"War" between Japan and Hungary

It seems that only one kind of warrior can stand the mud in front of the Japanese: the Hungarians :-)
And so far it seems that we ruuuule!
Although the tools are questionable - but I have heard somewhere: "in war and love everything is allowed" :-P
Considering this: I bow with respect for the Japanese "warriors" - they are a good example now of how to treat the opponent even if that uses "sneaky" tools.

Click here for more info:

• in Japanese
• in (clumsy auto-translated) English

Burning on both ends

I had a very busy weekend now.

On Saturday I attended a seminar in Veszprem, lead by L. who has just returned from Japan. He's A.C.'s student (let's put it this way) and showed some things he learned from A. and the Shihans in Japan.
I think I got what he meant to show as a principle but I saw a lot of inaccuracy in the techniques, in kamae, most of which would put you in a critical situation during a fight. Well, I got some good ideas that's true, but I take what I saw with a little grain of salt. Well, obviously all of us are still learning this art, we all have our own cross.
In the lunch break I. invited me to his to-be parents-in-law's house, so at least now I could have some nice home made lunch instead of some junk food in the city center.

After the seminar was over at 5 pm I. drove me to the bus station. I was lucky 'cos I managed to catch the 17.15 bus and was at home by 20.30.

For Sunday we had our regular horseback riding scheduled, so we had to wake up early, around 8 am (early for me cos I've been sleeping 5 hours in the past few weeks with no days off).
Anyway, already after waking up I felt that there was something wrong with me, but I wanted to go riding so much that I ignored the signs.
By the time Cs. and me arrived to Budapest I felt so weak that I was afraid that I will not be able to make this day. Anyway, after a nice Coffee a'la Vienna, some fresh orange juice and a hot mint tea we decided to continue.
We met E., my new colleague who joined us to Szentendre for riding. Heat of course, like in August. This was the last thing I needed.

After we arrived to the small wooden house in the middle of the forest, I gave the fruit that we brought to the host and his family, and took the other cotton bag with some apple and carrots for the horses. Then we climbed up along the tiny path leading out of the forest to the fields on the hill. Horses are nowhere on earth.
After a few hundred meters we found one horse which was tied to a bush but the others were still gone. Cs. hopped on the horse and had let it find the others while E, me and our host, Peter took another way hoping that if Cs. cannot find them maybe we will.
Finally Cs. found the stud so Peter run there to send them back to the horseback archery field. E. and me were told to go forward and we would meet them with the horses at the archery field. After walking some time I needed to find a "safe bush" to get rid of some fluids (thanks to the tea, coffee and orange juice I drank beforehand). I found a very good huge bush in the side of one of the hills and cowered. I almost finished when heard some very strange noise. I looked up and was a bit freaked out to see the stud heading straight towards me, Cs. on top of one and laughing hard and shouting "Bring it on, Eva!" I have never put my pants on as quickly as then. :-D

Anyway, we went back to the horseback archery field and while Cs. was practicing E. and me gave some apples and carrots to the other horses. Of course all of a sudden we became very popular among the horses, so we had to hide the rest of the fruit after a while.

When Cs. finished it was E.'s and my turn.
I got "Fighter", a horse with saddle, and E. got "Bratty" who had no saddle on. We went for a long walk up and down the hills. It was very strange but when I got on the horse my sickness almost completely vanished. Anyway we walked among the hills and bushes for about half an hour, then we changed horses. Now I got Bratty and E. got Fighter (hey, sounds like a swinger club! :-D ).
By the way it's a completely different feeling to ride without a saddle. If you cannot find the correct position it hurts both you and the horse. But you can feel the horse way more than with a saddle.
Anyway, we had also a half an hour walk back to the field. After we arrived and I got off the horse my pants were all wet, the horse was sweating so much. We gave them the last pieces of apples and carrots which they consumed in a glimpse and then we released them to go with the others.

