Skopje

Organized by the Croatian Aikido Association, at the end of the summer, the 8-th Aikido Summer School was held and led by Michele Quaranta sensei and Simone Chirechini sensei. 

THE AIKIDO SUMMER SCHOOL IN KOMIZA, CROATIA
01-07 SEPTEMBER 2007

Every year September is the month associated with many beginnings and therefore with many obligations. That is why this report is a little late, but finely here.

At the Croatian Summer aikido school last year only one member from our club was present and she conveyed to us words of praise and of extraordinary experience, so this year we participated with 4 of our aikidokas.

Of 8 summer schools altogether organized by the Croatian Aikido Association, the last two were held in the small town Komiza on the island of Vis. The previous were held at different locations, but since the first visit to Komiza was more than just pleasant, they decided not to change the location anymore.

Komiza is a small fishing town, which fortunately hasn’t turned into an ultra modern holiday destinations over the years. It has kept its peacefulness and intimacy and most importantly, the ambient of pure and untouched nature. Actually, the whole island of Vis is like that, the inhabitants are mainly fishermen or they produce vine and olive oil in home environment. You can already guess why the summer school stationed itself here, can’t you?

Sensei Quaranta held this summer school together with his friend from the Irish Aikido Federation – Simone Chierchini 4th Dan Aikikai, who held half of the trainings. The daily schedule was as follows:

08:00 – 09:00 training with weapons (aikiken Michele Quaranta, aikijo Simone Chierchini)
10:30 – 13:00 Indoor training (Michele Quaranta and Simone Chierchini)
There was also a Hojo training from 07:00 till 08:00, for the enthusiasts.

The afternoons were reserved for the beach of course. It goes without saying that we enjoyed the beauties of the Adriatic Sea.
Sensei Chierchini presented to us beautiful classical aikido with wide movements and high precision.
We also learned a lot from his aikijo lessons – he showed us 6 short katas in pairs. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time for us to learn all 6 of them, so the last two were left for other occasion. It was the same with the aikiken katas which were shown by sensei Quaranta. Three hours (time that the senseis had over those past 7 days) were not enough for that much data. But, besides that, all of the participants were more than happy with the things they learned and with the new experience they acquired in practising with the new partners and friends.

This year there was probably a record number of different participating countries at the summer school. There were aikidokas from: Ireland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Macedonia, Serbia, and of course Croatia. It is too bad that we didn’t find accommodation together so that we could socialize more often. But, the organizers promised us that they will take care about that for next year.

Best regards, to all of the participants and the senseis, with hope that we’ll see each other on the next occasion we get!