Jodo Seminar in Dresden
Oct. 11 to 12, 2008
Again, our friend Jan had organized a Jodo seminar in Dresden and invited Kees from the Netherlands to head it. Participants from Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Austria gathered in Dresden to share a marvellous weekend with like-minded people. All in all we were about 25 Jodo practitioners.
Saturday morning started at 9 a.m. with the obligatory Kihon tandoku followed by some interesting uchikomi. A major importance was put on the angle and on closing the armpits. We noticed that these important points have to be trained far more than we usually do.
The afternoon saw us practicing the four famous Kihon (Hon-te-uchi, Gyaku-te-uchi, Hiki-otoshi-uchi and Maki-otoshi) on the spot for quite a while. The rest of the afternoon was dedicated in every detail to Omote up to Monomi.
As usual, in the evening we went to an old-style brewery in Dresden where we could have delicious regional food and a fantastic beer as well. Now a discussion came up whether we should start at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. on Sunday morning. As the opinions diverged quite a lot (especially after this evening!), we decided that those already in Ran-ai should start at 8 a.m. for a one-hour Ran-ai training session and offer a free training hour for all the others. Together we started again at 9 a.m.
That's why on Sunday morning only a rather small group gathered at 8 a.m. Everybody looked still a little bit sleepy, but after a few intensive Ran-ai kata we woke up quite fast. At 9 a.m. our "fellow sufferers" arrived and we trained in several groups according to their level. We now started with Kihon-sotai both sides, however not the whole series, but only a few selected Kihon (Hon-te-uchi, Gyaku-te-uchi, Hiki-otoshi-uch, Maki-otoshi, Kuritsuke, Tai-hazushi-uchi). And we then continued Omote up to Neya-no-uchi.
In the afternoon, we started with theoretical session during which we could ask questions to Kees during 15 minutes. We then divided into two groups. One group did Chudan both sides, the other group continued to train Omote. The seminar finished at around 4 p.m. for most of the people who had to travel home on Sunday evening. Some of us - including me - still continued with Kenjutsu until 6 p.m. and went home the next morning.
We promised to meet again next year and hope that Kees will be ready to join us. Thanks to everybody!
Matthias Wenderoth
Fédération Européenne de Jodo / European Jodo Federation