Spring Jodo seminar in Saint Petersbourg
April, 13th to 15th 2012
A Jodo seminar was held from Friday 13th till Sunday 15th, April 2012, in Saint Petersbourg.
As Pascal sensei recommended, the seminar was led by myself (with a lot of help by Renata). There were about 25 participants together, with about 20 people attending each practice session. The number of participants was a bit smaller than the organizers expected because of orthodox Easter this week. However, this actually suited the program that I prepared better.
The seminar was held in sport center Dynamit - originally a factory complex, which now holds various sporting facilities including a pool and courts as well as a martial arts dojo. On Friday, we practiced in a smaller dancing hall. For the rest of the weekend, we used tennis courts which offered enough space for a comfortable practice.
Five 2-hour blocks were available for our practice - not a minute longer. I split each of them to two (not equally long) parts devoted to kihon and kata. During the kihon part, we practiced both tandoku and sotai, gradually introducing new information. Many of the participants already manage kihon quite well, prepared together before the seminar and remember a lot of details from the seminar that Pascal sensei led the last year. In order to further improve the basic techniques, we explained uchikomi geiko practice the way we are used to from the seminars and practice in Europe.
For the kata part, I split the participants to two groups. The less advanced participants started with suigetsu from tokushu waza and continued with tsuki zue and tachi otoshi from omote, which we introduced at the end of seminar after the training of kuri tsuke in pairs. This resembled the program of the first seminar with Fred Quant in Czech Republic ten years ago. With the more advanced participants (who already knew kata of omote in Kendo Renmei system), we practiced the first half of omote up to ukan in the normal order.
At the end of the seminar, the advanced participants made uchidachi for the beginners in an hour of kihon sotai. I hope that everyone has enough material to work on till the next meeting.
The mood at the seminar was very pleasant and friendly and we felt great both in dojo and outside. The organizers and participants were attentive and congenial and took care of us the whole time. I appreciate that many participants of the last year's seminar came again, including one from Kavkaz (quite far from St. Perersburg), and I believe Jodo will take firm roots in Russia.
The seminar was ogranized by Saint Petersburg and Leningrad area Aikido federation headed by Valery Skryliov. According to him, a Jodo group started forming after the Pascal sensei´s seminar and they practiced at least once a week under supervision of Andrey Maryenkov and Dmitri Pothekin, who has experience with Kendo renmei Jodo. It was clear that the participants prepared for the seminar, and this enabled us to proceed quite far.
I am glad we had this opportunity to return to Petersburg. I appreciate the trust of Pascal sensei and the example of other FEJ teachers, especially Fred. I hope that we contributed at least a bit and I believe we will meet our new friends from Russia again, either there or at seminars in Europe.
Patrik Orth (English translation: Zdenek Dvorak)
P.S. После семинара мы выпили немножко водки :)
Although Patrick is not an official teacher of the EJF, I encouraged him to give this seminar for two reasons. He and Renata were with me for the first gasshuku in St Petersburg in 2011. They did a very good job in assisting me in the teaching at that time. So the people there knew them already. The second reason is that Patrick has proved in many occasions his interest for SMR by participating to many gasshuku throughout Europe since 2001, spending lots of time and money for it. Moreover, his technical level is getting excellent, mainly grateful to his regular contacts with Fred Quant. Therefore, I trusted him completely for this gasshuku, and, when I see the reactions of the people of St Petersburg, I think I did well. Thanks to him and Renata.
P. Krieger
Fédération Européenne de Jodo / European Jodo Federation