After a very long and dark winter, the sun and spring are slowly finding their place again. The amount of daylight in the month of January has been at the lowest level in the last 45 years. February has not been much better, but now we have March and it is time again for a fantastic spring meeting in the year 2014.
There were 225 participants registered for this event and with the amount of spectators, we once again come up to between 450-500 coming through Shindenkan's spring event 2014. This is actually quite nice for a spring event. But isn't that also because the sun looked out and you could actually smell spring just around the corner? And I wonder if everyone was ready for a party?
Like everything else in Shindenkan, there is nothing that cannot be developed. The new instructor concept was therefore a development of the instructor resources that currently are active in Shindenkan. Kimu Sensei explained that the concept is about learning from the past - preparing for the future and living in the present.
In other words, this means that a dynamic organization like Shindenkan can only be dynamic if all parts of the organization are dynamic. So it was now time for instructor development during the competitions. That has actually been the case all along for the Chief Instructors, but now it was also time for the next in line to get dressed, with more than the local instructor tools. Although the new resources are experienced local instructors, it is something else when you have to teach 40-80 people who you may not know and in an inferno of noise from the various TG groups training around the hall. It may sound like a tough task and it is, too, if you don't step into character and show who you are as a director.
The concept was a success both for the instructors who got a lot of new tools and found out a lot about themselves. But to a large extent also for the participants, who had the pleasure of being taught in small groups with their own instructors.
In Shindenkan, we have quite a large proportion of teenagers, who all have different life cycles, growing pains and mood swings. Such is life as a teenager and it is something that we at Shindenkan take quite seriously and it is something that we would like to make into a positive experience. Therefore, Kimu Sensei could also present the new JokoTeens concept. Part of this concept is the training of JokoTeens during the competitions.
All JokoTeens from 12 – 14 years old had been divided into grades and TG groups. This was done to get a concrete estimate of how many JokoTeens there were in each TG group. A large part of the new JokoTeen's concept is about development at the pace that suits the individual JokoTeen. During the event, the development was to face its first test, as all the registered JokoTeens were allowed to train at a level higher than they used to. That is they moved up a team. And what a success it was.
All the JokoTeens who got the chance grabbed it and they held on to it the whole time. Focus and concentration were displayed to such an extent that one would think it was a matter of life or death. It is rarely seen that so many teenagers can work so hard and then smile all over their heads. A fantastic sight and an absolutely fantastic experience for all JokoTeens who were all subsequently ecstatic about this event. In the eyes of many, the best ever 🙂
