IOGKF European Gasshuku, Copenhagen, 2010

We have just returned from the 26th IOGKF European Gasshuku in Copenhagen. Training for four hours a day from Monday to Friday, we were taught by some of the world’s best Goju Ryu instructors. We started every day with junbi undo with all students training together, on the first day there was over 800 of us. We were then split into groups according to grade and in our group we trained alongside fellow shodans from Denmark, Italy, Germany and Holland. After two sessions with different senior instructors we would all come back together for the final session of the day.

On the first day Morio Higaonna Sensei (10th Dan, World Chief Instructor) took the junbi undo session, which was followed by smaller group training, initially kakie with Sensei Luis Nunes (7th Dan) and then kata practice with Takashi Masuyama Sensei (7th Dan). Over the course of the week our group had the privilege of being taught by the following Sensei; Kazuo Terauchi (8th Dan), Ernie Molyneau (7th Dan), Linda Marchant (6th Dan), Morio Higaonna (10th Dan), George Andrews (7th Dan), Henrik Larsen (7th Dan), Roy Flatt (7th Dan) and Masakazu Kuramoto (6th Dan).

The week ended with the traditional sayonara party. Great food and entertainment and a chance to have a proper catch up with friends that we hadn’t seen for a while.

Away from karate we were able to see some of the sights of Copenhagen and meet up with an old friend who now lives in Denmark.