After these we went back to the house in the forest where Cs. practiced some archery, and I laid down on the ground because I started feeling so weak again.
By the time Cs. finished I could hardly pull myself to the bus stop and the way back to home seemed to last for an eternity.
After arriving to home I had a bath and thrown myself down on a sofa.
I've been coughing through the whole night and produced a huge amount of dirty hankies by morning.

I did not go to work this morning, I was feeling so weak and bad, and even today I woke up at 12.15 noon. Had a little lunch and wrote this blog but now I crawl back to bed again before I faint on the keyboard. I need to go to work tomorrow, I do not want to waste one more holiday on laying in the sick-bed, like today.

"Best preparation make, best action do!"

Last weekend's seminar with P-san was very good. I risk saying: even better than last year. We did a lot of KKSDR henkas, also a lot of knife fight, bare hand plays and a tiny little bit of tieing.
On Saturday I practiced with K., the Iranian guy. Although he lacks the basics, he has the talent I think, at least after the first 1,5 hours he started getting the feeling and did some very nice improvisations. He really made me impressed.
On Sunday I paired up with another guy from DJH's groups. He is around 6th kyu I think but is very good. I. and me regularly visit D's trainings, once a month, and whenever I saw this guy working I saw that he was very tough and almost cruel. But this time he's been working sooo well and lightly that he also made me go "WOW!". I enjoyed every single minute of training with him. We surprised each-other with the most "sneaky" grabs and henkas, so it was a very-very cool training.

I managed to speak a bit to P-san about all sorts of things. We tried to figure out why noone else from Hungary other than people from D's groups (except for I., me and K.) have showed up. We talked a lot about one's responsibilities and expectations towards others and himself.

I also think I have learned something very important, which may deserve a bit more attention from the youth of Bujinkan: elder Buyus (like P-san or others) via their own example can teach us what we can expect when we grow old (if we will be lucky enough to grow old).

I saw that at some dojos people practice on a way which is good for a healthy, strong and young person. But things change when you grow old, even if you take care of your health as much as you can. Your body will not bear as much as it was able to when you were young (like spontaneous vertigo may come into the picture, you gradually start loosing muscles, etc) - all in all, the way you physically perceive your environment changes some ways. So it does not hurt to take into consideration this side of the coin as well and not to build your knowledge merely on the foundations of your youth. Count with physical- and health-decay. Sh. Sensei said very wisely: "Best preparation make, best action do."

These elder Budokas provide us with the unique opportunity to "foresee" what is going to happen as years will go by and thus help us finding the correct methods and direction in training (and in life) now, before it is too late. Via their own example they can teach us something that noone else on Earth can teach you and I think it should be much more appreciated than it is now.

Long-awaited weekend

Although this week has been a short one -as we did not have to work no Monday and Tuesday because of the Labour Day- I felt as if I have been working a full week.
I have been spinning at the uni like a a madman during the whole week.
We had electronic seminars this week which allocated a lot of extra work to me to cop with, given that I am the admin of the e-learning site of the Summer Uni.
Finally everything got completed on time (hard to believe) and I even managed to complete a thorough testing of the ETD (electronic theses and dissertations) user interface, which is even harder to believe.

The only thing that has remained for the weekend and I have to complete by Monday is creating an online (e-learning) course of how the staff should use the ETD software, which means creating screenshots, tutorials, descriptions etc.
Which does not sound like a big deal, but if I take into consideration that P-san is giving a full-weekend seminar in Budapest on Saturday and Sunday and I am supposed to attend it, which means that I have to leave from home at 6.00 am both days and never get back home before 7 or 8 pm - well then the whole weekend looks like a huge rush again.
I am so tired of this. I looked into the mirror today and I had to admit that I grew more than a year older since this time last year. A few months ago my eyes were all "baggy" from not getting enough sleep. By now they evolved to a "suitcase" level. By when the Summer Uni ends and my journey to Japan comes, I will reach again the "zombie" level. Now the Evanescence's music comes to my mind: "I'm going under"

Anyway, I am looking forward to P-san's seminar. I have not met him since a year ago, and curious what's up with him. He is a nice man but I think there are some people here who misuse his good faith. And I absolutely do not like it.