TSG Winter Camp 2023

Saturday

Saturday morning we sat ourselves down at the breakfast table and heard that some participants had taken an ice bath during the early morning hours, apparently a good way to start your day, too cold for most of us though..

We started the day off with Hanshi Dave Jonkers leading the morning training, a rather intense session at 9 o’clock, with lots of different combos being done on his count.

The next session, Shihan Lars started off with some short, “Soke typical” combos, which was nice and relaxing compared to the last session.

After a short break, we all sat down for what was to be an emotional rollercoaster, with speeches held by Shihan Kickan, Hanshi Dave and Shihan Raul and a slide show highlighting key moments from Soke’s martial arts career.

The fact that so many familiar faces were there to honor Soke and his legacy was amazing! Shihan Kickan Cook, Hanshi David Jonkers, Shihan Semmy Schilt and all the Shihans from around the globe had come to pay tribute to our beloved Soke. That really hit close to heart.

Thank you all for coming:

ShihanKickan Cook 7th Dan, Hanshi Dave Jonkers 8th Dan, Shihan Semmy Schilt 9th Dan, Shihan Lars Utter 7th Dan, Tommy Ädelhäll 5th Dan, Shihan Raul Rucarean 5th Dan, Shihan Jakob Beltowski 5th Dan, Shihan Marc de Roodt 5th Dan, Shihan Marcel van den Berg 5th Dan, Shihan Vitaly Vasjanov 5th Dan, Sensei Helder Coelho 4th Dan, Sensei Lars Branstrom 4th Dan, Sensei Florin Spătaru 3rd Dan, Sensei Emil Moberg 3rd Dan, Sensei Leif Kirsebom 3rd Dan, just to name a few.

As well as the rest of Sempai and Kohais, the list can go on and on. We appreciate the effort that everyone has made to make this event happen!

At the end of the ceremony, we went to have lunch together, and could reacquaint with old time friends and reminisce our training days under Soke.

The first of the afternoon session was led by Shihan Mark a session that was mostly about following up two techniques with the same leg. He explained different ways of handling different attacks. Very educational and fun.

At 4pm Shihan Sem held the last session for all the blackbelts, because of the black-belt meeting that was to follow after dinner. Shihans session was mostly focused on creativity and we did two combos with takedowns that followed up on the ground with some locks and escapes from locks.

The session ended with a drill that meant that you had to copy your Uke's combination and then respond with your combination that your Uke later has to repeat.

The last part of the session was trying to not let your Uke get off his back in grappling. A really interesting and different class! Did I mention that we switched Uke’s multiple times for variation? I also got to take a picture with Shihan Sem which was so nice of him. The photo was of my dad Shihan Jakob, Shihan Sem and me standing in Kumite Dachi. Happy days!

After that session we went on and had dinner which was a really nice and tasty lasagna.

The last session for the day was exclusively only for Kyu-belts and consisted of boxing taught by Sempai Robert from Kinna, Sweden who is a former boxer. A really interesting and fun session because of all the new kinds of techniques that boxers use. Weaving punches and analyzing your opponent to the fullest.