ENG:
The training year 2022 has ended on December 15th. To be precise it ended on December 6th with our last real training.
2022 was a very emotional year for me. Healthwise I had some really tenacious injuries and on the emotional side I lost my mother who lost her battle against cancer.
I know it is part of life’s cycle but all these trouble made me lose focus on training for a while and due to my foot injury I could not really take part on a seminar with Luke Molitor which was supposed to be my training highlight in 2022.
I found some solace when re-discovering my love for music. Back in my twenties I was singing in a band and played piano, a bit of drums, a bit of guitar. It was for the first time that budo training could not help but it was good to find another way to get lost in the zone whether that is good or bad I am not sure. I know though that it helped a lot through these dark(er) days.
Also wonderful was a visit of William Boesen in September. Organizing that small event, hosting him and training with a weapon like Rokushakubo was awesome. I am not really a big fan of long weapons… it shows how much my taijutsu sucks. 😀
The seminar in Osnabrück hosted by Christian Wedelich with Luke Molitor was a very welcome as we continued in working on Koto Ryu. It was also great to reconnect with Sam, Jasper, Thomas, Daniel and all the others who participated on that seminar.
It is also great and helpful to have a good buddy in Japan who sends me videos on what he is training on currently and who I can send videos to in order to discuss.
Most of all I am thankful to this dojo’s members who understood that this year my life was not on the sunny side and their patience. Among these wonderful bunch of people I would like to thank Ben for having my back and taking care that training went on while I was out… you will make a very fine shidoshi!
I am looking forward to new adventures in the year of the rabbit. See you all in good health in 2023. It is good to have some things to look forward to next year and I hope that my health will improve and that my ankle holds as it does now. 2023 we will work on Koto Ryu… it will be fun!