By Bertrand Bourgeat, Member until 2022

Shindenkan Obligatory Certification, or just OBC, is six half-day courses where Sensei reviews the essence of Shindenkan's competency courses in jujutsu, kenjutsu, kotachi and more. In each OBC, a number of specific competence courses are brought together, where the essences and principles are the same. Or put another way, if you train the essence of one competence, you also train the other competences. The teacher at OBC is Sensei and he has not hidden that for him the purpose of OBC is two things. Partly to meet everyone who trains Shinsei-ryu at eye level, partly to see and ensure the level of competence and raise it a little bit every year!

So what do you get out of standing for two hours straight and just practicing etiquette? That is bowed before starting the actual training or match! "Straighten up, tuck your chin in, tighten your balls so that you tilt your pelvis, tall man on the dragon's point, tongue up behind the teeth, tighten the internal adductors and lift the big toes. Inhale and now bend from the hips to 30 degrees as you look forward in your peripheral vision and exhale. No, not like that, again!”. This is how the technique training during OBC 5 can be briefly described, where the theme was the slightly more practiced skills Kenjutsu 3, Jo-jutsu 1 and Iai-jutsu 1. From the outside, it seems completely crazy to spend so much time on something so seemingly simple - but I thought that it was great and I was really high when I got home!

So why this excitement? I will try to explain here what it means to me.

I had trained karate for several years and I often experienced frustrations during training. It could be over not being able to perform certain techniques or understand what we were training. But one day Sensei said to me: “Don't get frustrated. After all, you can only be as good as you are right now. It is no shame to lose to superior technology”. I thought about that a lot until it dawned on me that my frustrations were getting in the way. Long story short, it resulted in me forgiving myself for not being perfect. I stopped being frustrated by all the things I couldn't do, and started rejoicing in the things I was good at and happy with. I looked at my many years of schooling, working life and karate training and could see that over the years I had actually developed an incredible amount.

But I could also see that it had taken a long time and I came to think of one of Sensei's other keypoints: "Don't focus so much on the result. Instead, follow the process, step by step, and you will probably reach the goal.” It just made perfect sense to me. It's just so much easier to step on each step of the stairs to get to the top of the high-rise than it is to jump all the way up. Be warned, it still happens that I get caught up in wanting to move forward quickly and therefore overlook some of the steps. But like I said, I've forgiven myself for not being perfect. The important thing is that instead of seeing frustrations that lead to giving up, I see tasks that can be solved and lead to personal development. Thus, the focus shifts from the destination to the journey, from the goal to the process, from the future to the present.

And with this explanation, we have arrived at why I am so excited about OBC. Because at OBC, Sensei goes in depth with the individual steps and essences. I simply get a kick out of immersing myself in each individual step and discovering new connections across competencies. And if you see me at that moment, you will often be able to see me with a big smile on my face, because I often find it difficult to hide my excitement. I'm on a fantastic journey and enjoying every moment of it, without focusing too much on the end goal (those who follow their training will get their black belt sooner or later). For me, it is the perfect journey – one competence at a time, one immersion at a time, one OBC at a time.