Since 2022 to today a lot of things happened. My wife passed away after 1 and half year from being diagnosed a lung cancer. This time was very intensive for me since I was the caregiver of my wife. No time to travel a even few time for kendo in Torino. The friendship of my kenshi at Shubukan club in Torino were very helpful in supporting me. Tough time. Recently I started traveling again and bringing bogu with me. It is nice but I still live in a world where the colours are not as brite as few years ago. But life has to go on and few week ago I went to Bern to try the 6 Dan exam. It was a strange period, I got a distortion to the left ankle, then a quite strong flu and an a night a very string tsuki out of protection. I was start thinking that maybe going to Bern was not a good idea. Anyway I went there. The seminar was held by Kamei sensei and it was challenging and interesting. Passing exams in kendo was always very tough, 4 times yondan and 5 times godan. So I did not have any expectation … I catch the suggestions from two of my higher grade friends (1st suggestion focus on your exam do not look at the previous exams, 2nd suggestion do not attach unless you have constructed the action in the way to induce the opponent to interact with you) and I did my two gigeiko focusing in inducing the opponent to attach and in the first gigeiko it work better than the second. After I was exhausted and I start packing, one guy from Berlin told me, before packing at least wait for the results on gigeiko …. I then got a big surprise I had passed!!! I still do not believe.
Today I am in Singapore, since next week I will run a workshop at Duke-Nus. This evening I will meet again Kamei sensei since he is doing a three day seminar here in Singapore.
My kendo journey is continuing….
