Report: Seminar - Aug 2011

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Created on Wednesday, 31 August 2011 08:48

Report copied from the World Shorinji Kempo Organisation website 

Shorinji Kempo UK One Day Training Seminar
Sunday 21st August 2011 

After 3 months (or is it more?) of not training I find myself in a dogi again on one of the rare sunny Sunday mornings in August 2011. 

Maehara sensei Goho You don't have to be big to have powerful technique.

Not only that I'm late.... 

Walking swiftly into the hall putting my bag down I rei towards the shomen at the far end. Fortunately it seems training hasn't started yet and the hall is populated by groups of kenshi making up their own warm up routines, or simply catching up with mates. 

Sensei Steve Williams appears and gives me a friendly "Jonny why are you late!" punch in the stomach to which I mumble something about babies and things and "sorry Sensei". He does however seem genuinely pleased to see me and I feel at home straight away. He indicates that he wants me to do something and after taking a few seconds for my Sunday morning, sleep deprived brain to work out what it is I run to the front right corner of the hall hold my arms up and shout "Shugo!" Kenshi run from all corners of the room to line up and we are nearly ready to start. After 3 months of zero Shorinji Kempo training I am itching to go. 

Steve Williams sensei Kihon.

First, Sensei Williams lines up with the instructors at the front and introduces them to us, Sensei Maehara 7th Dan, Sensei Blaise Howard 5th Dan and Sensei Chris Lloyd 4th Dan. He then explains that today is going to be a lot of fun and that this morning is going to be very physical. Having trained with him a lot before (he is my branch master) I know what that means, however having not trained for 3 months I seem to have forgotten that that means it's going to be physically exhausting and I remain naively excited. 

But before the physical activity begins we start the day with Chinkon. 

Michelle Williams kenshi taking the warm up.

The warm up is led by Michelle Williams 3rd Dan who is a professional fitness instructor and extremely good at well-rounded warm ups. Annoyingly I've got a gym related shoulder strain but after Michelle's warm up it feels much better which is a good start. 

Then it's into Kihon lead by Sensei Steve Williams. When he had said that the morning was going to be physical he wasn't joking. For 35 minutes we are pushed to our limits on basic single form, culminating in kicks in 8 directions on each count without putting our foot down. At one point I started to see a few stars and genuinely thought that I might actually pass out. I'll put that down to the long break from training and move on. Then we get a welcome break to take some water, we have already sweated buckets. 

Maehara sensei showing Juho.

Next we split into two groups one of yudansha and the other of kyu kenshi. The yudansha group was taken by Sensei Williams who focused on the concept of performing juho techniques by taking an opponent's balance and not using any, or at least very little pain. As is always the case with seminars it was really beneficial to be able to experiment with different concepts with the help of different training partners with different wrists. There's nothing like finding someone who you can't get anything to work on, asking for help from the Sensei and finding a new way of approaching a technique. 

Steve Williams sensei Randori principles with Jonny Daymond kenshi (report author)

After a relaxed lunch Sensei Williams took the majority of the kenshi whilst those who were grading went to the other end of the hall to be judged by Maehara Sensei. 

In this session we split into pairs of similar grade and build to work on creating an Embu. Initially Sensei called for four techniques from the crowd which we then all had to put together as the first two sequences of our embu. We then split into our pairs and created a third set of two techniques on our own. Sensei then asked us to swap our third set of techniques with the pair next to us so that our third set became their fourth set. We repeated this process one more time so that our fifth set became their sixth set and vise versa and before we realised exactly what was happening we all had twelve techniques to run through as a complete embu, or at least that was the theory! Good practice though to have to string techniques together, not quite at random but certainly random enough for a Sunday. 

Blaise Howard sensei in a relaxed moment.

Unfortunately the inevitable display of these rapidly prepared embu followed. Generally the standard was good considering the length of time we had to prepare (many of us pairing with someone from a different branch to our own). My embu partner and I put on a very brave show I think, particularly as between us we managed to forget one sequence almost entirely, resulting in a complicated system of nods, subtle hand gestures and grunts as we tried to hint to each other what was coming next. We got a good response from the crowd though so I'm thinking A for effort, A+ for comedy value but perhaps not a particularly high technical score! 

We were given a much needed drink break and as the grading was still going on we reconvened with Sensei Williams for a session focusing on Randori practice. Building up slowly from one single jodan punch we ended up defending against a five technique combination of attacks. Knowing what is coming is extremely useful as it allows more experimentation and is less stressful giving more opportunity to improve than completely free Randori. Personally I love Randori and I think it is an essential part of training but I know a lot of people dread it and therefore stiffen up and find it difficult. As far as I'm aware nobody was hurt, everyone enjoyed it and I would think that everyone's confidence may have increased a little bit through this style of practice. 

Steve Williams sensei showing 'fun' randori.

The final session of the day was a question and answer session with a rotation of Sensei Williams and Sensei Maehara between the yudansha and the kyu kenshi groups. This was very useful and an opportunity for me to try some new techniques that were requested by the group and to ask some questions of Mahara Sensei who I don't have an opportunity to train with very often. 

We finished with a nice relaxing Seiho session focusing on the legs which I think worked quite well as walking the next day wasn't actually too bad (except stairs). 

Group Seiho.

All in all I was very glad that I had managed to make the seminar and it has once again inspired me to get back into training regularly as soon as my current personal circumstances will allow. I think the benefit of training with different people outside your normal dojo is huge and I would urge everyone to take any opportunity they can to attend as many seminars and events as possible both around the UK and overseas. 

Thanks to the all the Sensei for their time and instruction and I look forward to the next one, which I think is in November at Southampton University. 

Jonny Daymond 2nd Dan 
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