Mind matters

Nu sitter jag här i caféet på Frölunda Judoklubb och nyttjar deras osäkra trådlösa anslutning samtidigt som jag tittar på när ca 50 personer från 7 olika länder tränar för ett av aikidons riktiga högdjur, Isoyama-sensei, en av de få som tränat för O’sensei (aikidons grundare) direkt och som fortfarande är i livet. Isoyama-sensei har tränat aikido i 60 år, och av dem tränade han 20 år direkt för O’sensei.

Under lördagens träning varvade han tekniker med att berätta historier från sin tid som elev för O’sensei. Mycket fascinerande!

Själv tränar jag inte utan tittar på pga jag har ont i korsryggen. En skada jag ådrog mig på styrketräningen förra året då jag skulle göra rygglyft med 20 kg, efter en paus på en månad. Jag gick alltså på samma vikt som jag hade innan uppehållet. Inte så klokt. På det andra rygglyftet så sade det knak i korsryggen och jag fick riktigt ont! Sen hade jag ganska ont i 3 dagar tills det plötsligt bara försvann! Sen dess har jag “slagit upp” skadan ett par gånger, nu senast i tisdags. Så nu tar jag det lungt och ska låta det läka ordentligt innan jag tränar på för hårt. Ska också gå till en “kotknackare” under veckan tänkte jag, ryggmagikern Leif.

Jag har varit hos Leif en gång tidigare och då tog han och tittade lite på mig samt förde armar och fötter lite och sen kunde han berätta för mig var någonstans jag hade fått skelettskador, och ungefär när! Som att jag brutit nyckelbenet när jag var runt 4-5 (jag var 6 år) och fått en slagskada på yttersidan av vänster fot runt 25 (det var nog när jag var 27) och att jag hade problem med insidan av höger knä (ingen ålder angiven). Jag vet inte hur han gjorde det, men misstänker att hans långa erfarenhet kombinerad med en extrem intuition tillåter honom att se precis hur min kropp borde röra sig ifall allting var helt, samt att han kanske kan känna på elasticiteten i lederna ungefär när en skada skulle ha skett. Hur som helts så imponerade han på mig samt lyckades rätta till saker i min kropp som gjorde att det kändes bättre i den! Så honom ska jag till igen.

Nu är jag också ordförande för Aikidosverige så fick jag bjuda på mat för Isoyama och Ethan (Weisgard, dansk aikidoutövare som agerar som tolk och som är vice ordförande i Danmarks Aikidoförbund), samt lokala förmågor på lördagkvällen. Så vi var 6 personer som satt och åt gott och pratade lite.

Jag har ingen aning om hur man för sig i närheten av dessa höga japaner (förrutom att ha tränat länge så är Isoyama-sensei också medlem i Seniour Council av International Aikido Federation) så jag var lite tafatt under middagen och den efterföljande puben på Göteborgs Aikidoklubb. På puben skulle jag fylla på Isoyama-senseis glas, eftersom han inte skulle fylla sitt glas själv (någon japansk sed som jag är osäker på när den ska användas), men misslyckades gång på gång att time:a det rätt, så Ulf-sensei (Ulf Evenås, en av sveriges två 7:e dan:are samt sitter med i Graderingskommittén) fick rycka in då och då för att rädda mitt anseende

Jag var så himla trött (pga bara 5 timmar sömn natten innan samt bilkörning i över 3 timmar) samtidigt som jag satt och funderade på ifall man kunde räta ut fötterna, ifall jag skulle fylla på glaset nu eller sen, ifall jag skulle bete mig på ett eller annat sätt som jag inte hade någon aning om! Så jag såg nog mer ut som ett spöke än en ordförande för svensk Aikido!

Nu undrar jag om jag verkligen slagit in på rätt väg med detta ordförandeskap. Det är många krångliga saker att ta beslut om, att ha åsikt om och att lära sig. Vissa dagar känns det som om huvet ska explodera. BOOOOOOOM! Fast det kanske blir bra i längden, måste bara hitta folk jag kan prata av mig till när det blir för många saker att försöka fatta krångliga beslut om.

Slutet blir nog gott i alla fall

Rubriken är bara för att få folk som håller koll på min blogg via RSS-feeds att haja till!

