Witten's Alternative Ladies Seminar

The Witten ladies seminar in Germany is an annual event attended mainly by kendoists around Europe. It is led by Rie Sato sensei and a guest teacher, Akemi Horibe sensei, who are both 7th Dan Kyoshi. The seminar schedule is usually jam-packed, but participants from the UK were able to fit in more beer-drinking sessions this year because the seminar was postponed to November at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances (bet you didn’t see that coming!). Our early booked easy-tickets meant not refundable or transferable. Not to be daunted, Kazuyo came up with an excellent suggestion that we should nevertheless make the trip and fit in some sightseeing between practices which the sensei of the Witten dojo, Sigrun Caspary, would be able to organise. So Kazuyo, Sarah, Kyeongseon, Frankie, Rowena, Honga and myself set off to Witten as planned.

We travelled “Easy” style on the Friday morning. Everyone napped during the flight (which took just over an hour) apart from myself, despite having been up till 3am trying to help Link find his way out of the temple in Gerudo desert (”high five” to all you Wii-ists out there!).

On arrival at Witten, we were welcomed by Magdalena from Dortmund dojo, who kindly drove us to the hotel. We were supposed to check into our respective rooms, freshen up, and have dinner before the evening practice, but found ourselves caught up with room allocation problems (which, to my chagrin, postponed dinnertime to after practice). Kazuyo booked 3 twin bedrooms with the hotel but 3 DOUBLE bedrooms were prepared for us instead. Normally, this would not have been an issue (unless you’re sharing with Gibbo) except Rowena and I were allocated the “honeymoon suite”. Apart from the bed in the centre of the room being really small, it was oval in shape, which meant that it was easy to fall off unless the occupants were “extremely close” to each other. Needless to say Rowena and I stared at the bed transfixed with horror, although I am still baffled by how she managed to find time in those few seconds when I was gaping at the bed, to unpack into the cupboard all her stuff and food supplies! Luckily in the end, the hotel attendant was able to find us each a single room.

After dealing with the checking-in issues, we were transported to the Witten dojo for practice. Schmidt from the Dortmund dojo (previously a member of the Canadian national squad) led the practice as Sigrun was unable to attend practice that evening. The practice was nothing short of what we expected. We began with 10-15 minutes warming-up exercises (running round the dojo, ashi sabaki practice and the like) followed by suburi. Seiza was done in “Witten-style”, which I have never come across before but I totally like the idea. Essentially, everyone does seiza in a circle instead of the usual line up in accordance with seniority. We then proceeded with kihon practice comprising of kirikaeshi, cutting men from issoku ito no mai and chika mai, kote-men, debana-waza and a variety of other wazas. We finished off with jigeiko, which was a lot of fun. Although the practice lasted only for an hour and a half (I was told that practices usually last for 3 hours) everyone was pretty exhausted at the end of the intensive session. Our German counterparts had incredible concentration and did not slack for a single moment. They have a serious attitude towards kendo and tried to execute every waza and geiko practice properly with full commitment and spirit.

And then it was finally DINNERTIME! We ate at this great pizza place near the hotel. Frank and Katharina (both Witten dojo members) joined us too. We started off with lovely little dough breads and garlic butter followed by big crispy pizzas, steaks, salads and a never-ending supply of beer (or was that in my dreams?). Everyone had a great time. Sarah was covertly taking photos of people in their worst possible poses and I had to spend most of the evening covering my face with my scarf (apparently I was very red). We tried to get Kazuyo drunk but she’s obviously been practising her drinking skills after that stint at the 5 Nations competition in Edinburgh earlier this year. I don’t think anyone wanted to leave, but we all thought we should after the kitchen staff started filing into the dining area with their coats on.

The next morning, we had a two and a half hours practice session with Sigrun, who is a really good teacher (not surprisingly, as she is a lecturer). She broke down each waza by sections and explained the finer details of how to do a particular waza properly. The session ended with a good bash. I am certain that the gals will agree with me that we were all eager to try out the lessons we learnt from Sigrun at our next practice session.

Just before the “mad rush” to the showers, Magdalena arrived for practice (late drinking session the night before). Sarah and I obviously had too much energy left so we offered to practice with her for half an hour. We did 3 kirikaeshis each covering the length of the dojo, followed by a 3 minute gigeiko each and then ippon-geiko. Magdalena reminds me a lot of Gillian Riddock (who used to be in the GB national squad); they share similarly strong kiais and are both formidable in spirit. They even have the same hairstyle! Magdalena favours oji-waza and it was very enjoyable to fence with her.

