17th Stage des Vendanges
from October 29th to 30th, 2005
This year, the 17th Montreux Gasshuku organized by Michel Colliard and Michel Ducret with the assistance of Giulio Casarini took place in Salvan in the Valais region in Switzerland. We were lucky enough to have a superb Indian summer.
38 persons coming from countries like France, Austria, The Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdom and, of course, Switzerland participated in this event.
On Friday evening, we had a pre-Gasshuku training of 3 hours headed by our Sensei Pascal Krieger, followed by a good beer and succulent spaghetti.
The weekend training started with Kihon Sotai. We then formed several groups allowing everybody to work according to his level and to learn new techniques. The Gasshuku was terminated on Sunday afternoon by repeating Kihon from Ken that our Sensei has shown us on Friday evening.
At this occasion, we would also like to thank the future Shoden Sylvain Creuset and Yves Gallet for their assistance during the training sessions.
As it has already become a tradition on Saturday evening, Coco San had organized a wine-tasting event with regional wines. Afterwards, we had the famous raclette and some people abused a little bit, which gave them troubles with their digestion. Even the gentian liquor from the owner and a good cigar didn’t help. All the other meals of the Gasshuku were prepared by our 5-star cook Claire Bertolini.
The theme of our Gasshuku written in calligraphy was “Musôkai”. This is the name of a new association created by Coco San and myself for practicing and studying Jôdô and Iaidô in the Vaud Riviera region (Vaud is a Swiss canton at Lake Geneva)
Michel Ducret, Gomokuroku
Fédération Européenne de Jodo / European Jodo Federation