My original idea about these two seminars was to take Paavo with me to check out how are things in Norway. It turned out that Paavo was about to have some entrance exams during those weeks, so he pretty much had his priorities elsewhere. I went alone anyways - and in the end had probably two heaviest weeks of my nanbudo career so far. At least if we exclude that infernal heat of Playa de Aro summer seminars.

For my surprise I found out that my feet tolerated training better that they used to. I didn't manage to raise any major blisters. This was strange cause I partake all adult training and 60 % of junior trainings, which is a lot more than previously. The muscular stiffness was another thing. Even that was manageable when I had the patience to stretch thoroughly enough.

We did a lot of Nanbu sotai stuff during both weeks. One thing worth mentioning was Nanbu sotai aiki undo exercises. We saw two randoris from this group: ichi no kata and irimi no kata, along with good number of smaller drills. On top of that we did some amount of shihotai and Nanbu katas, Nanbu keiraku taiso ichiban and sanba_n and of course regular dose of _kinanbutaiso at the beginning of each training session.

During these weeks a got to think alot about my attitudes, expectations and priorities. It was not all funny fun fun, but I think I saw some progress. It is peculiar how physical training can provoke mental side aswell. Another peculiar thing is that no matter how bad I feel at the beginning of the training I always feel good afterwards.

The last week I had a change to have a quick word with Stig Hansen about senior nanbudo - or nanbudo to wheelchair or otherwise impaired people. The idea behind was my forthcoming traineeship in a senior citizens retirement institution. I just might try to slip in some nanbudo into their recreational activity calender.

Kalle Lönnroth, 2 dan