by Søren Nielsen, member until 2022
The view from the bed is incredible. I can almost see all the way out to Øresund. The room I'm in is painted in yellow and orange. As darkness falls, I can see the same colors emerging on the horizon. It is St. Hans Eve 2007 and I am on the 19th floor of Herlev Hospital. My outer tibia is broken, or to use the doctor's words, well and truly crushed.
After 24 years of martial arts training, I get my first serious injury. An injury that somehow gets some thoughts going that I haven't been able to think about before. As in the previous training camps, we started on Friday evening and were not scheduled to end until Saturday night. As far as I was concerned, it all ended on Saturday morning.
Lying there in bed, maybe I should be worried about my future. Maybe I should be sad. But I'm not. I am convinced that I will come back and I am convinced that I will come back in a stronger version.
In fact, there is nothing at that point that can knock me out. I feel mentally on top and when I get discharged I feel like it's all just a natural part of martial arts. A broken bone every now and then can't hurt.
6 months later I start thinking different thoughts.
When we start training again after the summer holidays, I feel tired. Ok, the summer of 2007 also mostly consisted of sitting down and looking out into the rain. So I am perhaps most tired of being tired. It's really nice to start a new season.
At the same time I start and in a new job function at my work. Which means that I am exposed to a lot of influences that should knock me off course, but instead lie like a heavy blanket over me and somehow keep me on the track I'm on. out of.
The whole autumn is characterized by hard work and lots of training. Parts of my family ask me several times if it is not time to stop my training. Whether it's worth it. Unless I have learned enough. If not I should prioritize differently and become just like many other fathers of families. Forty, fat and done.
Forty - Yes, I turned forty in September. Fat - Hmm, a few kilos could be lost. Done - never ever.
3 months later I start thinking different thoughts.
2008 begins with the honorable event that we in Jokokan Denmark get an independent division name and at the same time the distinction between the martial arts part and the martial arts part in Jokokan Denmark is clarified, with the names Shindenkan for the martial arts part and Kaidenkan for the martial arts part.
All the instructors are asked which part they would most like to be in. And almost all answer without hesitation Kaidenkan. It is the martial art that drives. But there is something that needs to be done first. A graduation for this summer's I-camp must be completed before we can train in Kaidenkan. That is another period of pressure on.
At that time I still felt on top. The heavy duvet that has been lying over me at the end of the year is gone. I have a feeling of having stepped out of a shell that has kept me locked up. It's a fantastic feeling. Now I have to look forward to my 4 Dan and my membership of Kaidenkan. At spring camp 2008, it becomes official. 6 black belts will be set for graduation. Then I'm on my way in the direction I want.
But all of a sudden everything changes.
I'm starting to wonder if it's all worth it and if I need another graduation or for that matter Yakami-ryu. For the first time in my life, I begin to doubt what I really want.
All the wishes and dreams I have expressed so far, I now have to fulfill. It is only myself who can create the results: And maybe that is what I am really becoming aware of.
I cannot give others the responsibility to fulfill my own dreams and goals. There are others who can show me the way, but it is I myself who must take the steps. And this time I have to really mean it if I want it. In all the years I have taught, I have told my students many times that if they want to be good martial artists, they have to do the hard work themselves. I can only show them what it is, I can't do it for them. Now my own words suddenly really dawn on me. There is only myself to do the hard work, no one can or will do it for me.
After 25 years of training, I have had the opportunity to be taught real martial arts by a real martial art grandmaster. And all I have to do is do my very best all the time and believe that I can. I have to be myself and no one else.
In a way, it's liberating to know how simple things can be. But at the same time, it is one of the biggest challenges you can face. To be yourself and believe in yourself in all situations. How can you do it if you don't know who you are and if you have doubts about what you can do?
An instructor graduation in Shindenkan is not something you just get through in one morning. It is a long process, which outsiders may have difficulty understanding the meaning of. But for those of us who have been through it, it is a learning process on the way to knowing ourselves.
The graduation we have just been through has, for me, been one of the hardest, but also one of the most instructive.
Since November 2007, I have been doing physical training with the sole purpose of passing the physical test part of the graduation. The purpose of the physical test part is to see if the graduate is in shape to cope with the graduation itself. I had to go through 3 physical tests in a little over a week before I passed that part. It was like my mind was split in two. One part said now that's enough and the other part said continue, you can and you want to.
In all the years I have trained Yakami Shinsei-ryu, one thing has remained constant and that is that you can do much more than you think you can and even more than your mother thinks you can. I-camp 2008 stands for me as a strong example of this being correct.
Friday was called "Hell Friday". Despite the fact that Friday's physical trials gave me a blue tongue and a bit of nosebleed due to fatigue, I could feel all the way through that I should probably make it. It was as if I had settled on what was going to happen and what I wanted. There was no longer any doubt inside. The part of the brain that had said continue during the physical test had taken over. I had accepted that Yakami-ryu was a part of me and that I wanted to be a part of it.
Saturday's training lesson is one of the best lessons ever at an I-camp. A learning process in "comfort zones" and kumite principles.
Which resulted in a role-play with a maiden and some black and white knights who had to look after the maiden. Maybe not exactly what most people would consider instructor training, but if you know a little about the instructor staff, then it's a quite natural training method☺.
When I sit here now, a few days after the I-camp, and write this article, it is my hope that those who read it understand that sometimes something happens inside oneself, which can initially have a negative influence but which in the end may be necessary to turn into something positive. What I experienced can perhaps best be expressed as what happens when a butterfly is hatched from a chrysalis.
After a successful graduation, I have now been given the opportunity to learn martial arts from a true martial art grandmaster, which I am very much looking forward to. In the training lessons leading up to the camp, we have had a little taste of what awaits us in the new season. And it is of great importance to me to have the opportunity for this teaching. In addition to having been given the chance to learn real martial arts, the opportunity to pass on my own experience has become greater, by virtue of the fact that I have also become an assistant instructor at Honbu-dojo. Which I am also very much looking forward to.
So even though I now feel a bit like a butterfly that has just come out of its chrysalis, it is only now that the pattern on my wings has to be created. And it will be exciting to see what they will look like.
