I've been sitting on this post for ages. Its time to reflect (hah) on the 2006 National Iaido and Jodo Championships that I attended this January!
First impressions
Wollongong was Hot and Sticky. At least for the first two days. We arrived in Sydney at the dog-awful hour of 6:20 AM (that's right, 2 hours before I'm usually awake, in a timezone 3 hours ahead), and caught the trains down to Fairy Meadow. A mere 90 minute train ride (zzzzzz). The trains might have been airconditioned, but they were still unpleasantly sticky. But not as unpleasantly sticky as when we got off.
We checked into the student accomodation at the University of Wollongong's (UOW) Campus East residential campus, and went in search of food. After about an hour or so, after finding the beach, we managed to get across to the other side of the train tracks and find the local shopping district. By this time we had a small handle on the local geography - enough to get us to the shops and back anyway. We found a small cafe and had a lousy excuse for bacon and eggs for breakfast before heading back to catch some sleep.
Wollongong might be a nice place, but the first experience with the weather made a week of training feel ominous...
The Seminar
My feet hurt. A lot. The seminar was held in the indoor basket balls courts in the UOW's recreation centre. Unfortunately, just 4 weeks prior to the seminar the courts had been resurfaced, which made them both hard and sticky. Not all that great for 7 days of pounding around on them, let me tell you that (and I'll let my feet do the phrasing).
The seminar itself was fantastic. 9 Sensei from Japan, and Dr Lee from Perth, as well as all the high ranking sensei and a wide cross section of students from all over the country. Lots of great people, lots of talent, and lots of great training under the tutelage of the Japanese Sensei.
Oda Sensei supervised the Iaido side of things and let the rest of the sensei do all the work :) We were split into groups based on what grading we were going for, so Marcus and I ended up having Kawafuku Sensei for the first two days, then Harada sensei for the next two.
Now you have to understand this: these guys are not young. While I don't know their exact age, I do know that they're at least in their late 70's, if not 80's (about half of the sensei were younger, but not by much). White haired little guys commanding the full respect of the people they're teaching. While we're working up a sweat they're having an easy time. One word: Wow.
Nagayama Sensei supervised the Jodo side of things. I was lucky enough to get a basic tandoku brush-up from Lee Sensei (Dr Lee), and spent the remainder of the time practicing kata with Yoshimura Sensei - a real character.
The Language Barrier made training interesting. There was a fair bit of standing around while the sensei tried to explain something to us in Japanese, while we could only listen in Bewilderment. Brendan was able to do some translation, but overall his general knowledge of Japanese wasn't good enough to do more than guess half the time. So we resorted to watching him do something, point something out, shake his head, and then do it again properly, point something out, and then nod his head. Fairly amusing, but also quite hard when the concept is quite subtle.
The hot and sticky weather (mentioned above) made the first two days of training quite nasty, in terms of comfort. You can put on your gi and hakama first thing in the morning (6:30 am), and be sweating in it by the time you get on the bus (I know I sweat alot anyway [yuk], but I wasn't the only one). Training in the large, un-airconditioned rec centre didn't help either - by midday you'd be soaking with sweat. Thankfully, you get to change uniform so you can soak that one too. We either got used to the weather, or it got cooler, but by the third day it wasn't nearly so uncomfortable, and you could get on with training despite it.
It took 6 days for my feet to get used to the floor though.
Grading and Championships
I was worried about my Jodo grading - the partner that I had to grade with hadn't been practicing for a while, which meant that our kata didn't feel good. I still tried to get the feeling of the kata, and put everything else in there, but it didn't seem to help. However, we were still apparently good enough to pass, and we both graded to sho dan. I'm not too happy about the grading, and it was a repeat performance in the competition where we (rightfully) got wiped out by a pair of low grades in the kyu grade competition. I also got enterred into the dan grade comp with Sensei Jeri James, but we got wiped out there too. That wasn't unexpected though, given we were up against a pair of san dan's.
The Iaido grading went particularly well. I felt really confident about my performance coming off the floor despite coming on feeling quite zoned out. I think that might have helped, putting me somewhere near the state of "mind of no mind". Whatever it was, when doing the grading, it just felt as if everything that was taught during the week came together and worked for me. Feeling good about my grading, I was feeling confident about the Iaido singles competition, but I lacked something and got wiped out in the first round - even though I thought my technique was technically correct. Sure enough, when I ran into Oda Sensei later, he commented that my technique was really good, but I needed to put just a little more spirit behind it, give it that snap in the cuts, a little more zanshin. I put that into my Iaido teams competition, and managed to win my round (even if we lost overall), which made me feel a lot better about the Iaido single and Jodo competitions!
Off the court
Most of our time when not at the seminar was spent holed up in the common area of one of the housing groups, where we chatted away with the crew from WA, including Dr Lee, the sensei from our dojo (Ramon, Russell, Jeri), Marcus, Tony, Hans, Euan, Brendan, Tom, Rhys, Denichi, etc. Although there was a relaxed and casual attitude, I learnt so much, possibly more than I did on the dojo floor.
We still did meet up with other people though, during breakfast and dinner at the foodhall, lunch, and general all round shenannigans. We got to meet all the sensei at a casual dinner at their accomodation, at which they cooked for us. It was great to meet them on a casual basis, even if the language barrier did get in the way. The food was spectacular - different from anything you get from Japanese restruants around here, but still as delicious as anything.
A few of us also found the computer room at the accomodation, which had real airconditioning! (None of this 'evaporative' crap). So I spent some time (not much - maybe 3 hours all up) there emailing and chatting online with
The Official Dinner
This was held in one of the function rooms at the accomodation, large enough to fit us all around 11 or 12 large round tables. The Sensei spread themselves around (with the idea that every table had a Japanese Sensei), and we ended up having Dr Lee on our table, and Yoshimura Sensei sitting just behind me on another table. The food was buffet style, and wasn't that impressive, but we made up with it by having plenty of alcohol. Our table had the largest collection of bottles (11?) than any other table (possibly more than all the other tables combined). We made sure to share it around though, so things got a bit 'happy' in the end.
The highlight of the dinner was definately the auction. Jeri James was the auctioneer (as he is is every year), and he did a fine job. He openned with a green silk sageo, which I managed to score for a good price. There were heaps of items, but the most notable ones were the donations from the Japanese sensei, incuding: two iaito from Igarashi-san; a beautiful doll from Saito Sensei; a fan with a poem penned by one of the founders of Seitei Jodo, given to Yoshimura sensei, who then put it up for auction (which went for a steal at $300, but I didn't have enough funds to outbid Sensei Ramon for it); a signed fan from Shoji Sensei; a few beautiful laquerred plates and serving dishes from Oda Sensei. The list goes on. The auction was highly entertaining, and managed to raise over $5000 for the New South Wales club.
The Leaky Bucket
Marcus had the bright idea of writing stuff down in the evennings, and I wish I had done something similar. Alas, I didn't even take a pen over with me, let alone anything to write on. There was so much more that happenned that I didn't even mention in here. I learnt so much while I was over there, but even on the way home I could feel a lot of it slipping away. I still took away much much more than I came with.
Next year's seminar and competition is being held in Hobart, and I'm looking forward to attending again, despite the promise of sore feet.