How come it's so cold and rainy? This was supposed to be the Spanish summer!

The week in Playa de Aro is probably best remembered by most of us because of our misfortune with the weather. And I heard last week was even worse. They had to move three training sessions indoors. In this latter week there was only one cancelation with small theory class and kido-ho training in the hotel instead.

Though rainy weather has its effect on beach training, it ruins more efficiently the holiday on the beach which is something this week was NOT about! Somehow I've always felt the nanbudo group that gathers annually in the Playa de Aro beach is a bit separated from the rest of the crowd (tourist cattle). We have our (proper) reason to be (exactly) there, we have the unity, we have each other. But first and foremost we have the reason - training. Enjoying training right at the moment and also personal development in the art of Nanbudo and learning new stuff.

This seminar had a lot of that "new stuff". From his bottomless magic hat Nanbu doshu-soke had pulled several new Nanbu sotai pair techniques, which we trained in addition to the traditional (Nanbu and advanced) katas, Nanbu keiraku taiso katas and kinanbutaiso - as well as some basic technique. These new Nanbu sotai randoris included Nanbu sotai: juji randori ichi no kata, juji kakuto randori ichi and ni no kata, tomoenage randori ichi no kata, kubi shime randori ichi no kata etc. On kata section we trained a bit of all Nanbu keiraku taiso katas, some Nanbu katas and shin tajima as well as kagya hime.

The accommodation was well organized, thanks to Leo. We were a bunch of people in a flat right on the outskirts of Playa de Aro center, and we were representing as many as five nationalities. There were certain tensions among some of us, having so different people staying together, but I think we managed pretty well. And there is always a change to learn something.

I also spent quite a bit of time with the French (Paris and Crest) delegation, whom I also thank for their great company.

See you next year!

Kalle Lönnroth, 2 dan