To-Shin Do April Black Belt Seminar 2019 Review

Each year To-Shin Do black belts from all over the globe convene at the “Hombu” or Home Dojo in Dayton, Ohio. This year was a little different in that we were celebrating An-Shu Hayes’s seventieth Birthday year, or “Ko-Ki” celebration. One of the obvious changes this year was An-Shu’s purple gi, the traditional color of the “Ko-Ki” celebration. The other change for this year is that the April weekend is to be the first third of a “3-part Mini Festival” as opposed to Hombu hosting a large get together in the fall.

The event brought fifty To-Shin Do black belts together on the mat to train with An-Shu’s Stephen and Rumiko Hayes and the Shihan Kai (leadership council) of Mark Sentoshi Russo, James Kentoshi Norris, and Dennis Futoshi Mahoney. To-Shin Do dojo’s and clubs were represented from Ohio, North Carolina, Canada, Florida, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Colorado, and Arizona to name a few. (Forgive me if I didn’t list your area).

The curriculum for the weekend spanned the To-Shin Do advanced participant material.  There was literally something for everyone from the newest Shodans (first degree black belts) to the most advanced practitioners. The An-Shu’s lead most of the training but each of the Shihan Kai team taught a session as well.  There were two sessions (one per day) of “break-outs” where participants could pick areas of study to focus on lead by sixth degree practitioners with topics ranging from knife defense to takedown prevention concepts.

Several advanced To-Shin Do degrees were awarded over the weekend. Margaret B. of the Chapel Hill Quest Martial Arts Dojo was awarded her third degree, or Sandan, and the warrior name of “Gentoshi”. Eric Nentoshi Gadol of the same dojo was awarded his fourth degree, or Yondan. Sensei Joel Dentoshi Iverson of the Art of Life Sanctuary dojo was also awarded his Yondan. And Sensei Hakim Intoshi Isler, of the Elevo Dynamics Dojo was awarded the very rare Godan, or fifth degree, silver belt.

As much as I will miss the large festival event this year I am excited to get more of this sort of training opportunity.  The smaller group, on an actual mat instead of a hotel ballroom floor, made for really fun training. The “regular” festival is fun and the social aspect of it is cool but during this April event everyone there was there to work.

I am very much looking forward to the next parts of the “Mini-Festival” experiment and to getting some more mat time with my brothers and sisters of the sword.

And Happy Seventieth year around the sun An-Shu Stephen Hayes.

NinjaEveryday.