Gasshuku (literally,“lodging together”) is a traditional Japanese custom of spending a weekend together to train. A gasshuku is not the same as a seminar. People train, play, and eat and drink together often traveling together to another town to do so. Each AKI dojo usually holds a couple such camps each year. The practice is often led by Takeda Shihan or a high ranking AKI instructor.
When I first started taking aikido, if you told me I would be doing a 3 day gasshuku only a year later, I would’ve called you crazy. But I did it. When I first started aikido, I could barely roll and I was just awful at it in general, but here I am. I just pushed myself further and further in it because I knew that was the only way I’d get better. Many times after class, I would walk with a limp and I’d ask myself, what am I doing here? I just kept going back despite all that and eventually got to where I am today.
