In January 2020 we begun preparing to the European Naginata Championship that was supposed to happen in Sweden.
As there was a plan to have a children competition, we quickly built a team of kids (including my grandson Gili – 10 years old!).
But then in March 2020 the world stopped. Quarantines everywhere. We too stayed at home… The ENC in Sweden was first postponed… and then postponed again.
For me, naginata is life. Instead of taking pills I keep practicing every day. But now we are afraid of going out of our homes. After three such days I told my wife I had to go for a run. I run early in the morning and then practiced naginata alone in my garage. Just me and the cats and birds. No one else.
That was good enough for a while. But then my students told me they all have trouble in stopping practice. So we had zoom practices with Gur, and later joined Charlotte’s excellent international zoom meetings.
Today we are back on regular practices, but we don’t know what will happen in the future. We hope there will be no more quarantines but that’s not for us to decide.
Lately we are having fun in practicing in Gur’s new dojo, and put a lot of effort to do a lot of bogu practice both in my town in Petah Tikva and with Gur’s group in Kfar Eldad.
Dojo is back = Life is back.
I hope to see you all very soon, and not only by zoom!
Thank you
Nico Weinberger