Given by Arnaud Cousergue

Dit artikel is geschreven voor Arnaud Cousergue
15 Dan, Bujinkan France.

How to open your hart

My feelings about the 10 day’s Jupi XII 2004 seminar, given by Arnaud Cousergue.

From August 17th till August 28th 2004 For me the seminar start’s one day before, by driving to France (8 hours) and do the necessary preparations like sand paper my wooden weapons against any splinters or blisters. Set up my tent, like last year again on a big spider nest. Why are they hiding at day time, and help to prepare the camp.

First I explain something how the seminar looks like: We start with 4 days training, 1 day break and then 5 days training. This is the normal schedule. This year it was 5 days training, 1 day break and 4 days training. The result at the end of the seminar is the same to me.

How looks one day of training: The day start’s with running or walking. I walk every morning for 1 hour starting around 06:45h. After that shaving take a cold shower and breakfast. Training starts then a round 09:00h with exercises like kicking, suburi (cutting exercise with a wooden sword minimum a 1000 cuts a day), sanshin no kata, kihon happo and kamae (this year with Bo). Break from 12:30h till about 14:30h, to take a cold shower again and to have lunch. In the afternoon we get Bo and Tachi till around 18:30h. Take cold shower again and free time till we have dinner. Dinner around 20:30h.

The training is outside in the rain (by rain we train under a small tent) or hot sun, the grass is uneven and wet (slippery), or we use the trees to train under, that make’s training more realistic, then when you train in a dojo.

With this in mind we start training every day after 3 day’s you start to feel hopeless and lost that you’re not able to do anything correct. Here your body start’s to get tired, and that is the beginning that your mind starts to break down to. If you do not feel this, you did not work hard enough to break your self. You already should have the feeling that you are not able to do thing’s correctly any more in training because you’re body is getting tired.

So this year the 6th day we have the break day and go to the lake for Suiton Justu, in a very cold and slimy lake. After the lake we have the picnic. At the end of the afternoon we went to the bridge to do a Bungee Jump. For those who never did this before is it a small step, but a big decision. Shall I or shall I not jump? Or for those who jumped before come to a new decision again that you need to take for your self.

Day 7 we start with the regular exercises in the morning and find our self exhausted after 10 minutes. Now we are broken and we can start to train. The Lunch break is for me the thing to look out for. Do I survive or not till Lunch. Even if you’re willing to give the fullest of your self, your body will tell you the opposite.

Day 8, the day of infinity we did more than 2 hour suburi, I was really thinking what the hell I am doing? It felt useless to because I was not able to move correctly and my body did not cooperate out of tiredness. In the afternoon we got to hid each other arms, the arm got so sore (pain full) that you’re not able to keep your arms strait and start shaking.

The 10th day, at the end of the training you feel sad, empty and even a bit angry because this is the end, and you want to continue this but it is over. When you see people leave you start to cry even if you do not want to. This is the day your hart is open. For those who do not feel this I think they did not give enough of them self.

The day after the seminar we putdown and clean the camp, and drive home again in the after noon.

The atmosphere is very good between the people in the seminar, even when you get tired, people behave then more stress full and are more tensed this is mainly the first week. After the first week you start to feel more relaxed and open.

I hope this summary of the Jupi XII will give people a little impression on how this 10 days seminar looks like and mainly feels like.

Keep on Smiling