zaterdag 21 juli 2012: eerste Kyokushin Budokai All-Round Fighting 30 men Kumite te Blankenberge

Op zaterdag 21 juli 2012 onderging Stanislaw Swiecicki (IBK Verenigd Koninkrijk, Jigoku Dojo Abderdeen) als eerste Budoka ooit, de pionier dus, de allereerste Kyokushin Budokai All-Round Fighting 30 men Kumite in de IBK België RONIN M.M.A. Honbu te Blankenberge!!

Hij vocht meer dan een uur in verschillende stijlen en behaalde uiteindelijk zijn Shodan 1ste Dan zwarte gordel Kyokushin Budokai All-Round Fighting en de titel van Senpai (leraar) met onderstaande resultaten:

• 30 gevechten:
• 1 gewonnen: 3 punten
• 8 verloren: 8 punten
• 21 gelijk: 42 punten
• totaal: 53/90 = geslaagd!

Het volledige examen berustte op een neutrale beoordeling, onder toezicht van een examencommissie met vertegenwoordigers uit meerdere landen en een examenkandidaat die kwam uit een ander land dan het land waarin het examen plaats vond.
De namen van alle personen die aan de 30 men Kumite hebben deelgenomen staan geregistreerd en alles werd eveneens gefilmd.

De film wordt binnenkort online geplaatst!!

Speciale dank aan:

• Hanshi Marc Howes
• Senpai Stanislaw Swiecicki
• Hanshi Eric Van Vaerenbergh
• alle 30 men Kumite vechters
• Alain Hocks: cameraman
• Aaron Rys: medische steun

“Back home after a long journey, a great milestone in my life, one almost as important as the day when I met a friend whilst walking down King Street and he told me that he knows a guy who does Kyokushin in Aberdeen, albeit in a somewhat more contemporary form. The same evening I rushed down to the Warehouse Health Club and trained with Hanshi Marc Howes (then Shihan Marc) for the first time, when the reborn Team Jigoku was still in its infancy, with circa 10-12 people participating at most.

That was December 2007. Since then so many things happened, both in my life and in the life of the dojo, that I’d have to write a little pamphlet to tell a tale worthy of the events themselves. But, most importantly, I met a lot of fantastic people, whom I have the honour of calling my friends today. People who, by threading this peculiar path of life alongside me, have persuaded me time after time that there’s more to living than just a degree, a career, cash, cars, mortgages, sex (don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty fucking important), a rush of forgetfulness on a Saturday and a sore head on a Sunday. That living is more than just breathing (although it does come in pretty handy, especially when you’re being choked) and that the word ‘family’ has more than one meaning. Out of this family, which has grown so much over the years, it is Hanshi Marc to whom I owe the fact that I was able to stand on the red tatami on Saturday and get the biggest beating of my life, persevere and then cry like a little girl! I owe him a lot more – he is my teacher, my dear friend and, without exaggerating, my Scottish father (Welsh actually and please don’t cry when you read this Hanshi, haha), a debt that cannot be repaid.

But although it was Hanshi who guided me over the years, as a budo-ka and as a human being, the journey was far from a solitary one. And each person I bumped into changed the coordinates slightly, taught me something new, made me smile, pissed me off, pushed me into a hole or helped me leap out of it. The road itself has been everything apart from a straight line.

On Saturday I understood this very well. I was strong and did what had to be done. And as some of the clean hooks and beautiful head-kicks connected, for a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of you all, too many faces to count, stretching wider than my imagination (probably concussed) could conceive. And now that this one climax is over, I have the pleasure of thanking you for what YOU have done and that you’re still there, near or far, as the story continues to unfold.

I can’t even begin to list you all. I’ve met you in the dojo and outside of it too, forming a pattern which, if I believed in any sort of deity, I would have to congratulate them on. So all I can say is – you know who you are – thank you. It is because of you that today I am a Kyokushin Budokai shodan of the Jigoku Dojo in Scotland. But it’s not the black belt that makes me one. It’s all the folk who paved my way towards it, step by step. Not gonna hide though, it’s still going to be the coolest thing I’ll ever wear, just next to sparkly thongs.

That aside, I do have to mention a particular group of wonderful people by name. That is the Ronin MMA dojo of Blankenberge in Belgium, lead by Hanshi Eric Van Vaerenbergh, whom I had the honour to meet over the last couple of days. The best way of epitomizing Hanshi Eric I can think of is that I am proud to be a student of a man who is his brother in budo. And if a tree is best known by its fruits, then I can say I best felt his outstanding spirit and skill via his students, who, although on the surface it may have seemed as if they were hitting me hard (especially the surface of my face), were in reality gently guiding me throughout that hour, making sure I got up every time I fell and reach my destination. Thank you Ronin MMA. You are now all engraved onto my spirit and I hope we will meet again soon.

And, perhaps most importantly, I have to thank Kaicho Jon Bluming, the founder of Kyokushin Budokai, for starting the path we all now walk and allowing these veins of life to become entangled. The roar of the Beast of Amsterdam still circles the world, inspires and joins together what would have otherwise never met.”

Osu!
Senpai Stanislaw Swiecicki