A Report by: Sensei Jorge Rivera & Sensei Manuel Easton
IOGKF Chile (Goju Do)
Last year coming back from the 2012 Budosai, we knew that we would participate in the “2013 Chief Instructor
Gasshuku” (CIG) in Okinawa. We knew it would be a great opportunity to improve our karate, train daily at the
honbu dojo and get acquainted with other Chief Instructors from around the world. What we did not know was
that this trip would last a whole month.
We committed for the 2013 CIG with Sensei Higaonna and Sensei Larsen, during the South American Gasshuku
(last April in Lima, Perú). Then during the MCF 2013 (in Canada) Sensei Nakamura confirmed that Sensei Higaonna
would be in his Naha Dojo for the whole month of October. It was later in August, when Sensei Nakamura visited
Chile, that we finished the last details of our trip to Japan.
We left on October 1st, with a long journey ahead of us. We flew west-ward from Chile crossing the date-change
line which made us jump 12 hours ahead of our local-time-of-departure. Thirty-six hours later with several stopovers we finally arrived in Okinawa on October 3rd- The jet lag was terrible the first few days. Those 12 hours of
time difference, made our bodies want to go to sleep in broad daylight and stay awake at nights!
Just a day after we arrived, so did Typhoon “Fitow”. Fortunately it missed Okinawa, but left a whole weekend of
pouring rain and strong winds. The weather was still very hot and the humidity off the typhoon´s rain, and it
made our first days of training at the Dojo even more unforgettable.
Classes at the Dojo were regularly held by Sensei Kuramoto, who was very kind and welcoming with us. Two other
karate-ka were also there for regular training: Reena Prasad (England) and Morten Christoffersen (Denmark). We
partnered with them for morning sessions when individual training is performed. A lot of the morning hours were
spent on supplemental exercises (hojo undo) and practicing Kata. It was during the night sessions when Sensei
Higaonna supervised the training. He dedicated long hours to observe and correct our technique (kihon, kata and
bunkai), explaining all details.
The first gasshuku participants started arriving the following week. The first ones were Sensei Kokubo (Perú), Sensei Linda Marchant (England) and Torben Svendsen and Jakob Kold (Denmark). Other sensei arrived later from
Germany, India, Moldova and Russia and we all trained daily at the Dojo. The energy of that group was incredible
and really made a difference in our performance, pushing us to train even harder.
We shared most of our “free time” with Sensei Kokubo. After the morning training we used to have lunch together
and after the night sessions we used to go to a small restaurant for gyozas and something to drink. He turned us
into fans of “ikasumi some”: a bowl of noodles darkened with squid ink and chunks of pork and fried squid with
garlic, that, plus a side of seaweed soup!