Det har ju hänt en hel del sedan mitt senaste inlägg.

Gradering
Jag var ju och försökte mig på att ta 2:a dan i Aikido i mars. Och det gick lysande! Fast jag var rätt sleten innan. Först tränade vi 3 pass på lördagen, och så ställde jag upp som kastdocka för en 1:a dan-gradering. Sen tränade vi 3 pass på söndagen, och först därefter var det dags för gradering! Så helt trött i lederna och så hade jag fått hål i min hakama. Den gick sönder redan några veckor innan graderingsdags (hål vid vänster knä! respekt!), men Kristina lagade den åt mig, men tyvärr höll inte just den lagningen. Så på graderingen fick jag istället låna Helenes hakama. Nu har Kristina lagat den åt mig igen, och denna gång tror jag hon använde flera rullar sytråd, för sicksackmönstret är rätt så gediget, så denna gång tror jag den kommer hålla

Själva graderingen kändes bra både under och efteråt! Jag vet att folk brukar komma av sig i sina graderingar när de gör något fel, jag gjorde så att jag log varje gång jag kom på mig själv att göra fel, vilket gjorde att det kändes inte alls farligt att missa vissa detaljer i tekniker då och då. Något som annars kan få mig att gå upp i limningen, speciellt när andra tittar på!

Och om ni inte visste det så kan man vika sin hakama såhär:

Ordförande för svensk aikido
Nja, eller snarare ordförande för Aikidosektionen i Svenska Budo- och kampsportsförbundet. Det mötet gick också bra, och jag blev enhälligt vald! När jag blev vald så sade jag ‘Mouahahahahahaaa’ så att alla hörde. Det gick tydligen hem, för folk skrattade. Undra om de vet vad de egentligen gett sig in på! Vi ska ha vårt första styrelsemöte nu i helgen 12-13/4 och ska vara i Linköping. Hotell och konferenslokal är bokad, nu gäller det bara att hitta en bra restaurang att släpa ut folket på för mat på lördagkvällen!

Sverigeläger
Sverigelägret gick också lysande! Fast jag sov ju knappt innan och under själva lägret (om man inte räknar natten lördag till söndag då jag sov runt 10-timmar och vaknade först vid 13-tiden på söndagen!). Lägret höll på i 4 dagar och vi hade skitkul! Vi hade 27 instruktörer och sammanlagt blev vi runt 180 personer som gick på lägret!

Sen hade vi fest på lördagkvällen, och på den hade jag med mig 2 flaskor Gold Strike, en flaska whiskey och en flaska portvin, som jag bjöd friskt av till instruktörerna och andra glada människor. Tydligen övergick vi sedan till att halsa ur flaskan… Brrr… Jag fick höra det på söndagkvällen, när vi satt i bastun efter träningen:

Kristin (från Stockholm): Ja, ni halsade ju ur flaskan igår kväll.
Mika: Va? Halsade vi ur flaskan?
Kristin: Ja, när vi satt i bastun.
Mika: Va?? Satt vi i bastun?
Kristin: Jo, och sjöng.
Mika: Va?!?! Sjöng vi!?
Kristin: Nja, sjöng och sjöng, mer vrålade.

Det ska tydligen finnas bild på mig när jag ligger däckad i omklädningsrummet med en flaska i handen. Har inte själv sett till den ännu

Nej, nu ska man kanske jobba en stund till!

The day after… The horrid day after, as I call it! I often get a hangover, no matter what or how much alcohol I drink, only the degree of nausea varies. Everytime I talk to someone who says they almost never get a hangover, no matter what or how much alcohol they drink, I curse in my mind and pretend that I’m slowly roasting them over an open fire! They do not know the agony I go through after every party!

But not this time. I had a mild head ache, that’s it. Felt great. Wonder what I did differently!

The party lasted to 2 am, and at 3 am I pulled the cord to the lamp in the guys bedroom. That’s when the lights went out for me too. I slept till 10 am, I think. The strange thing was that Pär is usually up before everyone else, but this time I couldn’t see him. It wasn’t until half an hour later that he came into the common room. He had walked 12 km to the store and back to buy a newspaper. Gnfffff!

