The three Ki Aikido dojos in Hohenzollern, Owingen, Haigerloch and Balingen, were delighted to welcome Doshu Kenjiro Yoshigasaki back to Haigerloch. Yoshigasaki Sensei had already been in Haigerloch for four seminars between 1990 and 1994. This year the seminar was organized by the Solidarity Fund, which Bernhard Boll and Yves Opizzo helped to found. The aikidoka from Hohenzollern were able to welcome friends not only from Heidelberg and Stuttgart, but also from Italy, Switzerland and Great Britain.
Doshu Yoshigasaki presented some very interesting and completely new exercises with Bo and Jo. The hall in Haigerloch is really big and well suited to practice with the long Bo.
Jean-Jacques Greuter, Ronny Engelke and Lisbeth Sattler-Moeller were responsible for the organization and had prepared everything well. Large signs were put up on the access roads to get to the dojo. Lunch was eaten at a long table in the hall and dinner in a nice little restaurant in the picturesque old town of Haigerloch. Sandra Opizzo, who could not attend the class, took care of the cash register and the additional organization.
Doshu Yoshigasaki stayed in Bernhard Boll's house, where he inspected his dojo and discussed many topics related to building a beautiful, good dojo with Bruno Maule, who is currently completing his new dojo in Novara.
The weather was quite good for the month of September, we even had some sunshine on Saturday, but later it rained heavily and the sound of the falling rain created a very special atmosphere during the practise.
When Doshu flew back from Stuttgart to Brussels on Sunday afternoon, we looked back on a wonderful seminar with many new impressions. We were able to practice Aikido together with our friends from Novara, Balerna, Sessa, London, Stuttgart and Heidelberg and learned many interesting new things.
We hope to meet them again soon, for example in Balerna in mid-October 2006.
Bernhard Boll, Dojo Haigerloch-Owingen (D)
