Friday 4 January 2024 started the exciting POMW I-II course. We were six men, three young and three not so young, who had taken the trip to the glass cage in Måløv Sports Park to get to know shooting as it is practiced in Shindenkan. POMW Ia was Ryugi and introduction to the course under the leadership of Jens Hanshi-dai with Kjeld Renshi, Shishó Michael, and Pia Shidoin as assistant coaches.

After a little talk about our expectations, Jens Hanshi-dai started his presentation. He started by talking about weapons and what set them apart. Of older weapons, knives, swords and axes had short range. Spears and bows longer range. Firearms then have an even longer range. However, it is a long development. The first cannons came in the 15th century, then came pistols and rifles, which to begin with had a short range. When breech-loading weapons with cartridges came in the 19th century, the range quickly became much longer. He touched on attitude and equipment, saying that a samurai warrior from medieval Japan would probably fall short against a modern elite soldier if they were armed, but if they were unarmed, the samurai would win because of his education, his training and his setting.

The reason why we have introduced POMW and thus shooting in the Shindenkan is Minouchi Sensei's theory that it is the person behind the weapon that makes the difference regardless of the time you live in. Therefore, as a martial artist you should be able to operate the weapons that now exist in the time we live in. The difference between martial arts and martial arts was touched upon, where martial arts is about inner clarification. But a martial artist will not be complete without knowledge of firearms. This is especially true for densho degrees. Minouchi Sensei had set up three models – Model I was the civilized master, Model II was the gray area and Model III was the uncivilized or killer. The comparison with the military can consist in the fact that in the military there are operational competencies for those who are in combat, the tactical ones for their superiors and the strategic ones for those who did the overall planning in staffs. Here there are different men and women, in the different functions. Former defense chief Jørgen Lyng, who started as an elite soldier in the Jægerkorpset and later became head of the Danish defense, is one of the few military personnel who excelled in all three roles. A martial artist must always be able to master all roles.

After this, Jens Hanshi-dai touched on concrete things about weapons. He described the evolution from bows to firearms based on ranges. The earliest cannons came in the 12th century. The first guns came in the 16th century. In the period from the 16th century to the 18th century, they had a range of no more than 30 metres. From the 18th century to the 19th century, it was increased to 45 metres. In Japan, the first rifles and cannons were introduced by the Portuguese in 1453. The first major battle in Japan using firearms was the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. The Japanese invented a tactic, with a warrior who fired and an aide who charged thus, that one could achieve a greater firing frequency.

Then there was talk of weapons. In the second half of the 19th century, cartridges and rifled barrels were introduced. It gave better precision and greater range. The range of pistols has evolved a lot. 1500-1700 the effective range was 5 meters, in 1700-1800 it was 20 meters. In 1800-1830 it reached 50 metres. Now guns can have a range of up to 1800 meters. With sniper rifles you can shoot much further. Thus, the longest sniper kill is at 2,400 meters.

Furthermore, Jens Hanshi-dai told that there were 750,000 registered firearms and it is estimated that there are 5-6 hundred thousand unregistered firearms in Denmark. He also told us that the reason we shoot pistols in POMW is that if you can shoot a pistol, you can also shoot a rifle. The gun is difficult to master.

We were told that the objective for POMW is that we must be able to have a marksmanship which is 5-10 times better than 95 per cent. of all shooters. When Kimu Sensei started shooting in 2010-2011, he was instructed by the best from the Hunter Corps and the Police. Kimu Sensei was completely uncompromising when he set about acquiring the necessary skills. And POMW came up and stood in 2010-2014. POMW shooters must learn five to ten times faster than normal shooters. We were also told that for POMW, dry training is hugely important. In order to implement POMW, the shooting association SDK was established. Therefore, we can legally shoot with caliber 0.22 pistol in Tapeten in Ballerup and with 9 mm pistol on Hanebjerg near Hillerød. We come into contact with the following weapon licences: SKV 6 is a license to shoot with the rifle association's weapon in the rifle association. SKV 4 is the association's permit to possess weapons, SKV 3 is a transport permit and SKV 2 is the permit to possess a weapon if you have been a shooting member of the shooting association for at least two years.

We then reviewed the structure of POMW.

POMW I consists of POMW Ia we are doing now which is Ryugi and introduction. POMW Ib is dry shooting with airgun and laser pistol. POMW Ic airgun and laser gun also with movement. The purpose of POMW I is to provide the shooting foundation. POMW IIa is range shooting with cal. 0.22, POMW IIb is range shooting with cal. 0.22 and 9 mm. POMW IIIa is position shooting with cal. .22 and 9mm and POMW IIIb is IPSC.

Then we had a closing talk where we were presented with the question, what would we do if we were in a situation where criminals/terrorists had captured us and our families and were about to rape our spouses and beat our children to died. If one of the bad guys suddenly dropped a gun on the floor and we were in a place where we could pick it up - What would we do? I guess our response was more or less along the lines of we would pick up the gun and shoot the bad guys if we could save our family members but not necessarily if it was just our own lives. - But that's how you can go and think a lot about hypothetical situations.

In the end, we were given our airguns, safety glasses and hearing protection, and Kjeld Renshi did a first demonstration of operating the gun.

A long and exciting afternoon/evening came to an end, and we could go home excited about the further course.

Thanks to Jens Hanshi-dai for a super good presentation.