In the beautiful village of Plan d'Aups-Sainte Baume in Provence, the Ki Societé Endoume Roucas from Marseille held its Aikido spring seminar from May 6th to 7th, 2006.
The meeting with Paul from Marseille and Thierry from Plan d'Aups was planned for the early evening of May 5th.
The group of Swiss and Italians (Shihan Maurizio Volpe, Dic, Giuseppe, Massimiliano, Italia, Govert and Yvette) arrived punctually at the pleasant little Hotel des Cèdres after a long and peaceful journey by cars.
Our group was immediately enveloped by the scents of Provence and Elisabette, the manager of the guest house, welcomed us and immediately impressed us with her liveliness. After depositing our luggage with the help of Thierry Mouret, aikidoka from Plan d'Aups, we had an aperitif, an excellent wine from Var. This was followed by a very good dinner in pleasant company.
After a good night's sleep, we met up again early the next morning at the Dojo Maison de Pays and met our French friends who had come up from Marseille. About twenty aikido of French, Italian, Swiss and Dutch nationality thus had the privilege of training on the mat under the guidance of Shihan Maurizio Volpe from the Ki Aikido Kai Olcella, Italy. He offered us a high-level program that kept us busy for 12 hours, all day Saturday and then Sunday morning.
At the end of the seminar, we all had a final dinner at Jas of St. Jaume de Philippe. We were all exhausted, but happy and content, and were able to share a moment of harmony and the joy of dinner together before we set off on the return journey to Switzerland and Italy. We were reluctant to say goodbye, but we were able to arrange to meet again next year, when another Aikido seminar will take place in this magical setting.
Some of us will see each other again sooner, at the seminar at Divignano (I) at the beginning of June 2006.
Thank you all for the wonderful shared experiences and the pleasure of being together.
Yvette Voumard, Balerna (CH)
Unfortunately, a small shadow fell on the journey home. A gas station attendant managed to fill Maurizio's Daimler diesel with petrol. It took endless hours for the breakdown service to arrive and put everything back in order, so Maurizio did not return home until a day later.
