By Jokokan Honbu
Both mood and the full moon were high in the sky at Jokokan's annual fall camp. The host school was again the Jokokan Skælskør Karate School, which had outdone itself this year, and put together a great practical event following the association's planning group's overall instructions and program organization.
The training camp, which spanned two days of challenging community-building activities for the approximately 40 adult participants on Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning, included intensive training in Yakami-ryu Karate-do, breathing and Yakami-ryu Tai-chi exercises, and group interaction exercises over the evening coffee based on Jokokan's set of values and teaching principles.
The energy input of 30 happy, laughing JokoKidz in high gear early on Saturday morning, from the ages of 6 to 14, created a slightly euphoric mood among all Jokokans at the camp, after a stormy night in the dormitories, where the rustle and hiss of the wind fought against the loud snoring of the tired Jokokans about who could overpower who.
Ukemi (Falling technique), Yakami-ryu Karate-do, -Jujutsu (falling technique & Throwing), -Kenjutsu (Sword kihon) combined with various individual and community-oriented exercises, designed and targeted based on Jokokan's set of values, teaching principles and graduation curriculum, were the framework for The training of the day.
Altogether, it was just over 12 hours of planned Yakami-ryu training with individual and team exercises for the adults, and 7 hours of energy-filled Yakami-ryu training and activities for JokoKidz.
The final celebratory dinner was supplemented by a video canon showing films from the opening screening of Jokokan Korsør karate school last year, 8 Danish instructors' training in Japan 1998, Soke Sensei Tonegawa's summer camp 2003 and Takeshi Nishiwake's training visit to Denmark, 2003.
After the massive feedback, the Jokokan association's 2003 autumn camp is set to be among the most successful camps Jokokan has held. This places extra demands on the Jokokan association's Winter Camp before the winter holidays 2004.