We ate our last breakfast together and after that we cleaned the kitchen, the common room, the bedrooms and Pär took care of the dojo. After that the departings started…

First ones to leave were Christina and Zafer. Zafer was going to take a train at 1 pm from Karlstad, and Christina would drive through there, so he hitched a ride with her. Hugs were administered, goodbyes were said, promises of being in touch were made and then they were off… for atleast 20 meters before we could hear Zafer scream ‘AWEEEEEEEEEEE’, from the car window, one last time!

Do you remember the plutt-game? I wrote about it in the entry for day 4. I managed to call up Zafer from my mobile and hiding my number and asking if it was Zafer I was talking to, in a phony accent, and he answered ‘yes’, which, of course, immediately lead to a plutt! I was soo happy to manage to pull off another phone-plutt! The last one was several months ago on Staffan from Halmstad.

The downside is that he finished the conversation with ‘You’re awesome, Mika!’ to which I replied ‘Yes, I know, but it’s good to hear now and then from someone else!’ (a phrase I’ve stolen from Jenny), and that, of course, immediately lead to another plutt! Ooo, the humiliation! My great moment, stolen!

Oh, one of the best things before breakfast was that Claes managed to do a kaeshi waza (reverse technique - when you respond on an aikido technique done to you with another aikido technique) plutt! Marias said ‘Claes?’ (to try to plutt him) and Claes replied ‘Maria?’ to which Maria answered ‘Yes?’, which of course got a ‘plutt’ from Claes. That’s pure high-class entertainment right there!

After that we packed me, Patrick and Claes into sensei’s car, while Martina was shipped off in Eva-Karin’s car. Hugs, goodbyes, promises and a last ‘AWEEEEEEE’ from me as we passed Eva-Karin, Martina, Maria and Pär.

On our way to the station in Torsby we drove over a bump in the road that we uchi deshis have named ‘Torsby guppet’ (Torsby bump). And we also developed this habit of building up a tension just before the bump and at the moment of driving over it yelling ‘AWEEEEEEEE’ in high pitched voices! This we’ve done the whole week, since we passed the bump every time we drove into town. I hope we didn’t pierce sensei’s ears

The voyage home was quite uneventful. I had company with Patrick and Claes to the station in Karlstad where we parted ways. More hugs, goodbyes and promises and then off to Linköping!

I ran into Erik, a friend, on the last part of the trip (Norrköping->Linköping) and we chatted some. He asked if I wanted to follow them (him and his girlfriend, another good friend of mine!) to go swimming, but I felt that I had some catching up on zzz, mail and being alone to do.

Thus ends my week away from home!

Got up at 6.50 today too. Man, am I tired and sore from all the training! It’ll be good to sleep the whole weekend once I get back home again!

The morning training was outside again, and we did the rest of the kumi tachi, nr 4 and 5. For doing nr 5 you need a lot of room around you, since you’re moving in big circles around each other. It’s also the trickiest to do, since you change who’s attackning for a little while in the middle of the kumi tachi! Many times the attacker ends up as the defender when doing it.

The day was pretty hectic, not only did we have breakfast and lunch to prepare, but also to prepare the traditional gift for sensei and the party for friday night!

Before the training at noon, me, Zafer and Martina ventrured into town to buy the rest of the things needed for sensei’s present, and also to leave the group photo we took on wednesday to be developed. We made it back with 30 minutes to spare.

The training in the middle of the day was tai jutsu indoors. Sensei is very keen on warming up, and even though he is 62, he still makes us all sweaty with ease. I want to be like him when I’m 62! With all that vigor and energy he constantly shows. We did eri dori (grab at the neck), and some ryo katadori, if I remember correctly.

The training ended with 10 minutes for questions. I had a couple and I was glad that sensei demonstrated the solutions to them on Patrick instead of me! There was one thing he did, when he was talking about intention and kokyo nage, where he just lifted Patrick and threw him away! It looked sooo easy!

My question was about jo dori, how to do kokyo ho from it. I got two really good demonstrations, so now I know how to train them. Wheeee!

