By Martin E. Hansen, Member until 2018
The autumn has now offered two KataFit1 courses, the last of which with almost 70 participants marked the success of the Shindenkan with the KataFit course and not least the ShieldKiss project, which KataFit is a result of. The KataFit course, like all other Shindenkan courses, was developed by Kimu Sensei. The two most recent courses were held with the KataFit team consisting of Honbu instructor Martin Renshi and Ass. Honbu instructors Elisabet Shishu and Karsten Shishu flanked by competition doctor Christian Shisho. The Katafit course also marks the foundation and importance of Yakami Shinsei-ryu by being the first mandatory course that all participants must go through in order to be graduated in Yakami Shinsei-ryu.
The course began with the KataFit team welcoming all the participants, where approx. 2/3 were jokokidz. They were all "placed" on mattresses and benches in front of the end wall in the gymnasium at Tjørnely School, which with its white background acted as a canvas for the next 40 minutes of presentation. The purpose of the presentation was primarily to talk about the Shieldkiss project and its first noticeable result – KataFit, which was also the goal for today's participants. KataFit is similar to other courses in Shindenkan built up of a theoretical and a practical part - ruygi and ryuha. The presentation also aimed to introduce the new ShieldKiss website: www.shieldkiss.com, which tells about what Shieldkiss is, but also the results and recommendations, all of which are based on the principle KISS, Keep It Simple and Safe. KataFit and the background are described in a separate section on the page. Along the way, the presentation was peppered with everyday experiences before, during and after the introduction of KataFit, i.a. injuries that have been healed, competitions in a festive atmosphere, but also clinical results presented by department doctor at Rigshospitalet, Rheumatologist and sports doctor, Christian. An important message in the presentation was that KataFit should not be taken too lightly, as it is built without redundant movements. The learning from the pilot project was precisely that the first people who had to take a stop test in KataFit during their graduations had not trained as shown, but added their own knowledge from the gym, magazines and books, i.e. according to own conviction. In other words, this means that the rollout of KataFit in the local schools had not been sufficient and had not taken sufficient account of the human attitude and desire for change, and therefore it was necessary to have a KataFit course that provides the correct form and learning of KataFit from the start in Shindenkan and thus characterizes the setting early.
For jokokidz, the boring part was now over 🙂 and the time had come for the practical part of the KataFit course. The KataFit team divided the participants into groups of jokokidz, jokoteens/adults, where they were also asked to find a partner to use for the rest of the day. The idea of a mate/partner is that you should be able to correct and check each other along the way and thus get the most out of the course, but also get used to looking at others and their performance. It is also often the case that you yourself make the same mistakes that others might make - in other words, you can learn something about yourself by observing others.
First, the participants were instructed in the introductory part of KataFit, which is also called MBBH - Mobility Balance Body Healing, but also something else that is very important in KataFit - breathing. Correct breathing – kokyo-ho, as it is called in Japanese, is the prerequisite for being able to perform KataFit correctly, which, by the way, applies to much more than KataFit and Yakami Shinsei-ryu. The breath also tells about the rhythm in katafit and thus also the duration, regardless of how many repetitions you do. This is also why there is a specific time frame for the stop test within which KataFit must be performed, otherwise it has not been performed correctly.
Once the participants had mastered the basics, they worked their way through the superior version; BackFit, FrontFit, CoreFit and lower CrossHIT under the guidance and demonstration of the KatFit team, who made a great deal of all the details, as well as which muscles were affected by the various exercises and of course the important breathing. Along the way, advice was also given on how to train yourself to perform kataFit if you, for example, lack strength in your arms. It was also emphasized that it is not a sleeping pad, and as soon as you have enough strength, you must perform it correctly to get the full benefit of KataFit.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for the trust in the task and say my heartfelt thanks for this. It was a big mouthful and I did my best. It was the first time I trained 70+ course participants at once, where the normal is 20-30. But as Kimu Sensei also says, everything in Shindenkan is an education and a test, as otherwise we do not develop. The next KataFIT instructor team will next be led by Jens Hanshi-dai. Enjoy!
On the new ShieldKiss website (www.shieldkiss.com) and here on www.jokokan.com can over time read more about the participants' experiences with the katafit course. In the future, much more material will be published as a result of the Shieldkiss project and the SHIELDKISS project's project group with the project manager, Kimu Sensei as the octopus and leader. The project manager is responsible to a steering group, consisting of SOPORG, which is democratically elected for this, as decided by the association's general meeting.
