Polish Summer Camp 2006

Our summer camp took place this year in Inowroclaw. We were training outside and in the gym. The camp was almost cancelled, but like every year it has to be done! And it was...

Before camp was officially started, Meijin visited Biskupin. It's one of the oldest towns in Europe! It is thought to have been around for 2700 years! The next day we started to train. Meijin's drills were hard! After a few hours of training, nobody could move their legs, but everyone was happy to learn something new.

That evening we started the second part of our training. This part was spent on techniques. Gi grabs - both hand and one hand and deshi techniques. All deshi worked on their monjin categories and then learned senpai kata.

Also we made some progress with weaponry. Bokken, sai, tonfa, nunchaku, and manriki were the main weapons we were training to know better. There was a lot of fun and some pain, which is nothing new to training with weapons.

The final day was the exam day. All of my students were quite sure of their knowledge on the next rank, but when the exam began, all of them were nervous. Every member of Poland Summer Camp made his next rank, which means that everyone made some progress in their skills. Now we have a lot to do. We learned lots of new things which we need to repeat and improve.

In the Poland Summer Camp were 8 Konigun students. Now our goal is to make it double on the next one. By the end of the year we are planning to open a second class in Torun and in the first part of next year, hopefully, a third.

There is more good news: Monjin Adam and I are coming to the USA during next summer. We are looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Monjin Pawel
poland@konigunninjutsu.com

Japan Trip May 2006 - Part 1

Hey everyone, did you enjoy camp? I just now have time to sit down and tell you about our trip to Japan. I imagine a just few of you might be interested in a first hand account. Sorry it took so long, at first I had to process all the pictures we took, then help mom, then the Gathering and Conclave - whew! Didn't those pictures Jim, Jason and I took turn out great? Especially the scrolls, they are so beautiful. I really wish I knew what they said. Now, we tried to document everything we saw with pictures for you guys and will try to add the commentary to each one as things calm down here in the Home Office.

We started off with a 17 hour plane ride to Tokyo in which we practiced our broken Japanese skills with other passengers on the plane. Needless to say, it started us on a path of understanding that would serve us well throughout our trip.

When we arrived in Tokyo we got to experience something unique - they lost our luggage. It actually came on a different plane from LA when we flew out of NJ, but the airport officials handled everything efficiently. Once the other plane landed, we were on our way to the heart of Tokyo. Found out the Taxi rides cost around $80, so we decided on alternate means of transportation to our hotel.

Once there, the jet lag hit us and we were out until the next morning, when Bushi Jim(now Yoshi - congrats!) and myself caught a train to pay our respects to soke Hatsumi. We followed the map that the Bujinken members had given to the Dojo, but found out after much walking that the station we needed was one more stop down the line. With some help from some neighbors, and a pair of Europeans walking across the tracks, we discovered that Hatsumi-san now teaches every Tuesday at the public sports complex in a section of Tokyo. Once again we hopped on the train - we got to see lots of great scenery and I think it is just fun to ride on them. I wish we had more of them in the states, because it is a great way to travel.

Finally we arrived where we needed to be, to deliver the present we had carried from the states to show respect for Hatsumi sensei. We saw students and black belts from every what seemed like every country of the world and even a couple Japanese who are all paying £30 per two hour class. Luckily, they allowed us to watch while we waited to be presented to Hatsumi-san. It is always very enlightening watching the techniques of other styles.

Hatsumi san went over some basic techniques while different people translated not only what he said, but what they experienced when he did the techniques on them. I guess not everyone understood what their sensei was trying to convey as I saw some impossible techniques and movement sequences. A lot were giving courtesy drops it appeared, because they would drop in a different direction than the joint/bone manipulation would be sending them them. It seemed as if Hatsumi sensei had noticed it also.

As he walked around the room, he could only get so far before he seemed compelled to jump in and add something new for everyone to try. Each of the few times he saw a student performing good technique would invariably lead to another lesson. I met a quite few good people while observing, and if I ever make it to their part of the world I will definitely stop in to see them. After all the goodbye's, we finally got a chance to be introduced to soke Hatsumi by one of his students. He helped translate what Yoshi Jim is unable, which it not too much. Hatsumi-san really liked the gift we brought, the Jack Daniels for which Tennessee is famous. We told him that our teacher had respect for him and in honor of the respect our teacher had conveyed, we brought this gift over from America. He asked who our teacher was, and we informed him - he asked, Koga? No, Konigun. At this point his student and he conversed quite a bit after which he had some interesting advice, "All ninjutsu comes through him."

