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Erna’s Summer-Tour

Mooooohh, Moooohh, Moooohh

Hey Buddies, Hello My Dear Reader,

Yeah, yeah, I know!!! Beginning of June I promised you a new adventure summary for end of June from the Braunschweig course and now it’s already end of July and still nothing!

Shame on me, shame on me......! But you can’t imagine how heard and busy a cow’s everyday life can get!!! Especially if you are a cow and Dojo mascot in one, wow!!

But as usual, I’m advancing too fast.

On 21 and 22 June 2003 was the annual Karate course in Braunschweig with Sensei Marchini and Restelli – and, as it was the anniversary of the Braunschweig Dojo they also invited SENSEI SHIRAI. – Great, fantastic, how was I exited and happy to see this marvellous master so soon after Germersheim again.

And then the big disappointment: one day prior to departure, I was send to the Ardennes to supervise a herd of cows and help them grazing a huge meadow in the hills.

Well, the Belgian delegation, this time consisting only of Marc Stevens and Fiorella, left without me and participated at a fantastic course.

Nevertheless, Sensei Marc was so kind to forward me a summary and therefore I’m able to give you at least some information about the course in Braunschweig.

TBA

Then, two weeks after Braunschweig, I was promised to join the team to go to Potsdam where Sensei Kase was expected to give a course on 5 and 6 July 2003.

But it seems that I am not lucky these times. This particular weekend, I had to join 150 German cows for a cultural celebration – what a shame!!!

Again, my dear Sensei Marc was kind enough to providing me with background information about the course.

TBA

But then, two weeks later, the four musketeers set out again, this time to Italy and this time at least with my cousin Chloé.

As Chloé only speaks cowish, she asked me to write the report on her behalf.

The four musketeers this time were Marc, Fiorella, Francis and Vera.

On Friday, 18^th July 03, Marc, Francis and Vera hit the road direction Frankfurt to pick-up Fiorella.

After a good night’s sleep in Frankfurt, all four of them (sorry, all five of them, as Chloé was with the travelling party) set off southwards in a very good mood – singing, joking and laughing. – Oh, I would have loved being with the guys, sitting among them and moohing along....

The German part, down to Freiburg and then to Basel went by without any disturbances, except a small slow down at the Swiss border.

Then, quite worrying traffic information: 14 kilometres traffic jam and three hours waiting time in front of the St. Gotthard Tunnel. Holy s...... – St. Gotthard was just half the way down, still some hundreds of kilometres to travel!!!

Anyway, my dear karate-kas kept the good mood going and decided to take one bridge at a time.

Finally the St. Gotthard approached, still 7 km traffic jam and over 2 hours waiting time. But as weather was nice, the musketeers were in no hurry, they decided to go over the pass. What a wonderful way (well I suppose only in summer time) – Chloé was raving about it! When they stopped at the pass to bath their feet in a mountain lake, she ate a mouthful of fresh, green grass for me. I really can feel the taste on my tongue and feel the vitamins running through my veins.

Enough from this, I suppose my dear readers are not really interested in a cow’s grassy dreams.

From thereon, traffic run really smoothly and after a short break the journey ended around 20h00 at Lonato.

Next morning after the typical Italian breakfast (suppose you know what that means, as Chloé didn’t mention details) our four travellers spent some hours on the border of the “Garda Lake” to strengthen their forces for the oncoming course with Sensei Shirai.

Then the hour of truth came: 4 hours of training were foreseen, around 200 participants assembled and temperatures up to 35° C!!! Which torture was standing before them – poor guys.

But the only really poor creature was Chloé: my normally very high estimated and beloved musketeers forgot her in the car!! – Not only that she was certainly suffering in the accumulated heat (suppose some of her fat was melting away), no – more important, she could not follow the course and therefore she was of no big use for me, and I would have been better of with the fellas on my own.

At least she was able to pick-up some details during the journey back and so I know that after a short Kihon, Sensei Shirai worked a lot of Kata and the Kata Bunkai. The guys had to work against three different attackers from different directions. Marc, Fiorella, Francis and Vera apparently loved the course, thought it very interesting and learned a lot of new things.

The journey back was very uneventful, except for a hyper-fantastic, mega-galactic, super-dooper dinner in an Italian speciality pizzeria (suppose there are some people who wished being there – hihihi).

My beloved musketeers still speak today about this great meal!!!

And then, finally my time came again: last weekend, I travelled to Germany to assist a course given by Sensei Marc Stevens in Karlsruhe. – Moooh, moooh, it was really great.

