The first training session started at Monday morning when sun rose from the horizon. Heat and brightness were tough for a girl who is used to Finnish cold climate.

At the beginning of training there were a lot reunions and introductions. Everybody seemed very brisk. Old fellows were greeting each other and new friendships were bound with handshakes. Yoshinao Nanbu himself came and shook hands with each member of nanbudo family.

The first thing was to learn a new way to get into seiza. This had to be practised few times over, especially by those who had been training for a longer time including Nanbu himself. On top of that we got a new ending for kinanbutaiso. First it felt really clumsy and difficult. I just tried to keep up with others pace.

After couple of days things started to feel alot more relaxed. It was not that horrifying to train with people from different countries some kata or bunkai cause everybody acted always so friendly. I got some good pieces of advice from different sources and when one sums them up, there you have elements of excellent performance.

In two weeks one learns a great deal of new stuff. Especially techniques practised in small groups were received best. Kinanbutaiso as well as some other katas became so familiar that I am capable of doing them all by myself. Even though I have to pay more attention to what I am doing than preciseness of the technique it feels like I have taken a big step in progress. So I got a lot. And more than just nanbudo.

I got many new comrades, some of them as far away as Japan, and in its own way this helps me to proceed doing nanbudo. I can barely wait until next summer and Playa de Aro training seminar.

Anna-Kaisa Lönnroth, 5th kyu after the seminar