We partook lunch at a Chinese restaurant, which was a special request from Honga as she was literally fading away from the lack of rice. Sigrun brought her youngest son who is absolutely adorable, and Honga and Frankie were constantly entertaining him (Honga even gave him a massage, lucky boy!). After being wined and dined, we zipped off to do some sightseeing. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and we walked around the beautiful countryside. Witten used to be mining country, and we got to see part of the area where the coal mines used to be located. We also visited the coal mine museum and came across an exhibition of some rather peculiar sculptures. Sarah had a field day with those sculptures and her camera, constantly snapping away at sculptures which she thought resembled each of us.

During the day, Sigrun gave us a pleasant surprise by announcing that there will be a ladies seminar held at her dojo the next day which will be attended by some 20 or so ladies. The seminar was to be led by Monika Kramer, winner of the ladies individual’s competition at the European Kendo Championships some years ago. We all got very excited at the prospect.

That evening, following a nice but late dinner at a German restaurant and several incriminating photos later, Frankie, Kyeongseon and Honga retired to the hotel to watch rugby whilst the rest of us (including Frank and Katharina) went to a pub for some serious drinking. Frank and Katharina were somewhat intoxicated and began doing the “YMCA” dance moves, which was hilarious. After a while, the alcohol must have hit Frank hard and he started to “do a Sarah” by setting his camera on continuous snapping mode and started taking photos of us when we least expected it. However, even Frank and Katharina could not keep up with us seasoned party animals, and after we said our goodnights to them, we ensconced ourselves in the small but cosy conservatory at the hotel and began our late night drinking session until 2am.

The next morning, I was somewhat surprised to find that Kazuyo, Sarah and myself were the first to rise for breakfast (the wine must have induced our appetites)! Honga attended the breakfast table with her eyes closed. She ate some eggs and bacon perfunctorily, mumbled a few words, then went back to bed (apparently, she was chatting deep into the night with Kyeongseon about the rugby match)! Eventually, after everyone was a bit more awake, we got ready to shoot off to the seminar.

There were more than 30 ladies in attendance. Monika (with the help of Sarah and other German ladies) kindly translated into English most of what she said in German. Monika explained that the seminar was held primarily to select team members for the forthcoming inaugural regional taikai, where the final winner will be selected to join the national squad. She also thanked us for training with them.

We started out again with some intensive warming-up exercises and special suburi practices; for example, Monika split haya-suburi into 3 parts: the first 30 was done very slowly, the next 20 a bit faster and the final 10 at top speed. Kihon practice was next. Like Sigrun, Monika broke down each section of a waza and explained what was required in order to do the waza properly. Technique appeared to be the main theme of her seminar and she emphasised the importance of being relaxed and flexible when doing wazas.

Kihon practice was followed by shiai matches in teams of 5, and by individual matches amongst the German ladies who took part in the selection for the regional tournament. For the team matches, we each fought twice in a team consisting of Sarah, Kyeongseon, Rowena, Frankie and myself. Sigrun, Kazuyo and Christiane Arnolds, the manager of the German national squad, acted as shimpan. The German ladies fought well and so did we. The matches were friendly and we enjoyed ourselves a great deal.

The sad part was that we only had 15-20 minutes left for jigeiko. It was a shame that neither Monika nor Christiane joined in, but we managed to fit in 3 fights during the short time. Afterwards, it was the usual mad rush for the showers again and need I say, FOOD! Frank, Katharina and Magdalena joined us for lunch before we said our goodbyes to our friends and headed for the airport.

The trip to Witten gave us a good insight into the way kendo is practised in Germany. Their total commitment at each kendo practice and shiai and their level of expertise in waza is something we can and should learn from, the latter of which is especially relevant to women kendoists. I admire their attitude of treating each individual as being both a student and a teacher without reference to grade, and it is my humble opinion that this attitude may correspond better to kendo philosophy. It is no wonder that the German national squad is ranked as one of the top teams in the world. As regards dojo visits and attendance at seminars and tournaments outside the UK, these experiences not only expose kendoists to different styles and ways of practising kendo, they also foster an exchange of ideas that could only improve our standard of kendo collectively. Next year, we will hopefully all be able to take part in Sato sensei’s seminar where we can continue this process of learning and exchanging ideas with our friends.