Erna in Germersheim or The Picasso II
by Erna
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Hi everybody! For those who don’t know me yet,
I’m Erna, the Dojo’s cow-mascot. After the last course I attended
in |
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This time they took me to the annual Whitsun
course in Germersheim/Germany, directed by Shihan Shirai, Sensei Fugazza and
Sensei Marchini.
But I am going too fast for my dear readers.
Let’s start from the beginning: with the car………
Faithful readers remember our dreadful
adventure with a rental car (which I’m not allowed to name) in April. – Oh yes,
destiny takes sometimes strange ways and we received once more this brand –
again totally new, just off the assembly line!!!
Our heartbeat accelerated, we were looking on
the oncoming journey with mixed emotions! But lucky we were: the evening before
our travel, Marc gave a course near the Belgian coast and took our
transportation steed for a test-drive! No problems occurred this time and with
these good news Marc, Halwa, Pablo, Vera and myself (Erna) set off at 04h00 AM
on
After an uneventful journey, which was only
interrupted in
How exiting!!! In my whole life as a dojo cow, I
never saw the three famous Masters together! I was really nervous as we entered
the dojo for our first course with Sensei Shirai.
Seated on top of one bag I had pool-position in
observing (no, don’t worry, I’m only travelling with the guys, I’m not practising
myself;-)) the training.
Sensei Shirai started as usual quite some time
before the scheduled hour but the hall was already packed.
As “warm-up” he made them go through parts of
the Kihons from 1st, 2nd and 3rd Dan. Following these exercises we were shown by the
marvellous assistants Alessandro Cardinale, Pasquale Agri and Marc Stevens the
matching Kumite applications to some of the Kihon. Starting with uchikomi of
oi-tsuki, gyaku-tsuki, mae-keri, oi-komi gyaku-tsuki, the level was quickly
raised to different defence and attack combinations, which made the guys on the
tatami soon sweating, moaning and smoking out of their heads. Seen the high
temperatures (30° and more), I was more than glad sitting on my assigned bag.
After about one hour, Sensei Shirai gave the
poor fellas the possibility to have a sip before immediately continuing with
Teki Nidan + Sandan.
Curious part of this exercise: both katas were
announced together and after finishing Teki Nidan, they had to start – without
getting up – Teki Sandan straight away! After several repetitions they started
Bunkai for both katas. Novelty: attacks were only done from straight in front
and not from all different directions.
At
Halwa went off with his Italian friends to
exercise a little bit his waning Italian, Pablo – what else can you imagine –
took the shortest way to the next food station, Marc was lost somewhere in the
changing rooms and I had a stroll with the Germann sisters in downtown
Germersheim. Very nice village, but man, try to find on a Saturday afternoon
during lunchtime an open restaurant – impossible………..! Therefore I know to
honour our Belgian way of “bon vivre”!
At
The other part of the course was sacrificed to
the bunkais of above mentioned katas (omote + ura).
At 18h00, with tongues near the ground, the
black belts (I only assisted to their training sessions) were off for the day.
The evening and night I spent with locals who
live near the border of the
From the evening activities of the others I
only heard the following morning, that poor, as usual starving Pablo had to
wait 2 hours to get his Pizza. And can you believe – he only had one
Pizza………….;-)
Sunday – could have slept some more – after a
super breakfast (all of the Belgians had a magnificent breakfast, but in
different locations) – the session re-started at 10h00 with Sensei Fugazza.
I was seated again on top of a bag, ready to
follow this lesson with tremendous interest!
He prepared the black belts for Gangaku and its
bunkai, which was continued by Sensei Shirai in the second session of the day.
After finishing Gangaku-Bunkai, Sensei Shirai
intensified the kihon of 3rd & 4th Dan as well as the
kumite. This time his main attention was focused on Tai-No-Zen and Go-No-Zen
for Kizami-Tsuki, Gyaku-Tsuki, Mae-Keri and Oi-Komi-Gyaku-Tsuki. The course
finished with a repetition of bunkai Teki Nidan and Teki Sandan.
It was an enormous joy watching this weekend
the different Senseis as well as the black belts working and sweating (hihihi).
I know that my four Musketeers – actually I have to talk about five Musketeers,
as Fiorella has been with us over the courses – enjoyed themselves also big
time, even if they were sweating like pigs, tired like hell and feeling every
single muscle in their bodies.
After a re-freshening shower and the
traditional visit to a certain American delicatessen restaurant (don’t miss a
glance at the photo of Pablo’s tray), we took the motorway back to
You want to hear more from me – Erna – and the
adventures of the Musketeers of the Kei Shin Kan Dojo?
Don’t miss the next travelling report in two
weeks – from: Braunschweig/Germany……….
MOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH, MOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH