National Seminar (1)

Today is Thursday 13^th January so we’ve 11 days left until the Australian National Iaido and Jodo Seminar starts in Melbourne.  Five days of intensive study under Oda and Nags et al then one day of championships followed by one day of gradings for those eligible.  I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time - drooling even - but I’ll treat them all separately.

The Seminar

It’s just occurred to me (a few minutes ago, sitting on the loo if that’s an indicator of where I receive my inspiration) my expectations of what proportions of my learning will come from and from whom.  I should point out we are split into grade groups with the higher grades tending to be taken by the higher graded Japanese Sensei.  The absolute higher grade Sensei often wander round to “spot-check” on the other groups and occasionally intervene.

	For Iaido Shodan group
			% of seminar time	useful % learned
Proabable primary instructor			90%	10%
Yazawa (Iaido 6th Dan, Renshi)
Secondary Instructor (s)			10%	90%
Oda (8th Dan, Hanshi); Nagayama (7th Dan, Kyoshi) and Ohara (7th Dan, Kyoshi)
	For Jodo Shodan group
			% of seminar time	useful % learned
Proabable primary instructor			95%	5%
Yazawa (Jodo 4th Dan)
Secondary Instructor (s)			5%	95%
Nagayama (Jodo 7th Dan, Kyoshi) and Ohara (Jodo 6th Dan, Renshi)

Those not driven asleep will come to two conclusions.

1)      I don’t take much away from Yazawa’s instruction (we’ve ‘history’ because I’m a bolshi gaijin.  Moi???)

2)      Over 90% of my useful improvements will come from less than 10% of the week

Bottom line is I’m willing to put up with over 36 hours questionable dojo time for a little less than 4 hours useful content.  But there is rich value in that 4 hours and that’s what makes it worthwhile. 

Just had another insight.  Of that four hours, most of the improvements will come courtesy of Nags.  Yes, I'll pay in ritual humiliation and being shouted at but, in the words of Wollongong instructor Aden Steinke, "It's all good".

Blogs long enough so I’ll deal with my expectations of The Championships and Gradings later.