Saturday

The first time in our history, and for the 10th time, everyone from both Gothenburg and Stockholm in place at Honbu Dojo in Rävlanda, I feel every time that I am glad to meet our friends from Gothenburg, there is laughter, warmth and a very nice bantering of action and words

The schedule looked like last year but the questions on the written test were on a higher level and that is not so surprising. Everyone who trains in Yoshinken has been a very long time now both in their basic former arts and in Yoshinken and now Yudansha, this requires of course a lot from the participants.

We have for a long time been working with the essence of martial arts with meaning, application, dimension and flow. We do not know if this is written down in any other art, this is very strange when you've learned the basics and taken Shodan this should be the continuation.

We did not just use our brains on Saturday night, it was as usual a fantastic nice dinner also that Sensei Marshall arranged. During the dinner we handed out gifts because our Sensei turned 70 years and we had too far to go to congratulate so it had to be in arrears.

From Stockholm, Sensei got a Remembrance where we gathered photos from the start in 2001 and up until 2013. from both old and current members. Many greeted and congratulated. Gothenburg group had bought a very nice designed teacup. Matts brought a Massai sword from his time in Africa and Anders Öfverström had painted a calligraphy even though he is no longer a member.

Several members and former members wrote in the book how much Yoshinken meant to them even in their everyday lives.

Very pleasing for me was that Lennart Eliasson had his Oku-iri Shodan . He has long been our ”Beginner" but plodded along in many years and has a Shodan in Wado-ryu karatedo.

Sunday

After a nice breakfast the training started in stillness with a great review of Sensei Marshall in "The Shower" this with an accuracy that few trainers are capable of, in my acceptance speech after practice I mentioned just how I do when I judge trainer so the lowest on the scale that they can only describe the technique with angles and without explaining why, on the other hand, we have Sensei Marshall who can explain every detail of a movement and the meaning therein. It's very rare that you get to experience this.

Anders Bengtsson took a part of training and showed us a couple Jujutsu techniques and fun to get input from another art included in Budo and Anders is very skilled here. Fillip and Patrick also took a part of the training and showed the correlation between the use of weapons and empty-hand technique in Yoshinken.

Training ended with Tanshu and I think this was what my body and mind need after this weekend.

Looking at the quality of Yoshinken on our 10th Shin-nen-keiko. I hope Sensei Marshall is proud of what he has accomplished within modern Budo. I think it is amazing.

Osu

Åke Wall