¡Hola!
We're three days into training at the 30th European Gasshuku in beautiful Málaga, Spain and it's already been some of the most amazing training I've ever experienced.
There are about 230 karateka here from a dozen countries all training in a large sport center called the Ciudad Deportiva Carranque. We get quite a few curious onlookers, especially astonished children coming from swimming lessons!
It is exceptionally hot in Málaga with temperatures easily reaching the 90*s by the time we begin training. Combine that with several hundred people exercising and our gi quickly become soaked in sweat. Gesturing to your wet gi and sighing or laughing is a standard ice breaker, no common language needed. At the end of our first day, Nakamura Snesei recommended we get in the shower with our gi on if we lacked laundry services; we laughed but as the days wear on it becomes more and more reasonable!
Every day we begin with about an hour of warm-ups led by one of the European Chief Instructors. This usually involves stretching, basics, and moving drills. After a 10 minute water break, we break into groups by rank. The kyu grades leave to another part of the center and the dan grades split by level. The first day we had two hour-long sessions in small groups before returning to whole group, but the last two days have been three small group sessions followed by a shorter whole-group cool-down.
Day 1 Shodan:
We began our training with Nakamura Sensei, the World Chief Instructor and CI of Canada. Quite an honor! Nakamura Sensei is extremely talented and one of the most cheerful and kind people I've ever had the pleasure to train under. The focus of this training was on kime, tightening your joints at the point of impact, and utilizing your tanden. Nakamura Sensei asked us to visualize the weight of a barrel of water dropping. He described how we should be able to use the weight of our internal organs to increase our force if we're properly using our tandens during our movements. We practiced this with a variety of katas and plenty of ten tsuki.
Our next session was with Sensei Henrik Larsen, the CI of Denmark & a 7th Dan. His focus was on breaking past the strict adherence to set bunkai curriculum that kyu grades must have to reach shodan; black belts need to explore much deeper. These additional movements are often called oyo bunkai. We brought together pieces from several kata in order to see their similarities and understand how they can be used together in partner and 3-person drills. Some of these drills felt more complicated than they should be due to the heat "boiling our brains," as Nakamura Sensei put it. While I've mostly acclimated by Day 3, I've decided that some "hot karate" needs to be added to my regular training to prepare for the Okinawa Budosai in 2016.
Day 2 Shodan:
Our first session was with Kokubo Sensei and Yamashiro Sensei. If you haven't seen Yamashiro Sensei move, you really can't imagine what it's like. We often discuss how karate is influenced by the elements and nature and Yamashiro Sensei represents water. He is able to move his body in ways that are so fluid it almost seems unnatural. He does more with each step, each transition, than I could possibly ever hope to do in a full kata. Together with Kokubo Sensei (who speaks only Japanese & Spanish & so utilized a shodan interpreter. One of the many unique aspects of international gasshuku) they worked on primarily stances and moving with us. As Kokubo Sensei teaches, our stances should be like our roots that keep us strong with the ground. A major focus of theirs was on keeping our centers of gravity, especially while moving or transitioning stances. We lose most of our power if we're off-balance, not to mention how easy it is for us to be knocked down. They discussed the importance of aligning your spine from your head down your center, something that is especially easy to lose track of when moving quickly.
Our next session was with Sensei Andrews of England. Sensei Andrews is the one who developed the Sandan Gi drills we practice in our dojo, however he has adjusted many and now has ten different sets. While the initial set up of 3 levels of moving forward three attacks & moving backwards 3 defensive movements remains standard, each one incorporates additional sets that target different strategies and are sometimes drawn from kata. These presented a great way to practice basics and challenged us both mentally and physically. Sensei Andrews also expounded on the importance of not feeling overconfident as a larger, stronger karateka or feeling lesser as a smaller karateka. He pointed out that while we fear the charging elephant, we also fear the tiny wasp. As a smaller karateka myself, this idea is one I'm often studying. In the days of old, each karateka learned one kata specifically for their body type. While we learn all of them today, it's important to always be aware of what techniques and strategies are best for your size. If you're a smaller karateka afraid of fighting bigger opponents, just remember the wasp.
Day 3 Shodan
Today was probably my favorite day of training so far. We began the day with Sensei Nolan of England. He's both terrifying in his power and the real violence in his attacks, but also carries on with jokes and smiles. An absolute treat! We spent the hour working on a variety of kakie drills, ranging from locks to breaks to kicks and chokes. There were a few new techniques that I'd never seen before which I'll definitely be incorporating.
Continuing on Sensei Andrews' size discussion, Sensei Nolan showed us very simple techniques that easily allowed very small people to prevent huge people from picking them off the ground or pushing them. Of course having a firm stance is important, but he also showed us how simply grabbing the attacker's elbows from underneath to lock them or even using one finger to push their head back both broke the attacker's power enough to completely shut them down. I'm looking forward to trying these on our very tall PNW instructors such as Sensei Taylor and Sensei Franz!
Next we worked Sanchin with Masuyama Sensei. This was really fantastic. He talked a lot about rooting our stances, pointing out that no matter how long or thick a tree's branches are, a breeze will push it over without strong roots. He went through every single movement of sanchin, demonstrating each one & discussing it. We did sanchin at least a dozen times, quite exhausting but so fulfilling. He corrected my hand placement during toraguchi, but after watching half of my kata slammed my shoulders in shime so hard I literally saw stars, came back around and said "good." I saw him almost throwing many students to the ground because their balance was poor, looking at them & shaking his head, or dropping people with shime. I considered myself very fortunate to have someone as talented as Sensei Villa for an instructor and I felt very honored to have a compliment from Masuyama Sensei.
We finished our group training with Sensei Monteiro, the CI of Portugal. This focused on sparring drills and rondori. He seemed very frustrated at many students who moved too stiffly or kept their guard down/open or brought their hands back to chamber during sparring. Europe has a large tournament following and you'll often see a very different approach to sparring and kata which reflects that instead of a more street-based approach, especially in the kyu and lower dan ranks. I would bet that Sensei Monteiro does not share the former view. We finished with 3-person rondori where one person fought two people. It was a great way to loosen up and the regular switching made it easy to meet a lot of new people.
Thank you to those who stuck through this very long post; my intention was to post mini blurbs daily but it took me a few days to find reliable internet. We have two more days left and I am so excited to see what they bring!
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