After training we ate left overs for lunch! We didn’t have any Sven left, but we drank Ulf (juice), and somehow I ended up saying: “The best part of the camp was when Ulf left my body!”, which, at the time, was hilarious! We wrote it down in the uchi deshi book, which is used for tips and tricks about uchi deshi life and also as a memory for fun/weird quotes and stuff, and we hope it’ll confuse future uchi deshis!

Then we did preparation for the party at the evening and pretty soon it was time for the last training of the week! We started at 4 pm, to create time for the party, so we didn’t have to eat too late in the evening. This time we did some ushiro ryo katatedori with kokyo ho. And we also did a ushiro ryo katadori (shoulder grab from behind), where sensei spun around, put his hand on my chin and grabbed my belt and heaved in two different directions!

The first one he did was quite calm, the fall is a bit tricky since you have to fall so you hit the floor with your entire side of the body at once. The second one… it felt like he threw me away across half the dojo! Cheesus! For a moment there, in the air, I was wondering if I would make it! It was marvelous

One thing I haven’t mentioned is that since I had the highest rank I was the one picked as uke many times. No wonder I feel so sore! Sensei sure knows how to throw someone around!

Afterwards we prepared for the party. It was barbeque, and we decided to sit outside. Soon after we had started eating, it started raining. Typical! After having endured the rain for a while we ended up moving the party to the uchi deshi outdoor kitchen instead.

Sensei and Eva-Karin, his girlfriend, our heavenly masseur (she massaged us during the week!), brought out some really good spirits, which we drank happily. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and then we had a de-e-e-licious chocolate cake for dessert, which Christina had made, and some apple pie, which I had made, and some bananas filled with dark chocolate and wrapped in tin foil and roasted in the grill, which Zafer made. Pweh, all the food an liqueur sure got to me!

It was then that we unveiled the gift to sensei. It was a basket with cheese, wine and crackers, and a photo of Claes, in a frame with a heart shaped passerpatou! I still don’t know how we came up with the idea, but almost everyone (except Claes, who was both amused and a little “terrified” thought it was a good idea! We were indeed a strange uchi deshi group.

But the look on senseis face and his grilfriend’s, Eva-Karin’s, was priceless!

Me and Zafer doing the 31-kumijo. I like the fact that I’m actually levitating!

Christina and Zafer training… ushiro ryo katadori kokyo ho! Sometimes you can’t hang on, but once nage’s hand (Christina’s in this case) comes up, you’re done!

Claes was a hero and did almost all the work at the grill!!! Zafer is at the left, inspecting something, and Pär, on the right, is trying to catch something to eat!

Here we have the infamous basket! We chose to take a picture of Claes since he has this look he does, which makes him look so darn sweet! He was The Chosen One! None of the rest of us would have been able to pull it off.

Here we have sensei’s reaction when he sees the picture! Also watch Eva-Karin, to the right of sensei, she laughed really hard when she saw the picture. It was the Perfect Gift!

So, that was the end of the week, next up is a short tale of the departing, the sadness of leaving all the good friends, and being followed by scouts on our way home!

I got up at 6.50 today too. I begin each morning with washing my face and head in really cold water, the only way for me to really wake up when I sleep a couple of hours each night. Then I do some qigong before the training starts.

This morning we had bokken again outside in the parking lot. We did kumi tachi nr 3 and suburi, before it started to rain. We then moved inside the dojo and did tai jutsu instead. We didn’t finish morning training until 9 am! I was soo exhausted!

We decided to ditch breakfast and instead have an early brunch. The brunch consisted of a batter pudding with cheese. The batter pudding was named Sven. We developed a story about Sven being a ninja in disguise who had the unfortunate examination task of infiltrating our camp, and to that end he disguised himself as a batter pudding. Many jokes ensued! Sven was really good! Unfortunately we didn’t manage to capture him on film before we had finished him off.

After brunch we went bowling. Yay! We did it since Maria had never bowled before. There were many gutter balls but she managed to make a strike atleast and got lots of horrays!

Other than that we didn’t do so much. It was a really slow day, almost everyone was tired and Martina hurt her elbow… closing the fridge! We don’t know how it happened, but it swelled up and prevented her from participating fully in all the days training. Poor Martina… Now the arm is wrapped in bandage to see if that helps.

