The 2012 Ottawa Summer Camp ran at the end of August, held in rural Quebec, near the Gatineau. Again the event was hosted by Ottawa Ryusei instructors Rick Going and Kambiz Miranbigi. As usual Rick and Kam were great hosts, and the location, on an enclosed platform, in the middle of the woods, on Rick’s property was spectacular.
I led the morning session on Saturday. First, I had an optional mediation session before breakfast, attended by a few brave souls. Then for the regular session we picked up Naihanchi kata, and Sakamoto-Sensei’s lessons of the previous summer, concentrating on ‘shime-goshi’ hip technique. This led into an investigation of using ‘soft’ power in our techniques. We closed the morning session with some selected kaisetsu or bunkai from Niseishi kata, using sen-no-sen timing to do more advanced variations.