2011 Sydney Winter School at Narrabeen

The Winter School in Sydney in July not only acted as the final part of our farewell for Sugano Sensei - but seemed to mark the beginning of a whole new lease on life for both the teachers and the students of Aiki Kai Australia. As we saw our three Australian shihans present us with fresh new insights into Sugano Sensei's teachings, we also once again found family echoes in the teaching of our invited visitors from overseas. Of course there were special family echoes of a different kind as Jikou Sugano Sensei taught an afternoon class. The classes by Louis van Thieghem Sensei and Gentil Pennewaert again reminded us of our international family connections, and we were also treated to two classes from Michael Moyes and Michael Ameye, which gave us an insight into the style of teaching at the Global Inner Schools in Belgium - where Tony Smibert Shihan and Hanan Janiv Shian will be teaching in August this year - Smibert Shihan already having travelled to Belgium to teach twice this year.

For those old enough to remember him, Robert Hill Sensei, formerly of Melbourne, also returned from the UK to teach a class, and we of course had several of our senior local teachers do classes. Given the number of international visitors at our last two national schools, we look forward to making more use of our more senior local teachers in our teaching schedule at future national schools.

This School also saw the successful initiation of a new concept - the Focus Class, during which all those on the mat were split into six groups, and each of six of our senior instructors was given a mere 8 minutes to teach one technique to each of the six groups by rotation. When Osawa Shihan arrived on Wednesday and went straight onto the mat, we knew this would be something different and a fascinating challenge to adapt to a quite different style of teaching. Osawa Shihan was open, clear and charming in his teaching, so everyone gave of their best to adapt again - perhaps aided by a memory of the lessons he gave at the Winter School in Narrabeen from when Sugano Sensei had last invited him as guest instructor.

The planned visit to Mount Banks did not eventuate due to the entire Blue Mountains National Park being shut down due to extreme weather, so another day of training in the dojo was added. At the conclusion of the school, we farewelled Sugano Sensei with a session of kotodama followed by Jikou Sugano's playing the same hauntingly beautiful shakuhachi piece he had played at the ceremony held in New York after Sugano Sensei's passing.

All in all, the Sydney Winter School inspired all those who attended with optimism and hope for a future which suddenly moved into our view, using the same positive energy which Sugano Sensei had given to us in his teaching all his life.

Andrew Dziedzic, 6th Dan
National Area Representative