A very successful camp that commenced during a full storm resulting in the administration tent being demolished, while Sensei Jan Kallenbach and Sempai Åke hung like weights on the restaurant tent so that this did not disappear as well – in fact Åke lost contact with the ground and was saved by Sensei Jan´s extra kilo´s. All participants arrived on Thursday and like previous gashuku´s it was good to see the familiar and the new faces. This year the cabins were (almost) enough for all and we were given a warm welcome by Staffan and Carina.

Thursday evening a meeting was held for the instructors from Europe to go through the training program which was a new concept this year – dividing all into smaller groups allowing closer contact with the sensei with the possibility of asking explainnations, this proved to be much appreciated. Some instructors were however missed this time – Sensei Jean-Luc Lesueur also Sensei Hans Bakker, and Sensei Jacques Legree participated as a trainee.
This year training was emphasised on stillness, important details on difficult techniques were appreciated.

On Saturday evening the annual Taikiken European Federation meeting was held and then later three short presentations by Sempai Åke, changes in his 35 years budo training, Sempai Marco, and Rickard told how they used the principles from Taikiken in their daily work, these experiences were most interesting and liked by all attending, shown by the applaud afterwards.

The training experienced by the French team with Sensei Marshall will not be forgotten in training the basic defence against padded bo, jo, and shinai in the lake. The following day all 44 kenpoka went through training in the water with Sensei Marshall showing the concentration needed – some things worked others did not, but all enjoyed this different way of training.

All too soon the Gashuku ended, and this international group of wonderful budoka left knowing it would be a year before meeting again

Åke Wall

Andreas and Åke

Early Morning

Gashuku evening

Monika and Henrik

Perfekt Taiki weather

Sensei Jan teaching

Sensei Jaques teaching Åke

Sensei Kallenbach and Marko

Training in the sea

Sensei Marshall, Sensei Jaques and Varta