By Brian Jessen, Member until 2011

Mirror, mirror on the wall there, who is…. Here we were 5 mature men with an average age of approx. 42 years old, and looked ourselves deep in the eyes into the mirror and said to ourselves "mirror, mirror on the wall there, who is....".

The Chief Instructor training camp 2009 had started. As always, you were a little nervous and had butterflies in your stomach. This time we were told to find a mirror each, look ourselves deep in the eyes and start talking to ourselves out loud so everyone could hear what was being said.

We should scold ourselves, belittle ourselves, praise ourselves. It was said, "your family is on one of the planes on September 11 and you know they are going to die. What will you say to them?” You were asked the same about your friends.

Later it was said: "You are called by your family, who survived September 11. What do you want to say to them?”. You were asked the same about your friends.

We went through all the emotions; mad, happy, sad, joy, hate and love. It was very border crossing, having to show one's innermost feelings out loud to others. We know each other through thick and thin, but we had never shown our innermost feelings to each other before. We did that at the instructor training camp 2009.

The fantastic thing about the exercises was that you felt a total ease afterwards. The worries you had when you arrived, the nervousness you had when you arrived, were gone. You had become mentally relieved and felt a clarity that you had not experienced before. One had become focused.

But you had also become physically tired. We had done nothing but stand in front of the mirror and talk, shout at ourselves, but because we had been through all our feelings, it had drained us of energy. We each felt differently, but personally I felt as if I had been through a physical test. I could feel every muscle in my body. An absolutely fantastic feeling.

The focus we got during the mental exercises, we then had to transfer to kumite. This time we weren't supposed to have kumite against each other, but Kimu Sensei went around to each one and thrusted tsuki. Although we thought it was going fast, we were told that it was only 95.1% of our skill that he hit with, so we should easily be able to parry it. It was easier said than done. It turned out that the focus we had gained in the first part of the camp was very difficult to maintain in the second part, which Kimu Sensei could not understand, as it was one and the same. After all, we were the same person during both exercises, so why would it be difficult to stay focused? Why should it be difficult to be yourself? You are who you are, so admit it.

For many of us, it was the first time we had that type of camp. It was a fantastic camp where we got a tool to make our technical skills work together with our mental skills. A camp where we got the first tool to be able to improve ourselves mentally and thus also technically. The first step to start getting to know yourself better, or in other words, start accepting who you are.

Mirror, mirror on the wall there, who am I? ………………….I am myself.