April stage of the traditional Jodo in Russian Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, 19th - 21st April
This year’s stage in Petersburg began on Friday afternoon after 8 o’clock. There were 50 participants taking part in a three-hour practice. Approximately 20 people had no previous experience and the reason why they came to try a Jodo training was that it substituted their common aikido keiko in Lenkai Dojo. It was necessary to prepare adequate and a bit interesting programme for them and also for the more advanced participants.
We started with an intense practice of basic techniques on the spot - honte uchi, gyakute uchi and hiki otoshi uchi - first individually, later with a partner who gradually started to cooperate more and more. Step by step we added further information explaining the necessity of mastering these basic techniques. We demonstrated in quite a lot of detail with different examples the correct movement of the stick, basic grips, body alignment and targets of these movements. These details, although they might seem to be a bit tiring, introduce the beginners into the problematic of our budo and at the same time they present some of the qualities of the stick that we use. After the first half of the training we divided the participants into two groups. The more advanced group had the opportunity to work on the basics through other methods of uchikomi geiko, while the beginners studied in depth the previous movements. At the end of the training we demonstrated to everyone some kata of omote waza and one from chudan, and ran-ai respectively. The aim of this mini-demonstration was to introduce more difficult kata to those who did not know them before. Our Friday training finished ten minutes after eleven at night.
Saturday and Sunday timetable was not a typical one. Our schedule was four hours of training starting from 9 o’clock in the morning. In Lenkai Dojo, the oldest one of 90 (!) Saint Petersburg aikido clubs, a group of about thirty-five participants met on Saturday. Many of them had already practised with us during our meeting last year, others practised the previous day, but still there were new beginners. At this point of forming a Russian group we have to keep on introducing our tradition all the time. As I have already written some of the participants came to dojo because they have been introduced to Jodo last year by me or even the year before by Sensei Krieger. It is great that they keep coming back and that Jodo has captured their interest.
It is due to the effort of the more advanced students who started to practice twice a week in Saint Petersburg and at the same time they have been introducing our form of Jodo in other places of Russia of various distances. For this reason during seminar there were participants from Saint Petersburg, Kirishi and Budogoshch, Moscow 800 kilometres far away, or from Pyatigorsk more than 2,200 kilometres away and Vladikavkaz (2,500 km).
Other ten participants from different places could not come because of organizational or health reasons. We were more than 60 altogether. The potential and possibilities of practice in Russia are amazing.
We dedicated Saturday practice to techniques of kihon tandoku for the newcomers. Less experienced ones went through six of them, more experienced ones managed to practise all twelve techniques in two hours. After that we focused on kata in two separated groups. Beginners were happy with only two basic kata (tsuki zue and suigetsu), while more advanced ones were introduced to the first half of the twelve kata of omote waza. For most participants of this group the kata were not new but it was planned to practise them only on Sunday.
After every single training in Russia that I experienced during last three years individual participants came to thank us and to say goodbye. It is pleasant to know that they liked the practice. Not only these individual participants but especially the organizers of the whole event are always very attentive. During this year’s seminar they did a lot of driving with us -more than 500 km in the city and its surroundings, they prepared a good free time programme and hosted us in excellent restaurants. We did not have to worry about anything.
On Sunday morning the structure and number of participants changed again… We were again 30 - 40 in the dojo, nevertheless some of them missed our Saturday training, others did not participate even on Friday. Still there were a lot of people who did not miss a single day. After we practised together the first six techniques sotai dosa we divided again into two groups. The less experienced ones worked on their freshly learned techniques and corrected them, the others had to cope with the second half of the techniques. After two hours of practice we came back to kata which we practiced in three groups. In the first group tsuki zue and tokushu waza (we added shamen), the second group worked on the first half of omote waza and respective drills from this part of the series (if the participants did not feel comfortable to learn a new kata) and the last group continued in the second half of the kata of omote waza. In the rest of our time we managed to practice kata up to kasa no shita which is ninth in the order of the omote kata. The official part of the seminar finished and we asked for several dozens of minutes more. For almost an hour we taught and practised the last three kata of omote waza with the most advanced ones who already knew all the previous techniques.
On Sunday at about two o’clock in the afternoon we said goodbye to Lenkai Dojo and headed in direction of the hospitality of the city. Despite the fact that this seminar would deserve more lessons of practice, I think that we managed to go through a large amount of our "curriculum". When preparing the programme I used as a source of inspiration long-term experience with the teaching in our ryuha, from the last stages of my teachers Pascal Krieger and Fred Quant, and at the same time from the space that was available and the composition of the participants. It is great that some of them have already participated in two FEJ European stages this year (Finland in January and Padova in April) and they are planning journeys to other seminars. Shinto Muso Ryu Jo is striking its roots in Russia … Perhaps also thanks to us.
We closed the seminar but only a few hours later we were discussing some kata in a park on a Krestov island. We stopped talking about Jodo only during our Sunday celebration with great food and drinks with our friends. For this year it was time to say goodbye to Saint Petersburg and Russia and to those who looked after us and provided us with a perfect comfort from Friday to Monday.
Patrik Orth (English translation Katka Rozsypalova)
Fédération Européenne de Jodo / European Jodo Federation