Gasshuku in Hungary
15th to 17th February 2008
That was the third time when Fred came to Hungary to teach us.
Fred’s flight arrived in Friday afternoon, so we took the opportunity and we went to see the river in my hometown Dunakeszi (a small town just next to river Danube, 20 kms from Budapest). The weather was rather windy and it was cold so the hot meal was very enjoyable after an hour of walking at the river bank.
Finally we started the Friday evening training, where we got a good lesson on kihon sotai, followed by the ken kihon of Happo giri. Fred gave a lot of details and we tried to observe and practice as well. There were about 25 trainees presented themselves at the first training from different dojos and from different countries.
Then Saturday came which was quite intensive, almost without a stop.
It was a little bit different than in the last occasion, due to the fact that the training hall was already booked by a group of aikido practitioners. As it was known in advance we arranged a sightseeing trip at daylight in Budapest. The last two times I felt a little bit as a vampire as we always went to the city to eat and drink something at night, so it was a pleasant to change and do it at daylight.
We visited some of the well known parts of Budapest, such as the old Central Market Hall, then the Heroes' square where I had the possibility to introduce some parts of the Hungarian history to Fred. We continued with the visiting of Vajdahunyad Castle, which is an eclectic castle from the XIX. Century and combines some pieces of old Hungarian buildings, castles and churches in one single unit. The weather was bright, but the cold, strong wind made it a real challenge.
After all, the much awaited training time arrived at 13:00.
We started with Kihon tandoku and a lot of details and explanations. It was very good because we had to break our habits and turn ourselves away from the meaningless repetition to the concentrated work of Kihon. At that time we were 36 of us, from Czech Republic, Romania, and Hungary.
After two hours of Kihon we started kata training with Omote and we practised about two and a half hours on that. Here there were a lot of details again (more than normally given) on how to keep kihon works in Omote, timing and simplicity.
The Saturday training continued with a group work. Some stayed in Kihon, some in Omote, and some continued with Chudan. For Chudan we started with the four elements of preparatory exercise, and then the series of katas came again for one and a half hours. Fred analysed and explained the katas for us, so nothing remained just sticking to the explanation and practising.
Saturday did not end up with the training. The night was planned as ’Turkish night’. Some thousands of the Turkish army spent more than 150 years in Hungary in the XV-XVI. Century and they left some good things behind them, such as spas. So, we ate some Turkish food, and then we visited the spa as last year. This time there were not so many people (it is quite popular in winter time), so it was very relaxing being in pools with different temperatures (from 28 to 40 Celsius), sauna and steaming chambers.
We finished Saturday to Sunday at around 1 o’clock.
After a short but deep sleep Sunday started… We continued the group work with Chudan again, and also Ran-ai, later the first six kata of Kage series came to the picture. Fred gave new katas for those who needed, so everyone kept busy for the four hours long training.
The Sunday training ended with some Embus of the different working groups.
The Gasshuku closed with a good, relaxing lunch in a really good restaurant to balance out the ’rushing weekend’.
József Katona
Heroes' square
Fédération Européenne de Jodo / European Jodo Federation