Papa

Papa's seminar was held last weekend but I never got to post a report on it, I was so busy. Hope you can forgive me this enormous sin :-).

The seminar was organized by DJH - the same guy who does the live-training thing that is conducted by N. Sensei directly from Japan.
Anyway, I was the only one person from our dojo who registered and showed up at the seminar, which was a little surprise for me as many from our dojos mentioned that they would come at least for one day (it was a 2 days long event). I think there might be different reasons in the background for why none of them showed up, and I think that beside the financial difficulties they had, it had something to do with the tension between us and D. I for myself feel that I managed to kind of balance this out, by being open and in the same time having the necessary awareness and not accepting anything just because somebody tells me to do so. I prefer checking out everything for myself. Anyway, back to the seminar...

I met D. and Papa on my way to the dojo so I hopped in the car. It was a nice informal, yet an interesting way of meeting someone whom you've known for years via the net only - in this case from the Village of the Nine Waterfalls' forum. Anyway, it turned out that we were the first to arrive, so after changing to GI we talked a bit, had some fun warming up while the others arrived too.

Then we started with diferent breathing exercises which were not only to extend the capacity of the lungs but also to move over the skeleton structurte on a soft way. I really liked them although the pace was a bit too fast – I usually breath slowly and I naturally take only a few breaths within a minute – so this fast breathing resulted for me getting a bit hyperventillated. Luckilly we finished it before I got to the point of actually passing out.

After this we went on to some omote gyaku, ura gyaku, muso dori, mosha dori, ganseki nage.

The point of these was to do a countertechnique but it was not over just here. After these Papa showed some examples of how to do these (omote, ura gyaku, ganseki, etc etc) on a way which is not recognizable for the uke at first glimpse and thus s/he is not able to do a gaeshi. Anyway, it was full of fun and it tested our imspovisational skills which I really liked.

Lunch break was a long one, we had a nice weather so we went out to the camping chairs and tables and had our cold-lunch there. Having with some banana with me I had to entertain the guys :) I was ready for some fun anyway, so I went into it which made me really popular.

The rest of that day went by with trying to do techniques as softly as possible, with the least necessary movements, and as naturally as possbile.

Papa always emphasized that we have to keep in mind that we must be able to stand these challenges not only when we're young and strong, but also when we get old and weaker. Hmm... he said something with it...

The next day was dedicated to some more empty handed fight, with defense against various kicks too. But the main topic of that day (for me at least) was the defense against knife.

We went through on different ways of knife-attacks:

• when the attacker threatens openly with a knife - and u have no knife

• when the attacker's knife is hidden and he stabs unexpectedly – and u have no knife

• when you are taken as hostage (with knife) – and u have no knife

• knife against knife
  

The principles of these defenses was the same:

• get out of the line of the knife

• crash/cut the attacker's hands

• don't have mercy. knife is a very dangerous nasty little thing in the hands of those who can use it. Don't give them another chance.

The seminar was over at 4 pm and we talked for one more our – people had different questions about some spiritual things and also about some Bujinkan-politics (I was just listening quietly at this point - I hate politics).

After leaving the dojo I said goodbye to Papa, we hugged and then all of us returned to our everyday lives.

Papa represented softness and natural movements in my eyes, however I found that the usability of some of the things he showed were a bit questionable for me. But probably it was because of my lack of understanding and experience. I guess I need to keep learning and keep my eyes open.

Anyhow, I think he is a great example of how one should grow old – I am very happy for him and I will definitely attend any further seminars he will give in Hungary or in the neighbourhood in the future - and I recommend everyone to do so.