Graduation article Summer 2025
By Magnus Wulff Breinstrup, 19 years old, 3.kyu, Yakami Shinsei-ryu Taijutsu & Karate-do (the multi-track martial arts system), 2.kyu, Bujutsu Kodosokukai Jikitai Karate-do (Originally gl. Original Okinawa Karate-do), 2.kyu, Bujutsu Kodosokukai sports karate-do (Gensei-ryu legacy from 1965 and comparable degree to Shotokan, Goju-ryu, Taekwondo, Judo, Jujutsu, Kendo, etc.)
This year I have begun a development, a journey that will last the rest of my life.
In the last few years, Kimu-sensei has started teaching something he hasn't taught in a very long time, and it has been an opportunity for enormous development if you are willing to embrace it.
I had already decided 3 years ago that I would not graduate last year, when I was in my third year of high school, and that is what I wanted to focus on. In return, I wanted to take a sabbatical this year, where all my focus would be on YSTK. And I have followed that plan. Last year I still attended the brown belt training and OBC (Mandatory Multi-Track Competency Maintenance Annual Certification), but you could also see that I was not up to graduation. And that meant that my starting point this year was very poor physically, even if technically I had an okay start.
I started the season weighing around 93 kg, with a fitness score of around 34 and I didn't have the strength to complete a KataFIT 5S. To put it mildly, it was a very poor starting point, especially if my goal was to go beyond the minimum requirements. Just to pass I had to reach a fitness score of 57 and take a proper KataFIT 8S, but my personal goals were to reach a fitness score of at least 60 and take a KataFIT 10S. And I would prefer to be able to do that with a recommended safety margin, so I would like to strive for a fitness score of 62, as well as be able to complete a KataFIT 12S. Even here my goals sounded very ambitious, and those are just the physical goals. Of course, there are also requirements for the curriculum, theory and with a little luck, an opportunity to try Shiai, the Shindenkan's freestyle concept. So to achieve that goal I would have to pull myself together and go to training with the right attitude.
First of all, I had to lose weight. I was severely overweight (BMI over 30), and in terms of my fitness level, my weight had a big impact, so it would be the easiest way to improve my terrible fitness level. But even at that point, I didn't have the right attitude at the start of the season. When we got to November, I still weighed 92 kg. And I didn't have a great attitude when it came to technical or physical training. I probably still hadn't fully recovered from becoming a student before the summer holidays, so even though I had big goals, my real effort was relatively small. I also didn't have any structure in my everyday life, as I had finished school and hadn't yet found a job. I also didn't really spend time on any hobbies other than karate, which I also only spent time on during training, and I didn't talk to my friends very often. In all aspects of my life, I was pretty much at the bottom. And I had to do something about that.
When we got to the end of November, I started to feel the pressure. On all fronts. I still hadn't found a job, and YSTK isn't cheap at my skill level, so I could feel that I needed to earn an income. Despite that, I hadn't started spending more time with my friends or hobbies, so the days just passed without any meaning to me. And if I didn't start to pull myself together properly for YSTK, there would also come a time when I could no longer reach my goal. Fortunately, there was OBC training at the beginning of November, and the prospect of that helped a little with motivation. The pressure was also useful for starting to pull myself together on the weight loss front, which can be seen by the fact that November was when I started to lose weight. About 2-3 kg a month until graduation. The end of the POMW course (Project Old Modern Warrior) had also set some thoughts in motion that finally started to take hold around the end of October. And those thoughts were probably what set my real development in motion. Because these weren't thoughts that just came to me, they had been building up since the start of the POMW Competency Course in January 2024, and had roots back to my early childhood. Among other things, they were thoughts about who I really am, and these are thoughts I must hold on to all the way to Menkyo.
With the development set in motion, I also started to pull myself together on all fronts. I stopped being picky in my job search and just applied for all the jobs I could find. And I started to spend some time on the hobbies I hadn't touched in a long time, as they were things I liked to do. I ended up getting a job as a newspaper delivery man, and although it wasn't exactly the job I had hoped for, especially since it wasn't very many hours a week, I started to get some structure in my everyday life. Together with the support structure from nurse Jens Hanshi-dai, I started to get my life back in order, and I really needed that.
