Saturday

Saturday morning we sat ourselves down at the breakfast table and heard that some participants had taken an ice bath during the early morning hours, apparently a good way to start your day, too cold for most of us though..

We started the day off with Hanshi Dave Jonkers leading the morning training, a rather intense session at 9 o’clock, with lots of different combos being done on his count.

The next session, Shihan Lars started off with some short, “Soke typical” combos, which was nice and relaxing compared to the last session.

After a short break, we all sat down for what was to be an emotional rollercoaster, with speeches held by Shihan Kickan, Hanshi Dave and Shihan Raul and a slide show highlighting key moments from Soke’s martial arts career.

The fact that so many familiar faces were there to honor Soke and his legacy was amazing! Shihan Kickan Cook, Hanshi David Jonkers, Shihan Semmy Schilt and all the Shihans from around the globe had come to pay tribute to our beloved Soke. That really hit close to heart.

Thank you all for coming:

ShihanKickan Cook 7th Dan, Hanshi Dave Jonkers 8th Dan, Shihan Semmy Schilt 9th Dan, Shihan Lars Utter 7th Dan, Tommy Ädelhäll 5th Dan, Shihan Raul Rucarean 5th Dan, Shihan Jakob Beltowski 5th Dan, Shihan Marc de Roodt 5th Dan, Shihan Marcel van den Berg 5th Dan, Shihan Vitaly Vasjanov 5th Dan, Sensei Helder Coelho 4th Dan, Sensei Lars Branstrom 4th Dan, Sensei Florin Spătaru 3rd Dan, Sensei Emil Moberg 3rd Dan, Sensei Leif Kirsebom 3rd Dan, just to name a few.

As well as the rest of Sempai and Kohais, the list can go on and on. We appreciate the effort that everyone has made to make this event happen!

At the end of the ceremony, we went to have lunch together, and could reacquaint with old time friends and reminisce our training days under Soke.

The first of the afternoon session was led by Shihan Mark a session that was mostly about following up two techniques with the same leg. He explained different ways of handling different attacks. Very educational and fun.

At 4pm Shihan Sem held the last session for all the blackbelts, because of the black-belt meeting that was to follow after dinner. Shihans session was mostly focused on creativity and we did two combos with takedowns that followed up on the ground with some locks and escapes from locks.

The session ended with a drill that meant that you had to copy your Uke's combination and then respond with your combination that your Uke later has to repeat.

The last part of the session was trying to not let your Uke get off his back in grappling. A really interesting and different class! Did I mention that we switched Uke’s multiple times for variation? I also got to take a picture with Shihan Sem which was so nice of him. The photo was of my dad Shihan Jakob, Shihan Sem and me standing in Kumite Dachi. Happy days!

After that session we went on and had dinner which was a really nice and tasty lasagna.

The last session for the day was exclusively only for Kyu-belts and consisted of boxing taught by Sempai Robert from Kinna, Sweden who is a former boxer. A really interesting and fun session because of all the new kinds of techniques that boxers use. Weaving punches and analyzing your opponent to the fullest.

Sunday

The first training of the day and last of the camp was at 9 am. Shihan Raul held that one, and it was with thankfulness not too hard and exhausting. Some fun combos with a well-deserved water break in between. But the worst session of the day was yet to come.

The Dan grading

The Toris who were grading was: Sempai Burch to Sandan, Sempai Fufu to Nidan, Sempai Tommy to Nidan, Sempai Joakim to Nidan, Sempai Robert Bank from Sweden to Shodan and Sempai Robert from Romania to Shodan.

It started off with some short combos on pads to make Toris relax.

This was followed up by fighting drills that unfortunately didn’t last very long until Sempai Joakim injured his hip, from a miss-hap during the fighting drill. That really messed the rest of his grading up…

The grading carried on with Ippon kumite.

This means that the Tori places himself in the middle of a ring of Ukes. One of them steps forward and throws a left straight punch and an optional technique of their liking. The Tori has to block and counter and rapidly face the next Uke waiting with a new attack. This proceeds to go on for a predetermined number of minutes, depending on the Dan grade.

After everyone had done their Ippon Kumite and showed great variety of defense and counters, the last part of the grading was up: the sparring!

15 rounds of very tough sparring were stunning to watch!

There were some moments where we thought they wouldn’t make it, but they proved us wrong. Really well fought and a well-deserved grading from everyone.

Everyone passed and the camp pretty much wrapped up after the certificate and belt ceremony.

Congratulations to the new black belts!

The Sunday evening

Everyone who stayed on after the camp went, as tradition after the Winter Camps, to O’Leary’s for dinner (O’Leary’s is an American restaurant, with bowling, pool and very nice food).

There were around 20 of us and we had a great time just talking and enjoying ourselves. The youths went playing arcade games, pool and had great desserts.

We all lost track of time and stayed on till closing.

After dinner, everyone said goodbye and we hope to see everyone again soon. The camp was a real fun experience for everyone and once again it was a pleasure to see that many people coming here honoring our well beloved Soke.

Until next time, OSU!

Sempai Alexander Beltowski