We are now well underway with a life-affirming season with both local and national unity, because as always we have kept each other committed to meeting, with super positive motivation 🙂 And we have had the great joy of being able to see each other's eyes again and feel it very great shared desire to train Yakami Shinsei-Ryu with great curiosity and joy in both training and learning new curriculum.

Yakami Shinsei-Ryu is what creates our shared enthusiasm, characterized by mutual big smiles and high spirits. That's the cool thing about Shindenkan and what repeats itself in all local schools.

In Shindenkan, like everyone else, we have lived with the Corona crisis for 18 months and the Corona crisis has now gone from catastrophic shutdown to normalcy, with local and national restrictions, as needed.

But finally we got to Saturday 6 November and thus ready for the national rollout of SKK - Stretch Ki Kata by Yamana-Itotani Sensei - so now it happened and I was personally very much looking forward to the day because it would mean a training lift for everyone in Shindenkan. But especially also that we could subsequently train it locally for everyone who has participated 🙂

The rollout was delayed

When the Corona pandemic hit the whole world, of course it also put the entire Shindenkan organization to a great test and at the same time it put an effective stop to the rollout of the new Kata in the Shindenkan curriculum - namely by SKK - Stretch Ki Kata.

It is the case that KataFIT NOX and SKK were introduced for the first time on February 29, 2020, after which it was to be rolled out and introduced from a national level to all local schools, but only 12 days after the introduction was completed, Denmark and the whole world shut down!

It's no secret that it has been impossible for us to stick to the plan and the facts are that SKK has been dormant ever since - it's almost 22 months or just under 2 years ago! These were the conditions we had to work under at that time.

But when Denmark then closed up a bit in May 2020, we planned another attempt in October/November 2020. Here the main focus was on correct KataFIT, and on the parts of SKK that should prepare us all for the correct version, which was planned to was to be rolled out over the following 3 – 4 months.

But alas, we just managed to hold a fantastic Xmas box event on 6 December 2020, after which the Corona pandemic once again closed Denmark and again put an effective stop to the rollout of Shindenkan's new Kata.

The motivation for rolling out SKK on Saturday 6 November was that, over a longer period of time, we have had a much more stable situation than last year, when 75+% of the Danish population has been vaccinated, and vaccinations are offered to the group from 5 to 11 years. Our local municipalities have become much better at handling the situation, which all in all means fewer local shutdowns, and the chance of shutdowns before the municipal elections is very small.

Rollout of SKK – Stretch Ki Kata – All good times 3.

Yamana-Itotani Sensei was ready on November 6th with a freshly optimized version of SKK – Stretch Ki Kata, a tool designed to support the Shindenkan Curriculum, and a rollout precisely to support the life-affirming season we are in together get going, both locally and nationally.

The good thing about the delay was that in the Corona era, SKK has been strongly optimized and improved by Yamana-Itotani Sensei and it is now included on an equal footing with KataFIT in Yakami Shinsei-Ryu's unique toolbox and this could be felt with several new sets or sections 🙂

Shindenkan's rollout plan for SKK is a five-stage rocket:

Step 1.
Preparation of a future Honbu instructor at KataFIT & SKK is underway, who can thereby assist Yamana-Itotani Sensei on the course on Saturday 6 November and increase his understanding and level of competence through support for beginners.

Step 2.
Yamana-Itotani Sensei holds course SKK and KataFIT 1 on 6.11.2021 – short lessons in KataFIT S and KataFIT NOX, then most of the time is spent practicing The SKK movements like a Kata.

Step 3.
Chief instructors and Black Belt teams are trained in SKK Kata, with greater and greater content. So they can teach and pass this on to all students locally and raise both standards and understanding.

Step 4.
There will be OBC 4 on Saturday, January 8, 2022; KataFIT & SKK where Yamana-Itotani Sensei corrects and raises the standard of competence and answers questions. When OBC 4 is completed on 8 January 2022, SKK will then be officially rolled out over 2 months.

Step 5.
After the official rollout, each local or national lesson must be completed first with SKK and then KataFIT. We are very much looking forward to this in the instructor team - it will be great 🙂 !

We were absolutely not disappointed - it was a super good day with a positive atmosphere and really exciting good learning from Yamana-Itotani Sensei, with lots of cool details at a very high level.

So now we are training it locally and it is actually also super important in relation to the higher graduations at the end of this season. Because it must also be emphasized that SKK has, as previously announced, been on the curriculum in Yakami Shinsei-Ryu since March 2020 and it must be shown to the upcoming higher graduations so that we can all pass full belts 🙂

In Shindenkan we have stood strong together - all the time, so let's train SKK together and get the most out of all the cool details both nationally and locally so that together we make Shindenkan the coolest meeting place for good values, togetherness and a fantastic training joy that is contagious off to all of us, new and old members, well into 2022 🙂