Towards the end of the year I got my life back together, and at the beginning of the new year I started going from training KataFIT 5S to KataFIT 8S. I also got a more regular job with working hours every day, so now there really started to be some structure in my everyday life.
But what really got me going was OBC C and D. It was a very special experience for me. I can't say exactly what it was, but somehow it felt like I had had a revelation. It affected me to such an extent that when I left I could see that my vision had become clearer and the world looked more colorful. It was an amazing feeling, and if that's how it would feel all the time when I sincerely trained my YSTK, then there was absolutely no reason not to do it.
After that, I really started to want to give what I had to my YSTK. And over the winter I found a new group of friends through one of my hobbies, so it wasn't just in my Shindenkan life that things were progressing. But at that time, all my focus was on YSTK, so I didn't spend as much time on my friends or other hobbies, and at the beginning of spring I started to feel it.
So after thinking about it, and a conversation with Kimu Sensei, I started filling my calendar with things that made me happy. I don't think I've ever had so much to do in my life, but I also don't think I've ever had a more fulfilling life before. Unlike the fall when my days just passed by, without any meaning, I now had something to look forward to and look forward to all the time. And that also gave me the energy to really give everything I had to my YSTK. Because now was the time to show what I could do.
During the year, Kimu Sensei had talked about how someone usually jumped a grade every seven years, and that it had been more than seven years since the last time that had happened. At the same time, Kimu Sensei had started teaching things he hadn't taught since 2000/2009, and the level had also increased accordingly. So with all these prerequisites, and with the development I could feel myself having had, I set myself a goal.
Why pass with minimum requirements when you can do your best and have the chance to skip a grade. So now that we were approaching the graduation window I really had to show what I could do, and I knew I would get the chance to do that. So I did what I could in the stop tests we were up to, including Shiai, where I really got a feel for what I was really capable of.
It all culminated in the summer meet, where I had to teach and prepare for the stamina test. Even though the graduation had been going on for over a month, this was the icing on the cake, the final sprint. For me, the summer meet was not in the best conditions. I still had injuries from Shiai, and I had also gotten a little sick, but now that I had come this far, it really didn't matter. Despite the fact that I had already tried Shiai, and I knew I was good enough, the summer meet was the first time in my life that I was really nervous.
It probably also reflects the development I've had this year, as the nervousness comes from the fact that for the first time in my life I've really worked for something that actually means something to me. But I've never been afraid of teaching, so even though it could have gone better, I did it as best I could.
The real nervousness was during the stamina test. Did I really have the will to give myself 100%? But when we got into the stamina test and the audience was standing there watching us, Kimu Sensei introduced us. “The Great Magnus”. A title he has called me before. But when I stood here at the summer convention and he talked about what I had accomplished during the year, I finally felt worthy of that title. And with an introduction like that, I couldn’t give up on the stamina test. So when I got halfway through the first round and it felt like my arms were about to fall off, I just accepted it. “If my arms fall off here, they will fall off”. I couldn’t think of a better place for it to happen. And even though my legs felt heavy even before we started the second round, that was fine too. At that point I had already made up my mind. Now that I’m going, I can’t stop again. Whatever happens, I just have to keep going. Not just in my fight against the pillow, but in my fight against myself, my development. The journey I had begun. If I had to continue until I passed out, I knew that someone would help me up again, so here I just had to give it everything I had.
And that's how I passed my graduation. Not only did I pass my next belt, 3rd kyu Yakami Shinsei-ryu Taijutsu and Karate-do, I had done so well that I was compensated for the next OBC mark. And then I achieved my second goal, I got another Ho grade. This means that by the X-mas competition 2025 I will be up to 2nd kyu YSTK. So even though the summer competition was the end of my graduation to 3rd kyu, it was also the beginning of my graduation to 2nd kyu.
Just like this season has been the beginning of my development, my journey for life.
