It was Friday 24 May and that was the day my third training camp with Kimu Sensei this season started. This time it was three days. I picked up Kimu Sensei as agreed at 13.00 at his place of residence, where I was met with a big and warm exclamation: "Hello Iversen".

Then Kimu Sensei solemnly said: "If you have eaten, I can have lunch one more time - I have only had lunch once today and I am still hungry". After my many training camps with Kimu Sensei, I know that it doesn't pay to eat on the run, so we drove off to Malmö and the training camp was underway.

This training camp was to be an Okuden (5-6.dan) training camp and as a prelude to the camp, Kimu Sensei had on Friday 18 May handed me a letter from Soke Sensei Tonegawa, which Kimu Sensei had brought with him from his recently completed training camp in Japan. I was handed the letter a week before with the words; "read it and I'll take the letter and give it to you again at the training camp". I read the letter with excitement and found it to be a declaration of confidence and a friendly but firm training guide.

My training camps with Kimu Sensei always build on each other "A red building thread with great self-responsibility", and always have two ingredients which are mental/spiritual training and subsequently a practical/technical turnover of the first, as it is all one context and one.

The mirror of cognition. The training in the mirror of cognition is briefly to see oneself in the context between one's ideal image and one's real image. Sounds really easy doesn't it? But I just want to say that it's not easy, it's actually really hard to stay focused, to be honest with yourself - to look yourself in the eye.

Kimu Sensei taught me the meaning of the degree Okuden, which can be translated as "the innermost". Okuden is about being yourself, because as Kimu Sensei says. "You can't do anything else".

I was also taught the connection between Okuden - "being yourself" and Menkyo, which is about "knowing yourself". The prerequisite for knowing yourself is to first be yourself.

I immediately thought: "How can something that sounds so simple be so difficult!".

The Japanese translation for the meaning of Menkyo reads like this; "Master of all the martial arts", -which for most suggests that this is not quite easy!.

Practical/technical training The practical execution of "being yourself" had to be tested immediately in kumite. Kumite at these training camps is a constant stream of attack, and a constant response of defense from it. The roles are then changed between defender and attacker. It is so challenging and intense to perform 100 % all the time, as the alternative of "only" 99 % performance means that the attacks hit the whole body with surgical precision.

At one point during the second day, I said it's a good thing we have a sense of humour, as I was pushed to the limit. Kimu Sensei completely agreed with that, so he immediately showed me different ways in which he could humorously and slightly provocatively parry my attacks if I was not 100 %, e.g. standing leaning against the wall with both legs crossed, humming Beethoven's 5th symphony, looking dreamily out the window, while parrying my increasingly desperate attacks with only one arm, or no arms at all. Or if my physical and mental balance was not right, in my ever-increasing desperation, he would stick a finger in my nose or scratch my chin, still of course, while smilingly parrying all my increasingly desperate and "I have to that extent need success now!” attack.

So don't come and say that there is no humor at these 5-7 dan training camps!.. although I can feel that the humor and pleasure can be a little one-sided, and entirely on Kimu Sensei's side.

But on the other hand, I could just do as I was asked, and "be myself and give 100 % all the time", - but it is always easier to blame the "boss" or others for one's self-reinforcing challenges .

But I know very well that from Joden (4th dan) and fully from Okuden (5th dan) the Yakami-ryu instructor training takes a completely different turn and character, where "Need-driven customer care with room for everyone, and I am almost as good as the instructor illusion" changes completely to "Life or death training - anything below 100% means you are not good enough - and that very bluntly, but lovingly life-affirming, both physically, psychologically, mentally and spiritually".

I was also taught the katas Naihanchi and Ananku and how to perform them at the Okuden level. This is very difficult because the understanding, and thus the level of detail, is so high and everything has to be right. It is something that I have to practice a lot.

The next time I am at a training camp with Kimu Sensei is at this year's instructor camp on 22-23. June and I look forward to meeting myself again on this occasion.