In the afternoon we had jo outside. We did kumi jo 1-12, split up into 1-3, 4-6, 9-11 and then 1-12. Afterwards we did the whole 31 kumi jo! I trained with Pär today, he’s been training with Lasse for atleast 17 years! It’s good to train with him since he can perceive things I’m not aware of. He doesn’t always know what’s wrong, but he can feel that something is off, and when we look at it, we can often deduce where I need to improve my technique. Very good training!

Then we went into the dojo and continued with tai jutsu. We did a lot of kaitennage and then kokyo ho kaiten nage. A very fun technique! We finished off with some jiyu waza. Mmm!

I didn’t learn any new words in Värmlands-dialect today, but I’ve discovered to my horror that I keep slipping into using it when I talk!

Here are some pictures from todays adventures.

Zafer, me and Maria being happy that we are bowling and not eating bugs!

This picture is dynamic and we thought it looks like sensei is going to cut Zafer’s head off!

From left to right:

Claes, Zafer’s back, Christina, Lasse-sensei, Pär’s back and li’l old me! Were trying to synchronize 31 kumijo with each other.

Me trying out my superpowers as Aikidoman. Unfortunately the only superpower I seem to have developed is to look dorky with a hakama on my head!

Now it’s 11.07 pm and time for bed! Wuhuu!

I woke up at 6.50, after a very strange dream in which I had to run between my home and the hospital several times since I had ‘hay fever’. Don’t know what it is, but it sounded dangerous in the dream! I didn’t sleep well, woke up several times during the night.

The morning training was bokken again. We did several suburis and then kumi tachi nr 1 and 3. The plan is to try to go through all 5 of them before friday, but we can only do that if the weather permits it, since doing them inside, especially nr 4 and nr 5 is very hard because they require quite a large amount of space.

Today I was part of the toban group again. This time it consisted of me, Maria and Christina. I made a deal with them, that if they prepared and planned the food, I would wash the dishes. A plan that was accepted almost immediately. It was nice to be rid of the planning of the meals!

During breakfast Maria told us that she had slept poorly and in the morning she woke up because the sheep were bleating so much and in between sleep and awakedness she thought training had already started and the bleating she heard were our kiais! Says much about what she thinks about our kiais!

Before lunch we had outdoor training with jo. We did 13-22 in the 31-kumijo and then some exercises to better understand the basics of the movements. We did also some sankyo since we’ve been outside so much and only trained weapons, so sensei felt that there wasn’t enough of balance between tai jutsu (body techniques) and bukiwaza (weapon techniques).

To lunch we had lasagna! It was superb! I actually managed to stop eating after one helping, so I felt rather satisfied but not stuffed.

After lunch, and washing the dishes, I received massage from Eva-Karin, sensei’s girlfriend. She’s a professional masseur. I opted for a 45 min massage and it was wonderful. But heavens did I scream! It hurt so much when she poked her fingers in my back. But it was still that good kind of hurting, the one you know will do you good, but that in the present moment hurts like hell!

When I was sitting in the outdoor kitchen afterwards, sensei came by and he told us that he had a hard time sleeping when I was screaming so loud. I had no idea he tried to sleep! If I had know that I would have bit my knuckles instead

Then we went into town to shop groceries for the evening meal which was sushi and then cheese and wine for desert. During our journey home Maria uttered the following amazing words:

“Better to drink coffee out of a shoe than no coffee at all!”

You had to be there

In the evening we had one training in tai jutsu. Sensei threw us around as usual, especially me and Pär! We also did tanto dori (defence against knife, but with a wooden knife as a tool). I learned something new today: I know nothing about defending myself against a knife attack!

The word I’ve learned in Värmlands-dialect:

• svi - worry (hon oroar sig - hon svir)

Here are some pictures from todays activities.

A group picture with all the uchi deshis.

From left:
Top row - Karin, Zafer, Claes, Martina
Middle row - Patrik, Christina, Maria
Front row - Me, Lasse, Eva-Karin

The sushi meal! Sensei brought with him sake which we gladly drank! Kampai!

After the sushi we had wine and cheese. Indoors. Since the mosquitoes got quite angry outside.

