Swedish Shorinji Kempo Spring Gasshuku 2017, Day 2

On the second morning of the Swedish Spring Gasshuku, we could already feel the pain of Saturday...

 Except some supermen that never feel any pain, right...?

 Spefically in the 3rd dan and above group, the pain was quite clearly the theme of the day.

 Alex sensei thought us on how to do Juho by going side and back direction.

 Together with Alex sensei from Russia, they make quite a painful team of teachers;)

Before lunch, Kenneth sensei organised us into a beautiful group photo... Yeah, none of that sloppy less symmetrical chaotic picture shit - a professional knows his job well.

And so does our Howa teacher Alex, who, instead of trademarks, decided to talk about how to train our minds on how to act in difficult or surprising situations. This is called Happomoku, being aware of what goes around us at all times.
As expected, this Howa was super interesting and no one was sleeping, even though it was straight after lunch.

 We the Northern Europeans are very lucky to have Alex sensei giving us his teaching.

 After the theory, it was time for more practise.

 This time it was about strangling each other.
You have literarily got three minutes before you pass out, so better do something fast.

So much pleasure in this practice as you can see:) Happy kenshis.

 I learned finally the difference of Kubijime and Kenjime attacks.

 Actually the sessions overall were so interesting that we could not stop training even on the gaps...
We were also thought by Gothenbourg - Visby teaching couple Arneau and Stefan on ashinuki. Famous last words: "This technique does not hurt at all"... Yeah right, you were not doing it with Uncle Timo... As Kirsi discovered...

In the afternoon, we also had 'polish your embu' session, which was super useful for me and Kirsi. We learned to put our sequences into more smaller bits with clear movement - non movement differences, in order to create the feeling of speed. I think our embu will certainly be a lot better after this weekend. Thank you so much for the special attention A&A!

 Åke and Stefan senseis also showed their mekubari, so the intensive connection to the other person's eyes during embu...

 Connecting even when one is in the ground. It is vitally important to keep the eye contact at all times.

 At the end of the day, we trained so long that it was 1700, before we knew it and since the clocks were late in the hall, the volley ball players threw us out of the hall... It was a big anticlimax, as we didn't really get to say goodbye to all the people we wanted to and therefore the gasshuku hangover was even worse on Sunday night... Can you see that this is a bunch of people with veeery low bloodsugar levels...?

 But okay, we survived and our Finnish German SK family went for a lovely breakfast and lunch still on Monday morning before taking planes and boats home. Once again, a very action packed weekend with my favourite martial art - Thank you guys for company and see you in California!