From the Belgian delegation, there were only Fiorella and Vera present, but participants came from so far as Erfurt and Berlin!!!

I really got the impression that he has a lot of fans – huuuh, I’m the mascot of a famous Sensei – just a pity that he doesn’t want to take a photo together with me:-(

But you never know, maybe one day.......;-)

Once more I got pool-position on my assigned bag and was able to follow the whole course (2 courses in the morning and 2 courses in the afternoon).

Seen that the guys from the Kei Shin Kan Dojo are fanatics, you can bet on it that they participated at all courses. Better for me, so I had a lot to see.

First course in the morning the colour belts trained Heian Shodan and Heian Nidan. Kihon they were taught to advance correctly with their Hara and not to lift their heels, especially when they move backwards.

Kumite was based on Kihon Ipon Kumite and Kihon Nipon Kumite.

Green and blue belts exercised more or less the same, but they had to move from face to face position to a 45° position, take a natural Kamei Te and only attack then.

At the end of this lesson, Marc repeated both Katas and then the one and a half hours were already over.

Brown and black belts exercised Kihon program of the 1^st Dan. After Kihon they practised Basai Dai several times before starting with Kumite of 1^st Dan.

Then Kanku Dai. Part by part, as not all Karate-kas knew this kata. After one part was repeated several times, they were split in groups: first the black-belts had to show this part of Kanku Dai, then the brown-belts.

Second part of Kumite consisted of 1^st Dan kicks.

To finish, both Katas were repeated. And off we went for a 1,5 hour lunch break.

My heroes got new strengths with sandwiches, white cheese with fruit and ISO drinks (really tasteful, n’est pas??) and I got refreshed with a glass of milk. Oh yes, don’t tell me now that cows only drink water – I love cool, fresh milk!!!

After the short break, the colour belts started with preparing exercises for Heian Sandan, followed by a part of Heian Sandan itself.

Then the guys had to do rotating exercises back to back. Then again Heian Sandan, this time complete.

Kumite was started with Uchi Komi from Tsuki Chodan and Tsuki Chudan.

Green and blue belts, as the previous training, had to move to a 45° position before attacking.

Uchi Komi was replaced by Kihon Ipon Kumite with Age Uke, Uchi Uke and Soto Uke as defences.

Once more Heian Sandan was trained, followed by an exercise with partner to train the Morote Empi.

And yes, again one and a half hours were over – you can’t imagine how time was flying by. I was only sitting on a bag but had big time fun – even while inhaling the strong transpiration fumes.

The brown and black belts were tortured with the programme of 2^nd and 3^rd Dan, which was repeated several times.

Then some first Dan’s had to show the programme of the 2^nd Dan, same for the higher Dans, who had to show the 3^rd Dan programme.

Huuuhh, I was already starting shaking and trembling only with the idea presenting an exercise in front of all these people and the Sensei. The guys were really courageous and I was quite happy sitting only on the bag.

Kumite training consisted of Kakeno Zen. Again they had to move in a 45° position, take natural Kamai Te and the person in the middle had to guess when the partner is going to attack and attack before him = attack the idea from the partner, be quicker than the partner.

Last Kumite exercise was face to face, attack Tsuki Shudan, defence Heisho Uke, slightly sliding to the side in high Kiba Dachi take a grip of the attacking arm and kick Mae Keri.

To finish the course and bring the participants closer to collapse, Sensei Stevens let them go twice through Basai Dai, once through Kanku Dai and then they had to choose between both Katas.

After a relaxing half-hour of stretching, chatting and half an hour hot shower my beloved Karate-kas had finally the chance – good smelling and nicely groomed – to go for dinner and the party.

Oh yes, there was a barbecue and a party and even I was allowed to join it.

Okay, admitted, I still was not allowed to sit on the shoulder of Sensei Marc, but at least I was not excluded.

Highlight of this evening was a dancing presentation of the German champion teams of Kumite – women against men! Uhh, that was fun, they are not only talented on the Tatami but also have the groove on the dance floor.

I would have loved to support the female team by joining with a small cow-dance, but was kept away from the fun – well, not really cool;-)

Well, my dear readers, after such a monster summary, I deserve a bit free time on Belgian meadows. I will go to the seaside and take some time off.

But don’t worry, I’m back end of August with new adventures from Vilshofen and the course with Sensei Shirai and Sensei Watanabe and maybe some other surprises.

Enjoy your summer and talk to you soon.

MOOOOHHH MOOOOHHH MOOOOHHH

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