By Martin E. Hansen, Member until 2018

This year's Hsing-i course was almost finished, which was on Friday 22 June at 17.00 before the year's first black belt LUS (leader development seminar) could start. This leadership development event is aimed at black belts and students on their way to black belt, i.e. from 2nd kyu and up. It was no coincidence that it was planned to start right after Hsing-i, which ended with a good 2 hours of Ruygi training, where the participants were served the whole story behind Hsing-i and why we include it in Shindenkan's curriculum, but it can you can read much more about in the many articles from the course. So the participants had to directly take what they learned from the course to the black belt competition, where Kimu Sensei would take it to another level.

All the participants lined up in front of Kimu Sensei and waited excitedly but also sweaty after today's training, which had already started at 1 p.m. It had been 2 hours of hard Hsing-i training followed by 2 hours in the classroom, so now everyone needed to get moving again 🙂 Kimu Sensei started the training session by telling how important it is to pay attention and try to get as much as possible on a personal level, and therefore asks all the questions that are needed and gladly asks the same questions several times if necessary. But at the same time, Kimu Sensei also expects that the things that are now pointed out will be corrected in order to develop during the event. A black belt leadership development seminar is about taking leadership for yourself and thus other people, which is why the seminar is also scheduled on a Friday, when everyone else typically takes time off. It then continues on Saturday morning and into the afternoon, after which the regular summer meeting for everyone starts. This summer convention is also an instructor's task, which must be solved in continuation of the black belt seminar, i.e. it would be nice to see that the participants, who will subsequently act as instructors at the summer convention, use what they have learned during the black belt convention. Most of the participants had already tried this new Black Belt LUS concept before the xmas convention and knew very well that it was going to be a long Friday, scheduled until 11.30 p.m. After that it was home and sleep to meet up the next morning at 7.45 and continue training either Ryugi or Ryuha depending on need.

After this pep talk and warm-up, it was time to start the actual training, where Kimu Sensei began by saying that now the participants should immerse themselves with Hsing-i and get a feeling of getting faster and delivering more powerfully and accurately. So the training continued where the Hsing-i course left off, with pad training with a partner. To start with, 3 basic techniques were trained at a slow tempo, then increased to 100% with the rule that if you compromised the quality of the technique, you had to slow down on subsequent strokes. The three techniques that were repeated throughout the seminar were: "step forward and tsuki", "step forward and raise the back leg and gyaku tsuki" and "step forward, step forward and tsuki". It doesn't sound like much, but there was plenty for all participants to work with when adding speed, power and precision. All the participants experienced one or another form of success and sometimes even managed to surprise themselves with how fast they were :-), when they added the right ingredients according to Kimu Sensei's recipe. To make it a little more difficult with precision, the large kick pads were replaced with smaller impact pads which are approx. ¼ size. Following the same principle and with changing partners, the same techniques were run through again. However, the afternoon's training was interrupted, as 2 brown belts were in the process of their graduation, and had to complete stop tests 2,3 and 4 (Theory, syllabus and kumite test). The participants continued training themselves while Kimu Sensei took the 2 students through the hard graduation process and only at the end during the kumite test, there were participants from the seminar who had to take part in the test so that the two graduates could have some resistance in shiai kumite 🙂

The afternoon had flown by and with that the training was over and the participants could now enjoy half an hour of freedom in the shower or with food before the evening's program could start. At 19.30 it was time for group tasks, where Kimu Sensei had previously divided the participants into 3 groups. As at all other times, there are of course prizes during these events, but it must be a bit of a task for the readers themselves to link the concepts of cracker, rising star, "see the little kitten" and, of course, arm stretches. The tasks were designed by Kimu Sensei with a view to getting input for Shindenkan's future strategy in connection with the optimization of e.g. training offer and resource distribution before he does the big planning himself throughout the month of July during the "GGM Honbu strategy & planning camp". At 11:30 p.m., the participants closed and turned off their PCs and went home to get a few hours of sleep before the next day's rigors.

There had been a collection for breakfast, so the next morning at At 7.45 most of the participants came forward to feast on fresh rolls and delicious bread as Doc. Christian had brought. At the same time, some time was also spent getting ready for the Shindenkan summer training meet for everyone later in the day. Kimu Sensei and Jens Hanshi-dai arrived, after which some breakfast bread was enjoyed before the evening's task solution had to be presented to everyone. The input to the strategy plan was in the form of a score on various parameters, including on the ongoing POMW project. It also raised a number of questions from the participants, which Kimu Sensei answered nicely and at the same time drew parallels to the previous day's Hsing-i course. This ryugi training took a few hours and it was therefore quite late and around 11.00 that the participants tackled the last lesson of the leadership seminar. Kimu Sensei started it by saying "Now it's exam time, Now you have to show me what you've learned". They went at it from the start with 100% on the pads and changing opponents. Then it continued completely without pads, where there was, however, room for a single slow technique, before running up to 100% again. It was surprising and a successful experience for most of the people who also thought they had become faster, except for a few :-), who just had to be convinced. Kimu Sensei concluded the seminar by encouraging the participants to continue training during the summer holidays, just 5-10 min. per day at Hsing-i, so that it was maintained and as a prelude to the new season.

It was next with soaked gi's that the participants lined up to thank Kimu Sensei for a good training. The participants were really used and most understood far more what it means to perform techniques with Hsing-i principles as tools – speed, power and precision. Everyone without exception could clearly feel it in their bodies, "Don't worry, it's worse tomorrow" came from a smiling Kimu Sensei. It was with just over half an hour to eat lunch that they bowed out, before the summer meeting for all Shindenkaners awaited, and thus today's and for many the last round of training of the season.