Me catching bugs inside. They got inside since we had to open the window and the door to let in some fresh air. I try not to intentionally kill living things, so I used a glass and a sheet of paper to trap them and release them outside. I caught around 15 bugs!

Now it’s 01.31 am, so it’s time for bed!

As I wrote yesterday, went to bed rather late. I think I fell asleep around 2.30 am. I slept very heavily until suddenly the lights were turned on. It was sensei, Lars-Göran, he wondered if we were going to train this morning. I jumped out of my bed and asked what time it was. “Rapidly nearing 7.30 am”, he responded. In 3 minutes me, Claes and Patrik had changed into our gi’s and were standing outside! One of the fastest changes into training gear I’ve done.

The morning training was bokken (wooden sword) and we were outside, in the parking lot in front of sensei’s house. We trained there since the grass was still wet. When we started the training we were still missing one person. It was Zafer. He sleeps in a youth hostel 2 miles from the dojo and usually arrives running a couple of minutes before morning training.

He was also one of the tobans for today! He arrived running at 9 am. He had overslept since he had forgot to set the alarm clock.

For lunch we had home made pizza! Delicious! The feeding of Mika does indeed continue… Everyone but me, who had my stomach stuffed with pizza, ate the rest of yesterdays apple pie for desert.

During the daytime we’ve done a couple of chores like fastening more panel to the walls above the dojo, weeding the garden and brushing old paint of one of the outer walls. I like doing chores like this! It’s much more fun to work with my hands, instead of sitting infront of a computer all day long.

Besides chores we have been playing a game named ‘the plutt game’ (plutt-leken). It’s a game that was introduced to uchi deshi’s last year by Olle from my club. The rule is that if someone says your name and you answer it with ‘yes’, the person saying your name gets to say ‘plutt’, which means he’s won a plutt. It sounds pretty silly, and it is, but it’s fantastic how enthusiastic people get once they start doing it! Suddenly a sense of prestige arises in not being plutt:ed. I’ve been plutt:ed several times today. By sneaky questions like:

Patrik (raising a hand for a shomen uchi): “Are you ready, Mika?”
Mika: “Yes!”
Patrik: “Plutt!”

Besides chores and plutt:ing, we trained two more hours in the afternoon. This time outside and with jo. We did roku no jo, and several exercises preparing for kumijo. We did kumijo 13 to 31 today.

Afterwards we drove to a sauna near the lake Fryken. It’s a wood fueled one. A very nice one! Then we ordered food from the china restaurant in Torsby and feated on chicken with pineapple and other nice dishes. Then we drank some beer (not me, since I drove one of the cars), and swam in the lake.

Todays words in Värmlands-dialect:

• Göra - mud
• Höl - Hole

Here are some pictures from todays adventures.

This is what’s left of 3 kg candy. We had almost eaten everything yesterday already! Scary!

Me posing with a ladder. It’s a lot easier than it doesn’t look.

I’m working under cover, as a bio sanitation agent in… eh, or I’m just using a broom to try to dust off all the old red paint from the wall.

Patrik is watching me ranting on about why the key doesn’t fit into the lock at the sauna! Martina is not happy about being in another picture

Zafer, Karin (sensei’s daughter, who trains with us during this week. She was supposed to train with us as a regular uchi deshi the whole week, but her work doesn’t permit it), Claes and Maria are waiting the arrival of the proper key for the sauna.

Me and Martina try to get the fire going in the sauna. I love the smell of burning wood. Mmm!

Patrik has obviously been annoying again as Maria saw it fit to punish him!

The lake Fryken.

Now it’s 00.30 am. Time for bed! This time I’ll be sure to set my alarm!

Ugh! I slept really poorly this night. The first night in a new place I sleep horribly. Don’t really know why, but it’s been like that for as long as I can remember. I fell asleep around 01.20 am and woke up around 5 am and couldn’t fall asleep again. So I’ve felt a tad bit sluggish the whole day.

Today we trained bokken (wooden sword) in the morning, jo (wooden stick) around noon and tai jutsu (body techniques) in the evening. I’m hurting all over! But it’s the good kind of hurt, the one that tells you that you’ve been training alot!

