March 2012: Visiting Shumpukan Dojo in Milano

At the end of March I was in Milano to run a course on RNA-seq data analysis at the Istituto Tumori. It was a two day full immersion course. It was very nice, with a lot of interaction with the 12 researcher participating to it.
Since I live in Torino is very difficult that I spend two nights in Milano, since I can reach Milano in 45 minutes by train. However, due to the tight schedule of thecourse I had to stay in Milano to avoid a very early wake up.
The course gave me the opportunity to visit the Shumpukan Dojo. I was very glad to Matteo Chersi that gave me a lift to the dojo. I met him at the Sumi Sensei seminar the week before my trip to Milano.

The training was run by Franco Sarra (5th Dan) and Giuseppe Piva. Giuseppe is also the instructor of the Iaido section of the Shumpukan. Frequently the training at Shumpukan is run by Lorenzo Zago (7th Dan) but he was not at the dojo the night of my visit. In the video below a jigeiko of some years ago between Sarra and Zago.

We were about 15 persons. We started with a brief warm up and suburi. Subsequently the lesson was held by Giuseppe Piva. The focus was mainly on the use of seme ashi in the construction of an attach. We worked with big and small techniques practicing the use of seme to get the right occasion for a good strike. The lesson  reminded me part of the training I had during the seminar of Sumi sensei at Shubukan the week before. I will add a report on that seminar in the next days.  After the above mentioned work we practiced a bit of jigeiko and I had the opportunity to practice with Giuseppe. He has a very powerful seme and the jigeiko with him was very challenging. I also practiced with a student that works in jodan, and, since jodan no kamae is my prefered kamae, it was nice to work with him. We are both beginners of jodan no kamae but it was very useful.
Since three persons had to go to the Lombardia Kendo Cup on the next weekend we practiced a bit of shiai. I had the chance to be part of two shiai, it was very useful also because we practice a lot of jigeiko but very little shiai at our dojo. I found very significant a phrase of Franco, he said that when someone enters in a shai-jo he enters to win. So it is important the spirit in the interaction with the opponent, we should not be afraid, it is important to go there to get the good strike and even if we do not win we have to place any effort to get the good clear strike.
It was a very nice night. Looking forward to meet again Shumpukan people!