My second time in the biggest seminar of the year, in Playa de Aro, Spain, started in Sunday morning when I arrived to Girona bus station from Italy. I had made arrangements with the nanbudokas from Oslo, Norway, that we would stay in the same house. I managed to find the house, but only because one of the people were already there at the location.
Training started in Monday morning in the burning heat under the Spanish sun. Each weekday there were two trainings in the guidance of the founder of Nanbudo, Yoshinao Nanbu doshu. Each of the trainings lasted for one and half to two hours. This year there were also three practitioners from Japan, Natsumi from Osaka and Hiroyuki from Kobe. For the second week also Masatoshi from Osaka arrived. Technically there were several changes since I had not been in the International seminars for nearly two years. For example _Kinanbutaiso _had changes in each of its ten sections.
Several new kinagare randori katas were introduced by Nanbu doshu. For example Kinagare randori ukemi no kata and Kinagare suwari randori ichi no kata. We also had the change to do _Tenchi undo shiage no _katas tsuki, ten and chi. Each of them consist of four parts. With the Japanese nanbudokas I had the opportunity to practise my Japanese language skills with the writing of kanji.
In the Monday of the second week, Nanbu doshu nominated a new shihan, Antoine Vanhee from France.
In the Saturday of the second week, a World Cup took place in the sports hall of Playa de Aro. The night before, the president of the Worldwide Nanbudo Federation (WNF), Ove Gusevik organised an opening party for the competition. The following Sunday, the elections for the executive commission of the WNF took place, but I could not take part in it as I fly back from Barcelona in the early Sunday morning. I was supposed to take a bus from Playa de Aro, but by accident I overslept and would have not made it in time to the airport unless
Svein Kristoffersen from Norway would have not taken me there with his motorbike.
Jukka Paasonen, 2 dan