Yesterday I assigned everyone into cooking teams (toban). The first cooking duty was assigned to me, Christina and Claes. We managed to make a decent breakfast with boiled eggs and porrige, and yoghurt and other stuff like bread, cheese and such. Tea and coffee included of course!

For lunch we made a thai inspired soup with coconut milk and curry paste. It was really good!

For dinner we made pork chops, sallad and potatoes au gratin, and my famous apple pie and ice cream for dessert! We finished dinner around 11.20 pm! We don’t usually finish dinner so late, but potatoe au gratin takes it’s time to finish.

For tuesday we decided that we’ll go to the sauna and drink a couple of beers after the evening training, and then buy food at a restaurant near the beach instead of making food. That’ll be yummy!

Now I wish to share some of the things we do as uchi deshi:

• Before and after a training we clean the dojo. We wipe the trims and vacuum the mat.
• We make sure we have changed into our gi’s and hakama’s before sensei (teacher) arrives.
• When I spot sensei closing in on the dojo, I clap my hands twice to indicate that it’s time to sit down on the mat and wait for sensei to arrive. This part of my duty as Dojo Sempai.
• Before a meal we clap our hands together and say Ittadakimasu, which roughly translates to Let’s eat.
• After a meal we clap our hands together and say Gochisousamadeshita, which I’m not sure how to translated. But it’s something about Thanks for the food.

I’ve also learned a couple more words in Värmlands-dialect:

• Töligt - Complicated (krångligt)
• Mölter - Cloudberries (hjortron)
• Kröser - Lingonberry
• Glingt - Slippery
• Klaken - Frosen [solid]
• Bönn - Knitted (e bönntröj - a knitted sweater)

Christina lent me her camera and I snapped a bunch of pictures of the uchi deshis and the dojo we’re at:

Me, acting totally normal with a knife in my hand. We’re peeling and cuting the potatoes for the potatoe au gratin.

Christina sits and takes it easy after the shower.

Claes looking into the camera, actually looking quite normal!

Zafer posing.

Martina looking michevious.

Patrik being punished by Maria for being annoying as usual!

This is Lars-Göran’s house, the senseis house. The light to the right is the light from the doorway into the common room for uchi deshis.

This is the dojo. The windows are all open since it was really hot during practice and we had to air out the dojo. The window to the right is the window into the common room.

The entrance for the practitioners and uchi deshis. The big doors on the picture above this one is sensei’s door. It’s only used by sensei. The dojo itself is to the right.

The dojo. Here we conduct most of the training.

These are the stairs that lead up to the bedroom for the men.

The men’s bedroom.

My bed! It’s my own inflatable madrass.

This is the view from the side of the dojo. Immediately to my right from where I took this picture, is the entrace for practitioners and uchi deshis. The tyre in the foreground is a tanren uchi, it’s used to practice cutting with a bokken or a jo.

The entrance to the uchi deshi common room on the left and the outdoor kitchen to the right.

The uchi deshi common room. Here we spend a lot of time, especially if the weather outside is lousy.

The kitchen next to the common room. Not used very much during the summer. We use the outdoor kitchen for all cooking and cleaning.

The shower and toilet! Oh! Maria was taking a shower!

The stairs up to the ladies bedroom.

The ladies bedroom.

The outdoor kitchen.

Mmm. Meat! Pork chops for dinner!

Potatoe au gratin, also for dinner. It was very yummy!

Now it’s definitively time to go to bed. It’s 1.45 am.

Got up at 10 am. Aaah! Refreshing! Except that I dreamt about zombies and had to kill a few of them, as Al Bundy! It was the Bundy family that was on the run from them.

We also traversed Mt Everest and ended up in a roman built kathedral type of thingie with water running in the middle. Somehow Captain Picard decided it would be a good spot to wash, so he, and a lot of other good looking men, took of their clothes and dabbed themselves with the water. Nice dream I say!

Then I was treated to lots of food again. Chili on carne this time. De-elicious! I didn’t eat so much, but I stayed full the whole day nevertheless.

Mari, me and the boys took a sightseeing cruise through Vansbro. Not much to see, except that I realised that I had driven past there a couple of times, when driving up to Sälen, a ski-resort. I didn’t see it until we came into town from the right direction!

