OSOUJI-JIKAN
“Cleaning Time”
By Charles P. VanDine
Yon Dan Dojo-cho The Gi Yu Honbu Dojo
This past Monday students at the GiYu Honbu Dojo came out in full force. The sense of community was immense. The night started with exceptional instruction from one our newest black belts, Brittney Mooney. Brittney eloquently and concisely educated us on basic Kihon Gata techniques and GiYu Suwari Gata techniques. After training all of us moved on to the task at hand…SPRING cleaning of OUR training facility. The students, led by Sukh Sensei, gave the dojo a deep cleaning. We were able to scrub the bathrooms, polish all woodwork, shine all mirrors and glass tops, clean all the carpets, and disinfect the training mats within 45 minutes. RECORD time! That is TEAM WORK!
I started thinking about what Sukh Sensei is always talking about, his underlying message of greater good for the community, sense of purpose, fellowship. Exemplifying the philosophies of The Gi yu Kyo Kai Dojos. This time of training and cleaning demonstrated the power and benefit of a strong community. I experienced several very positive situations in one night. First, we all took the time to improve and challenge ourselves through Kobudo. Second, we all took the time to improve and challenge our training partners through…Kobudo. It is through Kobudo that we learn to use our body movements to defeat stronger attackers and to keep our families safe. Third, with everyone’s effort the daunting task of deep cleaning the dojo took only 45 minutes! Finally, there was not a single gripe from any of the students. There was not a single gripe because we were all having a blast working next to each other.
In a broad sense, our Monday Night OSOUJI-JIKAN represented KAKI-HEKI (“give and take”). And just like good KAKI-HEKI within our taijutsu, KAKI-HEKI within our community produces amazing results. Thank you all who participated and continue to support our budo community and our greater communities we live in.