Visiting Namban-tetsu dojo in Mannheim with my friend Volker

 Finally after Covin stops I managed to be back in EMBL, Heidelberg, as trainer of the Single cell EMBO course. I had great time meeting young researchers and all my friends at EMBL. 

After three years, I also managed to meet again my friend Volker, the sensei of Heidelberg Ken Zen Kan Kendo club.  After a very nice evening, together with him and his wife at Vetter brauhaus, with Volker we went, last thursday, to Namban-tetsu  dojo in Mannheim. I met again Ken Zen Kan friends and new kenshi from Mannaheim. It was a great night, summarised by the video recorded during the practice by Simon. It was nearly four years that I did not have keiko with Volker. It was absolutely enjoyable! Also the practice with the other kenshi was great. It was impressive the cleaness of their kendo, even for the ones that started kendo only recently. Definitively a great night.

Visiting London Hizen and Kenyukay dojos

 It is some time that I do not post on Kendo Travel Diary, mainly because, for family reasons, I am traveling a bit less. However, in October I was visiting Jeff Humm sensei at Hizen dojo. As usual the practice was mentally and technically challenging and it gave me a lot of things to digest and integrate in my kendo. Specifically, I found very interesting the concept of clean up kendo keiko from non-essential elements and focus on efficacy of the techniques. I have to be used to the fact that I have to place few strikes but perfect, so-so strikes are not anymore enough.

Then, I visited Yung Park sensei at Kenyukay dojo. I was very happy to meet Pasha Volodarsky, the Chief of Israel Kendo and of Aikijitsu Israel. Pasha is very friendly and clearly he is a strong competitor. I was amazed by the strenght and speed of his strikes. We had a very interesting jigeiko, extremely challenging for me 😊. The jigeiko with Yung was as also very challenging, he has a strong kamae and creating the opportunity to strike is very very difficult. Since, Yung had Pasha and me as guests, he decided to have one hour of mawarigeiko... It was very nice, but exausting 😀.  In the remaining half an hour, Pasha supervised a brief practice for the Young's students. It was very interesting to see him running the practice.

As usual the two nights in London were extremely interesting and I got a lot of fun!

Visiting Koshikan in Florence (Italy)

 Here I am again, after various Covid waves. I am trying to travel again. This time, I am in Italy in the beautiful Florence. I came to Florence for the Keystone Simposium on Single Cell Biology, where I was presenting some of our recent work. As always happen when I travel, I look for practicing kendo and this time I visited the Koshikan, where Angela Papaccio is the 7th Dan running the dojo.

It was really great to be back in a new dojo crossing shinai with kendo friends. Angela gave me some indications, that I am trying to apply in my every day practice. It was nice to practice with everyone in the dojo. I hope Aiazzi, which is a Jodan player, enjoyed playing with me, and I was very happy to meet again Corti, that I met few years ago in Heidelberg at the Ken Zen Kan dojo (kendo world is small 😃). Last but not least I was very happy to have a keiko with Yume Birardi, which is part of the Italian Kendo Lady Team.