Kancho Ashihara coming to denmark.

[olyckan]

"It is a great honour for DAO; Danish Ashihara Organisation to be able to present Kancho Hideonori Ashihara as very special guest instructor on the Sabaki Camp 2008 held in Videbæk, Denmark on july 10TH through 13TH.

Invitations and camp program will be subject to announcement via Honbu and this website"

Link to site:
Ashihara Karate Danmark

This is great news. Hopefully I will be able to be there and for the first time meet kancho!

[Azimuth]

I will come aswell ; )

[Nix]

I will also attend. Damn, if so many people are coming, it means I don't get my own room with television. I have been looking forward to that for 9 years, and you have to come and wreck it.

But despite my newfound irritation, it is one of the things I'm really looking forward this year. This years Sabaki Camp will be... different than previous years, I sense. A shame there is no kumite at the graduation this year, it is of course the highlight of the camp.

Osu!

[Azimuth]

Some of our dojo will do both the Viborg and the Videbaek camp cause of the grading in Viborg . My Sempai preferred to go for the traditional harder one .
I personally will catch up with them and drive directly to Vibaek .

[Nix]

Originally Posted by Azimuth

Some of our dojo will do both the Viborg and the Videbaek camp cause of the grading in Viborg . My Sempai preferred to go for the traditional harder one .
I personally will catch up with them and drive directly to Vibaek .

I can't say I'm surprised. There is some commotion going on here regarding this summers gradings, which I will not explain in detail here. Some people want to grade at Livø, but people also oppose that, soo... But to call the graduation at Livø particularly hard would not be accurate either.

Still, the best of luck. I really believe and hope that the Sabaki Camp will turn out as great as usual.

Osu!

[vapor]

Sounds like a great time....look forward to reports on the activities of the summer!

vapor

[Nix]

I present to you a short write-up from the Sabaki Camp 2008.

With the presence of Kancho Ashihara and our foreign friends, the camp was a little bit different than usual. There was 147 people on the camp (a good third of these from Randers), plus students from abroad, so the total number was around 170. There were students from Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Greece and Germany. We even got a short visit from Shihan Higashidani, but unfortunatelly he had not brought his dogi. Every day had 4 training sessions (except thursday and sunday) with meals in between. The pool area was open twice a day, immediatly after breakfast and dinner.

Since there were fewer training sessions than earlier, we were encouraged to make up for it with good spirits, and perform 100%. I think this was a success. Students were focused and willing to learn, something which I appreciated. It was also a great delight to have Kancho Ashihara as an instructor. This is the first time I've had the honour of beeing instructed by the man himself, and I must say I enjoyed it. Even though he doesn't speak English well, he really managed to get his point across, and he did have many pointers. He also somehow manages to make things seem very simple, so I had many eye-openers.

The last training session was Kumite and Sabaki, headed by Sempai Enrico Rogge and Sempai Sven Bestvater who was visiting from Berlin. This was a really good session, and Sempai Enrico showed many ways to apply sabaki into simple kumite combinations. I really learned a lot.

It was also in this session that I got to fight Azimuth. He looks scarier in real-life, but when he came to me sweating and panting, I expected a nice and easy friendly bout. No such luck. We were not allowed to use our feet in this particluar round, so Azimuth-san rushed me with a tidal wave of strikes and punches. I have no idea where he got that stamina from, but I got very busy blocking, moving and countering. I even had to pull a few dirty tricks, just to keep him away. It was still a load of fun, of course.

The gradings were of course different from earlier with the new curriculum, and it was good that Kancho was there to supervise. The focus was more on technique and understanding of sabaki, than on endurance and stamina. Nevertheless, all students who attended grading for brown and black belt passed their grading test. Moreso, Sensei Casper Olesen was awarded Yondan. This is especially impressive, because the Ashihara curriculum only goes to sandan. Very few people have been given the honorary degree of yondan, but Sensei Casper fully deserved it.

All in all, I think Sabaki Camp 2008 was a smashing success. The four days passed all to fast, and the only thing to do now is too practice and wait for Sabaki Camp 2009...

Osu!

[vapor]

Nice write-up, and a wonderful experience to have gone through!

Now we just need Azimuth to counter your points about the sparring!!

vapor

[Azimuth]

Well Nix-san flies like a butterfly but stings as a bee.
He got me pretty nasty in the ribs and i think i might enjoy
feeling them for a couple of days . But like he said lots of fun .
And a blast of a time . Probably next year we rematch ? : )

[Dent]

Osu!

Excellent write-up, Nix! Clear, concise and full of information. Very cool. Thank you.

Osu!

[Nix]

Originally Posted by Azimuth

Well Nix-san flies like a butterfly but stings as a bee.
He got me pretty nasty in the ribs and i think i might enjoy
feeling them for a couple of days . But like he said lots of fun .
And a blast of a time . Probably next year we rematch ? : )

*snickers* I'm glad to hear my punches are effective. On the other hand, I'm lucky you wore gloves. A rematch sounds great, I'll start getting in shape right away.

[Azimuth]

Update on the ribs,
Went to the docter today cause i felt a click-click , he thinks they are broken now
X-ray will confirm later today, could be your punches or Sensei Mazz 's ushiro geri : )
Sounds like extended holiday now .

[Nix]

Are you kidding me? I don't think I've ever broken anything on myself or others. My sincerest apologies if I did! I think the blame must be laid on Sensei Mazz, though.

[Azimuth]

No need to apologize , it will just give you 8 weeks advantage : )
We will take it more easy next time .

[Dobbersky]

Nix-san, excellent right up of Sabaki Camp 2008. I will look at coming to the 2009 Sabaki Camp it sound like everyone had so much fun, (Azimuth-san I might come and spar with you now - seriously my friend, I hope your ribs heal quickly, get some of that Arnica Cream mentioned on here in a thread), I bet it was awesome having so many AshiharaKa in one place.

Only thing is this open to all streams of Ashihara and what belt do I wear? My Yudansha-ship is not NIKO so would I be required to wear White with a black Tag.

Also did anyone get to find out what Kancho's favourite Kata was?

[Nix]

The camp is officially only open to NIKO-members. I'm not sure which dojo will be hosting next year, but perhaps you could talk with Sensei Casper Olesen or Shihan-Dai Kim Andersen.

I did not find out which is his favourite kata, but maybe Jissen? Kancho is very straight-to-the-point and I could imagine he favours quick finishing techniques over fancy moves. But who knows?

I just remembered that there were many children on the camp, as usual, but we didn't have any problems (except for some louts who played a little prank on the girls). We've never had anyone supervising the children, but they are generally well-behaved and everybody was lined-up 5 minutes before training every time.

[Dent]

Osu!

Originally Posted by Azimuth

Update on the ribs,
Went to the docter today cause i felt a click-click , he thinks they are broken now
X-ray will confirm later today, could be your punches or Sensei Mazz 's ushiro geri : )
Sounds like extended holiday now .

And it sounds like Nix is using his secret Mod powers for Kumite now too! Is there no end to the madness!

Osu!

[Nix]

Originally Posted by Dent

And it sounds like Nix is using his secret Mod powers for Kumite now too! Is there no end to the madness!

62 kg of pure relentless rage, I tell you. RAWR!!

[Dent]

Osu!

Originally Posted by Nix

62 kg of pure relentless rage, I tell you. RAWR!!

Sounds like you need to go on the Dent Diet, Nix. I can guarantee at least 10 kg's of fat in the first year alone!

Osu!