Kokai 2008

5 days camping on the grass near the forest and training all day!

Organized by the Brussels (Cinquantenaire) Dojo @ Villers-la-Ville (South of Brussels).

We had so much good luck with the weather! only the last day we had some rain, the other days we could train outside all the time, in the sun, in the shade, in the evening, no problem. Just lovely. A real summer camp.

I can’t really say much about it, just that it was wonderful being outside all the time, with nature, energy, the sun… you know what; just check out the pictures on (again) zenfolio.

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Pedro Fleitas Seminar in Hamm

Ok, it’s been a while since I went to Pedro’s seminar, but let’s add this anywayz…

If I remember correctly it was on the 28 & 29th of June, in Hamm Germany.

We managed to arrive a little late due to following blindly the GPS directions hahaha, we ended up at a farm, afterwards seems that there are alot of streets named as the address we were going to!
well, eventually we got there but since it’s was nearly noon, we just started training with the afternoon sessions.

The hall was great, big and airy, enough space for the somewhat 130 buyu in there.
For me it was the first time I saw Pedro & learned from him. And it was great!!
I don’t want to go all praising on him or anyone, but I just want to say how I felt … he’s simply great, he’s a warm nice person, and a great teacher! I loved to see him move! You can see well on him, how when you grow to that level it’s not just techniques or whatever but also as a person that you evolve!

I was happy to be able to go to this seminar since I wasn’t gonna be able to go to the Paris Taikai due to already booked holidays : (
Anywayz… as you can see on the pictures; I was injured. Just a week before I had an accident during training where my elbow popped out for a second and hurt my muscles around it! The muscles had alot of tiny little cuts/ rips whatever you may call them. And in the end it took them about 2 months to heal.
Sooo… I couldn’t really train to the fullest, had to be carefull all the time, but still had a great training! I played it safe & just trained with the one person that knew well what was wrong and was carefull in training with me. This injury did bring an interesting view to training though, not alone for me but for my training partner as well. We had to find out ways of putting the technique into a one armed/handed move and mostly it needed to be mirrored too since it was my right elbow and most things were shown right handed. It gave us a very interesting creative training! : )

To round it up; those Germans are well organized!! : ) I hope I can go to many more seminars/ taikai’s or whatever from them!

next; Shidoshiseminar 8 & 9 november, same place. looking forward to it!

here are some pictures – for more; visit my zenfolio

enjoy

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Horse Seminar

So I went to the horse seminar this weekend! loved it! I had a great time!

Although it was different from what I first thought it would be…
some people ended up canceling, and so we were with 6, which actually was perfect. 
For the horse part of the seminar, it was intended for people who had no experience, although only 2 of us were really beginners. But as this year in Bujinkan it’s all about feeling, this was the approach to the horseriding too. Eventhough I’m an experienced rider, it was nice to ride and reflect on that feeling and put it in the same line as working on my taijutsu normaly. A relationship with a horse is all about feeling & energy and you need to constantly be aware of that to always be able to addapt to what he’s feeling and what you are feeling. And this is true in budo too! So that was interesting to actively be aware of that.

I ofcourse, as I wrote earlyer, hoped we would go a little further into the bajutsu part of it, although ofcourse the basic relationship with a horse is part of that too.  But there is hope we could go a little further someday… Joost hopes to be able to plan another horse seminar, with the posibility to go a little further, at least with the ones who have been to this first seminar or have more experience. So we will have to wait & see… eather way, I won’t hesitate to go again!! : )

I looooved the ride in to the woods & farmland ! I always love that sense of freedom!

Thank you to Joost for organising this & thanks to the other guyz there for the nice weekend! : )

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Kunoichi united

I was surfing around and found myself at Sheila Haddad’s website… and saw that she started this yahoo group for women in bujinkan… interesting I thought, so I mailed her about it and joined!

I think it’s a great idea to unite us women to share experiences and support each other ! happens that Soke thinks so too and urges us to come togeher! : )

so all you kunoichi, go to ninpo-women and join!!

P.S.: There has been a talk about a womens taikai too!! for 2010!! could be interesting : )

Happy Ninja

I’ve only recently started training in Bujinkan (more precisely; my first training was March 11th), but I’m not a complete stranger to it (brief history on me; from age 12/13 to age 15 I was a student in Genbukan)… and so I knew there was a discipline in ninpo for horsemanship… which is called Ba-jutsu.

I’ve been riding horses since I was little, so ofcourse I loved the idea but I figured I would never get the chance to do so.  Aaand surprise surprise…. Only a month or 2 after I started training again … someone comes with the announcement that there will be a 2 day seminar on Ba-jutsu in Holland!!! 

me HAPPY NINJA !!! When I got home from training that evening I immediatly googled for it and registered the next day!   Now I really can’t wait! I’m really curious about how it will be. I’m sure though it will be an amazing experience!

If anyone is interested in going too… the places are limited… so register fast!
the seminar is on May 30th & June 1st in Eindhoven, Holland.
You can find more info on the Dojo site here. 

I researched some more on ba-jutsu and came up with some pictures… enjoy…


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Hello world!

My first post… I’m trying out this WorldPress thing now, see if it works out… 

I think it could be handy for posting some travel stories and what not… maybe after a while I might replace my website for this… the only thing that wurries me now is to leave my personal e-mail from my website.

I guess I’ll have to research the e-mail integrating option on here…

if anyone has some experience in this… let me know!
I still want a clean e-mail that I can open in my iMail…