I arrived to the Oslo Gardermoen airport in Sunday evening. In order to avoid all kind of jet lagging, I arrived one day prior to the start of the seminar. A bus to Oslo central station, which is some 50 kilometres from the airport, costed 95 NOK. The train would have been faster, thus more expensive, but as the Norway is somewhat nearly double as expensive as Finland, I need to say every penny/cent. For the accommodation I saved quite a bunch, since one of the local nanbudokas, Hanne Gulseth was kind enough to let me stay at her place. Once again. I am more than grateful for her of the several times she has given me a place to stay during my time in Oslo.
As every year, the Oslo Karate Club organises a winter seminar conducted by the founder Yoshinao Nanbu doshu. The seminar started in Monday and as the trainings are held only in the evenings, I had plenty of time to see around Oslo. Even time for jogging.
The trainings included a lot of details of Kinanbutaiso, several randori katas, both from Budoho and Kidoho areas, and of cource Nanbu and Genki Nanbu katas. Also the following Shihotai katas got their bunkai revealed:
- Tsuki
- Ten
- Chi
- Hasu
- Ki
- Mizu
Since I am currently the only nanbudoka in Finland, I get special attention and thus I had some more training time with several higher graded member from the club, either after or before the official training times.
In Saturday morning the examinations took place. Even I got something during the examinations, the official passport of the Worldwide Nanbudo Federation with a license for the current year, thus became an official member of WNF.
In Saturday evening was the time for "Graderings fest", the dinner party, which lasted for several hours past the midnight. Except that not in the same location as where it started.
In Sunday I still had the time to visit snowy Holmenkollen and few other places on the way. Even further to Voksenkollen, where the king Olav used to ski. For the next seminar I will have no jet lag, as the it starts in Monday, in a town called Skien, which is some two hours by car from Oslo.
Jukka Paasonen