6th Dan level, my kata is Seisan, a very difficult leg kata with many turns on one leg and kensetsu Geri kicks.  My knee replacement seems to be taking it all in stride, but sometimes my balance is off from knee issues and that will be disaster if I don’t fix it in the coming week.  Lots of work needed on Seisan kata – an effect of not having any of my Senseis regularly available to correct things.  We ALL need that second set of eyes or we become complacent, or blind to our mistakes.  When you do have the chance to be graded or evaluated, it is very humbling to find you need to fix many things in the kata you thought was pretty good.   In grading in the JKF Gojukai and in Seiwakai, you are required up through 5th Dan to also do Kumite in your grading.  It can be very “spirited” to say the least.  I’m quite happy not to do grading Kumite any longer, even though I like sparring.

By the end of the day, everyone was ridden hard and put up wet, but it was a very good first day.  My knees feel pretty good and my conditioning is fine.  That’s  it from Omagari.

.

USA GOJU-RYU SEIWAKAI INSTRUCTORS' TRAINING

The 1st annual USA Goju-Ryu Seiwa Kai Instructors' Seminar was held at the USA Hombu Dojo in Santa Monica, CA, May 18 - 20, 2012.

Vassie Naidoo, Shihan (Santa Monica, CA) was the Head Instructor.  Desmond Tuck, Shihan (Palo Alto, CA) and James Pounds, Shihan (Austin, TX) were the assistant instructors.  Twenty-nine instructors and assistant instructors from the US and Mexico attended.  Since the USA Seiwa Kai has recently added new dojos in CA, OH, MI, and NY, it was an opportune time to get everyone together in order to promote quality of instruction.

In addition, the new Board of Directors for the USA Goju-Ryu Seiwa Kai was appointed.  The Board consists of Vassie Naidoo, President; Desmond Tuck, Vice-President; James Pounds, Secretary; Brian Burdick, Treasurer; and Board Members Johnpaul Williams, Joe Palminteri, Mark Cramer, Dan Taylor, and Kevin Moske.  All Board members are Head Instructors.