Shihan Ceremony and Instructor Seminar 2017

From may 25th to may 28th our federation’s annual instructor seminar took place at the Honbu Dojo and it was a very special seminar regarding the development of the entire federation (but more on this later).

This year our training schedule contained three different topics:

We practiced Kobudo in the morning, which is probably the best possible way to wake up from hot and therefore sleepless nights together with at least 5 bullfrog-like sounding gentlemen. After having lunch we were able to work on tachi waza with wakizashi thanks to Shihan Jhonny Bernaschewice and in the evening we attended Shihan Hans Jürgen Pech’s lessons on his Kata Mizu which he specifically developed for the Chi Ryu Aiki Jitsu system.

Hence you can say we had a lot of variety in our training and it was a genius seminar once again covering enough techniques one probably would have to practice a whole life to master them, in a sense, perfect. But as presumably every single diligent student of the federation is planning on doing exactly this, we all should be well off 😉

In addition to the above mentioned qualities of the seminar this year there was more…..

This year our federation has been enriched by 4 new Shihans.

Tony van de Velde (Belgium),

Patrick van de Leur (Belgium),

Csaba Ziegler (Hungary) and

Sven Gössner (Germany)

were granted the honour of the Shihan rank within the Federation Geido Tao Chi Kihon.

And surely every single one of them deserved it. No matter whether they have to drive hundreds of kilometers every week to train at the Honbu Dojo, with or without Shihan Jhonny’s supervision, or they practice alone for themselves thousands of kilometers away or if they are characterized by their modesty and unconditional loyalty towards their senseis ….. these Shihans cover it all.

With a trick Shihan Kathrin convinced all of them that Shihan Jhonny was about to receive the honorary citizenship of Hechtel, presented by the mayor …. Everybody already knew that sensei Tony and Patrick would receive the honour but everybody except sensei Csaba and sensei Sven also knew that these two would also be granted this honour. Everybody played their roles perfectly and when the senseis entered, prepared to give a special demonstration due to the mayor’s visit the bombshell dropped…. At this point sensei Csaba and sensei Sven had no idea that they were about to receive the same honour as sensei Tony and sensei Patrick. When the four realized what they were about to witness the surprise was complete.

The ceremony was unbelievably warm and Shihan Jhonny, Kathrin and Hans Jürgen found the right words to express their pride in the four new Shihans. Afterwards we all congratulated them and had a wonderful time all together with the families of sensei Tony and Patrick but more important …….our joint family …. the students and teachers of our federation.

I feel deeply grateful for having been able to witness this ceremony and to see these extraordinary men, with whom I share this beautiful passion, receiving this honour, they have worked for most of their lifes and still will work for….

Jan-Marc Pohl