I considered this confusing as I thought, What about the Koga? We will find out when we ask them at our next stop! To be continued...

Torun: Great Climate!

Every year when it gets hot outside, we move our training area to a clearing in the woods where nobody can disturb our training. Our group really likes training over there. Hinin Michal said that the place has a special, great climate! The peaceful area between the trees and hill is used to vary every training session (as you can see in the picture - Hinin Michal and Hinin Maciej are warming up).

I opened my dojo 9 months ago. I'm teaching Konigun twice a week. Our Polish part of the Fukuro Family generally has a class of about 9 people, but "extra" students some to train with us in Torun several times a year before Camps with Meijin Jay. During our classes we keep on a schedule pie which covers everything which a new student of Konigun should know. Stretching, gymnastics, stamina, and basic techniques all make our training very interesting. A few weeks ago we bought gloves, casks, and a bag to practice with and get better at everything. We laugh about the fact that we carry our school on our backs because Deshi Adam and I carry all of that stuff to every class on our backs. Of course, we also train with weapons. Our students are learning basic moves with the bokken, bo-staff, or fighting belt.

The students met Meijin Jay for the first time last winter. They were impressed! There was some time for joking and resting, but the whole camp was certainly not for wasting time! We were practicing 8-9 hours a day and after training we were dead on our feet. Now everyone is looking forward to the next camp. We are honored that Meijin is coming to us twice a year to help us improve our skills. We are trying to represent our style as well as we can. Hopefully Konigun Ninjutsu will be strong and popular in Europe pretty soon. We'll do our best to make it happen.

Greetings from Poland! Coming soon: The next edition of Torun Dojo News!

Deshi Pawel

Konigun Cutting in MS

This month down south at the Kori dojo, the Fukuro clan has been working on everyone's favorite cutting weapon: the daito. Earlier we worked with shinai to get ready for the real thing, practicing strikes and blocks, and doing wrist-strengthening exercises. By the middle of the month we were working on sword wind in the dojo, listening carefully and wishing we were located a little further away from a busy street. We began to collect used bottles from soft drinks, water, and even some milk cartons and stockpiled them in the store. When the time came the class filled the bottles with water, stacked concrete blocks up and used the pedestal as a place to chop the bottles up. We worked with a variety of strikes, creating what some might call art. Yoshi David is still awaiting a response from a gallery in New York. After eviscerating about half of our bottle stash, we decided it was time to practice penetration strikes. The results were varied, but as you can see from the picture, Deshi Judin managed to do all right, using a forward penetration strike to cleave a bottle in two, without even damaging the neck! When all was said and done, there was a group of very amused, very wet ninjas, trying to figure out why it was so hard to cut through Fusion energy drink bottles. But everyone has a much better understanding of the way cutting works, now that we've done it some.

More and more gorilla gloves have come in, which means soon we'll be getting into full on shinai sparring. Maybe next time I'll write about that, if my arms aren't too sore! The gathering is coming up shortly, and the Kori clan is eager to show what we've learned to the rest of the ryu. See you there!

NMK Martial Arts Center

It is time for another installment of Majoshu news from the crazy Northern ninjas. The big news from our part of the world is that we have officially opened a new dojo! We are currently teaching Konigun at the school on three days a week, and basic self defense (for those who are not quite up for Konigun-style contact) on another two days of the week. Taibushi Bonnie is working on her schedule to begin running weapons camps at least once a month as well.

The dojo is smallish, but bright with a padded floor and plenty of parking. It is refreshing for us to have an indoor area big enough to run a kata in without resetting after all of our practice in the snow over past years. Teaching publicly is a big step for the Majoshu family, since we have been taking only those students who have managed to track us down in our incognito status over the past few years. It is still a small class, we range from class sizes of four to twelve, but we take advantage of that to make sure that everyone gets plenty of individual attention and instruction during class time. The student count right now splits evenly between Majoshu and Kanshisha, so we combine our classes.

As usual, I'm thinking that the Majoshu students are going to be the ones that everyone at camp shies away from until they decide whether we're all crazy or if it is just Taibushi. My personal opinion is that Taibushi is perfectly normal and that her students exaggerate...but then again since I AM Taibushi I might be slightly biased. Majoshu will report in again within a few months, hopefully to report a bigger student count. Until then, if you're reading this and not already a Konigun student you can click on the dojo links page if you are from the Central New England area and are interested in training.