Anglesea Gasshuku

by Tom Mursalo

Day 1

Friday was a typical Melbourne day. Sunny in the morning, cloudy at lunch, rain in the evening - 11 seasons in a day!

I set out for Anglesea at 4.30pm and after spending an hour admiring the rivets on Westgate bridge, I joined the other half a million commuters on that poor excuse of a road - the Geelong 'highway'. Two and a half hours later I arrived at the Anglesea mud and recreation camp.

Bonus!!

I could relax, unpack the car, change out of my work clothes and wait for the earlybirds to get back from their first training session. No such luck. As I was about to escape for a walk to the beach, Sensei Robert arived, ordered me into my Gi and we set off to find the others. Unfortunately Rob's sense of direction is not as good as his Karate, because 30 minutes later we were still jogging up a hill in the opposite direction to the water (as I'm the one writing this - he gets the blame). Eventually, just short of Bendigo, he called a halt and we headed off back to base camp. On the way we found a cliff overlooking the sea where we started off the Gasshuku with a few rounds of Tekki Nidan and a beautiful sunset.

What a great start to the weekend - I was convinced that a mellow, spirtual weekend was ahead of us..........WRONG!!! I should have realised that the man who regularly treated us to a 1000 punches in a lunchtime back in University days, had something a bit more physical in store.

After dinner, we settled down for a bit of serious socialising and listened to the older generation (Linda and Phil) expound on their theories on life. Luckily we had bought a few beers along and this made the conversation more and more interesting as the evening wore on. It was so riveting in fact, that most of us only managed to get to sleep well after 1am.

Big Mistake!!

 

Day 2 - Saturday morning 5.30am.

Twenty six, hungover, bleary eyed individuals gathered around Sensei Keith and we set off for the beach. Luckily a convenient hill was en-route and Sensei decided to start off the day with a couple of hundred mae geri - sambon zuki combinations to take us to the summit. A fast jog down through the caravan park (making sure we woke up everyone in the process) and we were on Anglsea beach, out of breath but ready to take on the day.

.......and what a day! The brisk morning session was followed by breakfast, 45 minutes to let it settle and then straight into the hall for 1000 mae-geri gyakazuki combinations. I was pretty sure I'd mis-heard Sensei and that he had actually said 100, but he soon shattered that illusion and we were off. A short break followed by 24 intense kumite matches and a Karate quiz saw us crawling off whipped and wounded to lunch.

Next was a surprise session from Sensei Stan, who'd made a special effort and driven all the way down to Anglesea just to give us a lesson in Weapons defence techniques. It was good to focus on some technical aspects of self-defence after the intensity of the morning sessions.

However, the physical part was not over as we were treated to a fitness test comprising sit-ups, push-ups, burpies and jumping over a stick to remind us we were on a Gasshuku. A rejuvinating session of Hangetsu Kata finished off what was one of the hardest days of Karate I've ever been through.

We were all treated to a surprise mini rock concert featuring Dean on vocals, Johnno on guitar, Josh on Bass and Elise on Drums, before heading off to Dinner and ending off what had been a long, but rewarding day. Never make the mistake of assuming that Karate-ka are intelligent enough to learn from their mistakes.

Several hours of socialising, an impromptu sing-song, a drink or five and it was suddenly 2.00am and (for some), time for a few hours sleep before the morning session.

Day 3

Here we go again - I thought as the same hill loomed ahead. Sensei Keith was concerned that we might be getting bored with the scenery, so we ran backwards up the hill and leap frogged all the way down. He finally took pity on us and we ended off a fantastic weekend with some gentle basics and a few dozen Kata on the beach before heading off back home for some serious rest and relaxation. Roll on next year!!!