We also visited Karamellfolket (Caramel people), who had an incredible 516 different sorts of candy to choose from! I ended up buying 3 kg of candy for 210 kr. I thought it would be a good idea to bring it to the other uchi deshis*!

Around 3 pm Pär arrived and we left for Torsby, the start of a intensive week of training.

We arrived in Torsby around 4.30 pm and were greeted by most of the other uchi deshis. We were supposed to be 9 people, but one got his finger caught between a rock and big stone (rock and a hard place, anyone?), and another person from Linköping e-mailed that he wouldn’t make it. So we’re only 7 now. These are the brave seven:

• Me, Mika, from Linköping
• Maria from Torsby
• Martina from Torsby
• Christina from Kalhäll outside of Stockholm
• Zafer from Jönköping
• Claes from Halmstad
• Patrik from Halmstad

Since I’m the highest ranking person here, with my 1 dan, I’m automatically appointed the duties and responsibilites of Dojo Sempai, which means I work as a conduit between our Sensei, Lars-Göran, and the uchi deshi group.

For me it’s both and honour and a burden! I’ve never been Dojo Sempai before, but I think I’m fully qualified for the job, which is to see to that we have cooking teams (toban) and make sure everything runs smoothly. Not a hard task when you have a great bunch of people like this. The burden is that I was looking forward to a week without too much responsibilites, but I think I’ll find a nice balance between goofing off and doing chores

We had our first training today, and Lasse taught a lot of basics, with some throwing involved. The warm up nearly killed us! As I feared I got to act as uke (the one being thrown) many times. Which is actually a good thing! But I haven’t seriously trained for a couple of weeks so I feel totally out of form. I was panting a lot at the end of the class.

Tomorrow we get up at 7 am. Training starts at 7.30 am to 8.30 am. The schedule for the week looks like this:

Monday: 07.30-08.30, 12.00-13.00, 18.30-19.45
Tuesday: 07.30-08.45, 17.00-18.00, 18.00-19.00
Wednesday: 07.30-08.30, 12.00-13.00, 18.30-19.45
Thursday: 07.30-08.45, 17.00-18.00, 18.00-19.00
Friday: 07.30-08.30, 12.00-13.00, 16.00-17.15, 18.00 PARTY!

After the training I dished out some information, we decided that we would try to go to a sauna on tuesday, I divided everyone into cooking teams and put them in charge of the different days during the week and then we went into town to eat pizza (I didn’t buy more than a diet coke since I was still full, but I gobbled some left over kebab from Martina).

Afterwards we went to the uchi deshi common room and played a game called Geni. Martina was the first one to reach 10 points! We we’re all extremely happy that the game ended since it took nearly 2 hours to play. Me and Zafer discussed Dr Who, Red Dwarf and Stanislav Lem during the game. Seems we’re both computer and sci-fi nerds

Patrik tried to convince us that the moon landing never took place. Me and Zafer presented our arguments against that particular conspiracy theory. Patrik is under 20, so I gather it’s a phase he’s going through, likes to question authorities and “well known facts”. I think we can straighten him out during the week

I also learned a couple of words from the Värmlands-dialect:

• Kröttrer - Cows
• Sö - Sheep, Söer - Several sheep
• Joäpple - Potatoe
• Grönn - Think about (grunna)

Well, time to go to bed. Another post will be coming monday night! Sleep tight and don’t let the beg buds bite!

* Uchi deshi means “inside student” in japanese, which is a student living together with a sensei, to train and to do the chores sensei deems appropriate

Here’s something original Lots of talk, but somewhere in the middle it’s quite interesting (if I may say so myself, and I may!).

This is recorded in Torsby in may this year, when I was uchi deshi at Lars-Göran Andersson-senseis dojo. Mark Larson from USA was there and had a seminar together with Lars-Göran, and one of his students, Matthew, taped it.

Biiru waza is japanese and translates to Beer Techniques (Carro or Martin, you have to help me with the translation if I got it wrong!). The art of taking and defending your beer, using aikido basics.

Someday I’ll register a good domain for Biiru waza and start the trend that will change the world!