First Jodo Gasshuku in Dresden
from October 1st to October 3rd, 2005
It was with great pleasure that about fifteen Jodoka from Germany and the Czech Republic gathered for this first official gasshuku with Vincent Zahnd. The theme of the gasshuku which started Saturday, October 1st at 9 a.m., was shuri kosei (correct-consolidate). The first training session was above all dedicated to Kihon tandoku which are, to be honest, still plenty of errors. In the afternoon we practiced Ken which is a weapon that is often neglected during normal training sessions. Here, too, we received plenty of good advices from Vincent.
On Saturday evening, we again had the nice surprise to see Jan performing a theatre play. Isn't he alluring, this charming guy? It was a piece from a French author Marivaux called "The Game of Love and Chance". Jan played a shady character who wove with humor the romances of his protégés. And we had to admit that this role suited him quite well! All in all, this performance had a great success.
On Sunday morning, the author of this report had to stay in bed because of a flu attack which, however, didn't last the whole day. While the others had to train (they continued and finished the kihon and again practiced shinto ryu kenjutsu) I had to stay at home in order to calm down this attack. This allowed me finally to go to the Dojo around noon for lunch and later for the afternoon training. Vincent divided us into several groups according to the techniques we knew and we mainly practiced Kata.
On Monday, October 3rd, which is a holiday in Germany to celebrate the reunification, we continued the Kata. Then, the last hour before noon Silke and Gabriel passed their 4th Kyu quite easily in front of the vigilant rest of our group.
After a good lunch in a Chinese restaurant we separated hoping that this first gasshuku was not the last one. A great thanks to Vincent for this experience that everybody appreciated very much.
Matthias Wenderoth, SMR Oku-iri
What a charming guy!
What are they chatting about?
But of course, we also worked hard.
Silke and Gabriel during their exam
And here is our enthusiastic group!
Fédération Européenne de Jodo / European Jodo Federation