by Søren Nielsen, member until 2022

The 2008 I-camp was in several areas the start of a new direction within Yakami Shinsei-ryu. There were a few of us who had received an invitation to Kaidenkan. Which meant a new level of training, but also that we had to be assistant instructors within Shindenkan Honbu-dojo 1. Which means that the training as an instructor within Yakami Shinsei-ryu would also move up a step

When the summer holiday was over and we now had to start again, an email appeared with the text

"Welcome to Shindenkan Honbu 1".

The tension was released, now it was completely clear what was going to happen as Shindenkan Honbu dojo 1 assistant instructor.

We had to fill in pictures with colors that could be understood by other students.

Put another way, we had to create the content on courses where the framework was created.

First assignment was instructor course package 1.

All Shindenkan Honbu dojo's courses are organized and created by Kimu Sensei to ensure the common thread and competence. Kimu Sensei does the "line drawing" and as part of the continuing instructor development, Honbu instructors must "finish the picture in the right colors". This usually takes place over 2-4 months with Kimu Sensei, as steering group chairman for the project group, and only for Honbu Syllabus and inspiration for TG1, TG2 and TG3. All competency courses are currently completed by Kimu Sensei, as the minimum competency-giving and qualified degree is Menkyo, 6th dan Yakami Shinsei-ryu and 7th dan, Kodosoku-kai Gensei-ryu Karate-do.

The first part of the course should contain a theoretical and practical part, which should take up approx. 3 hours with the main emphasis on the practical. The second part was to have a practical part of 1 hour and a theoretical part of approx. 2.5 hours, with a final exam.

For the first part, Jens Kyoshi was supposed to be rope holder and paint. The other was left to Martin Renshi-dai and myself.

Now it may well be that you as a reader are thinking. How difficult can it be, you have been teaching for many years and you all know each other through thick and thin.

Yes, that is correct, but we teach differently and we perceive and convey knowledge differently. This is how we are as humans, which is completely natural. But this is not the same as saying that together we are able to create something that other people understand.

After a few meetings internally and with Kimu Sensei, who gave us very clear goals and expectations, we threw ourselves into the task on a Sunday afternoon. After a few hours, in which we actually missed an exciting Olympic handball match, we had divided all the tasks between us and then it was just a matter of getting started. Which was easier said than done.

There are a lot of thoughts that need to be done and a lot of considerations that need to be taken up.

You have to remember that you only have one attempt to complete a course in Shindenkan. That is that it must sit in the cupboard the first time. You can't go into it half-heartedly. In the same way as if you were in a serious situation and had to use your knowledge to defend yourself. You can't do that half-heartedly either. Especially not if you want to get out of the situation completely. Of course there are things that can be done better and differently, but you have to give yourself 100 %.

As an instructor in Shindenkan and a practitioner of martial arts for 25 years, you gain knowledge while hearing and seeing things that may be difficult for others to understand. It can be things that have gradually become natural for you, but which are not necessarily so for others.

So the biggest task was to get the theoretical content written down so that it could be understood by everyone. Furthermore, it also had to be communicated in a credible way.

The easiest thing would be to copy the entire website and then go through it. But that wouldn't really make sense, so we set about writing about the subjects to be reviewed, in a way that we ourselves understood. The website was used as a proper guide and guideline.

Although the participants on the courses would be somewhat experienced, everyone has different approaches to the martial arts. At the same time, everyone also has different educations and content in their lives. Some people may understand something better than others and should you go for the highest common denominator or the lowest. All parameters that must be taken into account when building courses.

In Shindenkan and Kaidenkan, we have a principle of meeting deadlines. This was no exception this time. After a lot of late night hours, writing and erasing it again, then writing the same thing again, but from a different angle, the deadline for handing in the first draft for I-course 1 approached.

It was delivered on time and a few days later we got a feedback from Kimu Sensei, which we could then work on to complete the entire content. Which involved deleting most of what we had written, in order to rewrite it.

When you sit and write some text that you have worked on for a long time, in the end you cannot see and understand what you are writing yourself. It was clear when we got the text from a distance that it had to be changed, from being very similar to what was on the website, to something that was much more informative and direct. So it was up to the horse again and move on.

In addition to one's own work, there is also the fact that when we are two people who have to do the task, we have to help each other comment on what the colleague has done. That is to familiarize oneself with the work of others and give constructive feedback. I thought we were really good at this in this course, which has given a really good working rhythm.

As the second deadline approached, more calm came over us, which gave us a greater familiarity with what we had done.

After the second deadline and second comment from Kimu Sensei, the framework was being completed. The time for holding the course was also approaching, so now it had to be in its place with a general test, to see if we had too much or too little text for the theoretical part.

So Martin Renshi-dai and I decided to meet on a Friday evening, in a place where we could go through the whole theoretical part without being disturbed.

Now there is a tradition of spending Friday evening enjoying yourself with a beer or a glass of wine. And I must also admit that we had that opportunity very close, as we held our dress rehearsal at Carlsberg.

Martin Renshi-Dai works at Carlsberg and he had been allowed to borrow a room that we could use for the test. So, after correcting a bit in the text, and making sure that the rest of the material for the course was in place, we set about holding the general test. It went as it should, the timing was perfect.

There are a lot of things going on inside your head when you have to try to understand how others will perceive the knowledge you have to convey. One thing is to convey physical knowledge through one's karate lessons. It is a completely different matter to have to convey knowledge, only using your mouth and your body language. There is no doubt that it has set some thoughts in motion, which help to develop us as instructors. Which is probably also the meaning of being Shindenkan Honbu-dojo 1 assistant instructor.

When you now look back at the process we have been through, it is incredibly gratifying to see the result of our efforts. A pass percentage of between 85-90 % speaks for itself.

Overall, around 75 hours have been spent per course part per project participant. (Ed: Typically for TG1 & TG2 curriculum courses, a total of 250-550 hours are spent on course preparation)

Which has been extra work alongside the daily teaching, training and work. At the same time, it has happened on a voluntary and unpaid basis, which is completely unique for Shindenkan.

Think of what it would cost if we weren't able to create these courses ourselves and then on top of that in a way that even very experienced business people could learn something. Can it get much better?