It was Friday 21 January 2011 and time for the first Shindenkan RR Camp of the year - For those who do not remember what RR Camp stands for, "RR Camp" means Ryugi/Ryuha training for chief instructors "by invitation".

RR Camp is leadership development for School Heads in Shindenkan Denmark and is run under Shindenkan Honbu dojo's strategic plan with a vision that says: "Imagine if no knowledge was ever lost, good or bad". RR Camp is leadership development both for local leaders and individually.

As usual, I picked up Kimu Sensei at 11.00 and as always he was happy and in a good mood and said to my great surprise: "I'm hungry and unfortunately we can't get anything to eat"... I thought to myself that we must be in a hurry because this usually happens to be almost a ritual!

Physical training 1
At this training camp we started with a physical training session and we showed up dressed for training and this time Kimu Sensei told us that we had to be trained in "Core Stability" training and that we had to go through 5 basic exercises. In short, you can say that "Core Stability" training activates all the small muscles around the joints and supports the large muscles, which is decisive for how well you are able to distribute the load over the whole body - I was really looking forward to that.

We warmed up with optional fitness training, where I had chosen to cycle - thank God for that.

After this, we were taught different cable pull exercises with a great focus on details and correct execution - just like last time, we had to run all the exercises in a frequency of 2 seconds out and 4 seconds back - it was a really good time hard training that could be felt for a long time …

The scene:
We had all worked for 5 months to implement and carry out the local plan we had laid out to fulfill the goals we set at RR Camp 10.2 in September 2010 and for this RR Camp we had each been given the task of making a presentation of our respective schools and their development in the season leading up to this camp, i.e. presents our management tools and the 5 KPIs, with a focus on local management development.

I was looking forward to showing JBA's progress and because I am actually proud of JBA's management team and the efforts they make. There is always room for improvement in a management team and this is something everyone in JBA is prepared to work with – we are focused on achieving our goals.

All the participants who attended prepared well and had both the status of the plan, strengths and weaknesses, as well as an overview of which corrective activities had been initiated to achieve the goals that had been set for the local school.

It was good and educational for me to see the way the others had approached their plan and execution and there were ideas for inspiration that I will take into my future plans for Jokokan Ballerup Karate School.

After this individual review, where everyone had presented their results in the best possible way in relation to their respective local schools, Kimu Sensei thoroughly shook us up with the following words:

"You now have one hour to describe your exit plan from Shindenkan, it must make yourselves look as good as possible!". "You must describe both the interior and the exterior!".

Then the scene was set! - and there were several of the participants who were a little bit shocked by this... Especially because this was in direct contradiction to the presentation we had just made...

After an hour we met in plenary and we were all expectant when Kimu Sensei reviewed our martial arts life on "formula and curve", where it was clear that we were all influenced by both our own decisions and other people. After that, Kimu Sensei shook us up again thoroughly with the following words:

"You now have one hour to describe which exit plan your colleagues from Shindenkan will choose, it must make THEM look as good as possible!". "You must describe both the interior and the exterior!".

After an hour we met again in plenary and this time we were asked to review our answers to the two tasks, that is to say in the way that we each first told about our own exit plan and then were presented with the others' analysis of us .

External learning.
It was instructive.

At both RR Camps in 2010, the main topic was = leadership for yourself and for others, where I, as chief instructor, had been challenged to take leadership – that is, beyond the local!

But at this RR camp 2011.1 it became clear that effective leadership has made demands on ME:

• I MUST be 100 % clarified.
• It is NOT enough that I am clear about other people.
• I MUST be 100 % willing to look at all aspects of MYSELF – good and bad.
• Just like last time, all change starts with ME, so if I don't take the main conclusion from one Camp to the other - there is NO development! – nor leadership development.

Internal learning.
After thinking about it a lot, I decided the following:

After all – I can't lie!

I cannot stand in a period of my life where things are otherwise going well, and communicate a path that I get others to follow. After which, when I get stuck myself, or can't take the next step, I start communicating in a completely different way to avoid having to explain why I can't carry out the things I usually represent!

It is an illusion to make an exit plan based on feelings and legacy or based on looking as good as possible, this will be wrong and dishonest, not to say unclear.

Try to close your eyes and imagine your martial arts career and then taste these sentences and think to yourself:

• "I have done everything..." or
• "Everyone will be able to understand me..." or
• "I have also always said that ..." or
• "The only one you can trust is yourself..." or
• "It is the system that is too demanding..." or
• "I'm getting too old too..."

Does it bring on that familiar feeling of self-pity?

RR Camp 11.1
My life on formula and curves made one thing very clear to me and that is that if I follow a long path towards martial arts, even very small deviations mean that I will not reach my goal.

In this case, it is stupid to imagine that I have the course locked on the same target - because everyone will realize that it is not true when they can see the direction.

But worst of all – I will end up lying to myself.

Again, it's about humility. The only thing you can do is decide if you are 100 % what you say you are?

RR Camp 11.1 was a really good camp, where I was confronted with myself as the leader of my own life, as usual challenged to my limit - in the good and educational way.

When we drove home I found out why Kimu Sensei hadn't really been as hungry as he used to be - it turned out he had the flu. It is a very strong characteristic of Kimu Sensei that he puts himself aside and he had therefore also chosen that this should not stand in the way of the implementation of the planned RR Camp 11.1

I would like to thank you for this 🙂