by David D’hose
The adventure starts as early as Friday, because even though the seminar was supposed to begin on Saturday, our Belgian friends’ training session took place on Friday, and many practitioners who came for the seminar were present for this first training session. It took place in the large hall of the sports center, a hall with a long history for Belgian naginata; it has hosted seminars with great Japanese senseis such as Sunagawa, Yasui, Kimura, Narita, and surely others I’m forgetting, not to mention the European championships where the best have competed. Soon the place will be renovated to host even more significant events. The evening was led by David D’hose sensei, one of the instructors of the seminar.
On Saturday, all the practitioners from Switzerland, France, Sweden, Germany, and even Portugal were present for this wonderful seminar orchestrated by the Belgian senseis. The morning was filled with a great series of technical exercises and reviews of some shikake oji, punctuated by video sessions to review a Japanese version of our work.
Tyl Dermine sensei then proposed exercises more focused on long-distance strikes. We don’t know if it was his tall stature that inspired this work, but everyone found it interesting.
After a delicious meal offered by the organizer Laurence Dumonceau, the afternoon exercises took on a completely different dimension. Indeed, François Dermine sensei decided to coach us physically and introduced us to a series of physical exercises to get us back in shape.
He wanted to make us understand that a good fighter must have good physical condition. The afternoon ended with bogu exercises preparing us for Sunday. The day ended with a good drink shared in honor of the seminar organizers, as is customary in Belgium.
On Sunday, we organized a beautiful engi competition in the morning during which the different performances were commented on by the shinpan to clearly explain to the participants the reasons for their decisions. We worked on the same shikake oji that are planned for the World Championships and shared our points of view on the subject.
In the afternoon, we organized a splendid shiai competition where, surprisingly, the elite of European fighters were represented. Videos of Japanese fights and strikes were presented to study what the shinpans accepted during other competitions.
The tournament was astronomical, the fights of our participants from all over Europe were worthy of a European championship. The day ended with a good meal to celebrate the traditional sayonara.
On Monday, those who are soon to be promoted to 3rd and 4th dan trained to lead a kihon for all the other practitioners at the seminar with the advice of all the present instructors. After some exercises in armor, we enjoyed another delicious meal. In the afternoon, the kyus worked with Laurence Dumonceau and the Dans worked on Zen Nihon Kata until the end of the seminar. We had one last drink before saying goodbye and wishing each other well for the World Championships.