By Jokokan Honbu
36 years ago, a young Japanese set foot on Danish soil for the first time. This led to the introduction and establishment of Gensei-ryu Karate-do in Denmark at the request of Gensei-ryu karate-do (1953) founder, Seiken Shukumine Sensei. Seiken Shukumine later founded another new style of Taido, which was trained to a lesser extent in the Danish Gensei-ryu Karate-do schools.
The young Japanese was called Yukio Noro, later Yukio Tonegawa Sensei. He also replaced the pure and well-established Gensei-ryu karate-do in favor of his own family's system, which he inherited from his grandfather. But retained the faithful and successful Gensei-ryu organization in Denmark.
This led to the establishment of the Jokokan organization officially in 1992. However, Jokokan had an official beginning around 1988 with four senior members with between 15-35 years of budo experience; Dollarbrand (South Africa & USA), the Nishiwake brothers (Japan) and Kimu Yamana Bjarkmann (Denmark & Europe). All four members had organizations behind them, but these did not yet fully train Yakami-ryu Taijutsu. This transition did not fully occur until around 1992.
As you know, Tonegawa Sensei lived in Denmark from 1967-1974, after which he came to Denmark every one to two years at the invitation of his Danish Gensei-ryu karate-do organization, which at one time housed 11 schools. The last Gensei-ryu training camp took place in 1988, after which the first pure Yakami-ryu Taijutsu training camp took place in October, 1992 at Tårnby Gymnasium.
Since then, Jokokan has held Soke Sensei Tonegawa training camps in 1994, 1996, 2000 and now again in 2003. In 1998, eight Jokokan Denmark instructors were at a training camp at the Japanese Jokokan organization under Soke Sensei Tonegawa. In addition, since 1989 Jokokan Europe's Chief Instructor, Kimu Yamana Bjarkmann, has attended another 30 training camps of 2-3 weeks duration in Japan and 5 in Denmark, directly under Soke Sensei Tonegegawa.
Jokokan's "Soke Sensei Tonegawa camp 2003" was significantly different from the previous ones, as this training camp completely supported the change process that the Danish and European organization has gone through in the last 2 years.
Transformation from an extremely elite smaller organization to a larger and rapidly growing organization where there is "room for everyone - elite as exercisers - children and the elderly - thick as thin, and preferably far more girls".
Therefore, students other than brown and black belts also participated for the first time. There was also both a Jokokidz team, open day and an adult team with grades from 9.kyu to 5.kyu. The SST-03 training camp was purposefully planned for this, so that everyone could get a good successful experience and self-affirmation out of it. The level was therefore set at 3.kyu to 3.dan depending on the team.
The preparation camps for Instructors and the new special camp for 8-5.kyu fortunately turned out to have been a very successful prelude and preparation for a relaxed, cheerful and inspiring SST-03 training camp.
The inspiring training for the 45 registered participants, moved from Yakami Hsingi basis over Jujutsu and Aiki, to Yari (spear), Ken- (sword) and Iaijutsu (quick draw with sword), along with a lot of anecdotes, demonstrations of the diverse possibilities in the techniques and a building of faith that the participants could do much more than they gave themselves credit for - if they allowed themselves to..
The SST-03 training camp ended at Restaurant Tokyo, where Soke Sensei Tonegawa was the guest of honor. Jokokan had of course also invited his old friend, Peter Hedegaard Shihan, 6th dan Kita-Matsu-ryu Bugei Kwai, and the Chief Instructor of Soke Sensei's old Danish Gensei-ryu organization, Jess Petersen, 6th dan Gensei-ryu Karate-do with. At the restaurant, Soke Sensei proved that where there's a will there's a way by knocking over a Japanese wooden chopstick with a piece of paper.
After dinner, Jokokan had arranged an agreement with the cyclist and Team Telecom's sports director, Brian Holm at his new Cafe "Kong Pedersen" in Fredriksberg. Jokokan had received special prices for the wet goods - which was used on a large scale. Soke Sensei's Shihan-dai in Jokokan Tokyo (Itabashi), Shintaro Matsuda, 3rd dan, got the best conditions to learn all the wonderful Danish beer games - almost without cheating. The Jokokan party ended for many around 05:00, when the lights were turned off at the dance venue "Kellerdirk".
Sunday offered "Shintaro-san - special sight-seeing tour", where Amalienborg Castle, the Little Mermaid, the Castle, Rosenborg Castle and the Crown Jewels were visited during a good and relaxed walk through the always beautiful and charming Copenhagen, ending with a lunch in the old amusement park Tivoli, with a good portion of freshly peeled fjord prawns.
The farewell at Kastrup airport cemented – where many Jokokaners had turned up to say THANK YOU for a good and inspiring training camp, that Jokokan Denmark, a member of Jokokan Europe, that this camp officially marked the end of the hard culture change phase, and the gateway to the consolidation phase, where Jokokan NOW IS a federation geared for the future.
