last weekend I attended my dojo's yearly Chicago seminar. It is every first weekend of October, 2 hours on friday, 7 hours on saturday. Our Chief instructor comes to teach us, and we usually end up inviting the local shotokan dojo to come train with us as well (We're Goju Ryu). We usually get a total of 1 hour break during the 7 hours of training.

Once a year, our chief instructor also holds a 6 day long training seminar. The times vary according to his choice, but the first time I went there, the first day was 13 hours long, and the shortest day I believe was 8 or 9 hours. The first day, we went for 4 hours before getting a 10 minute water break. Sensei liked to spend the first day with all of our energy and muscle fibers in tact to break us down as much as he can. Needless to say, by the end of it all, people were broken down. I have so far been able to go to it twice, missing only last year, every year during the event thinking, "Why the hell did I go to this thing?! I'm going to die!" But eventually reverting back to my, "I'm glad I did this." Mentality, lol. Definately the most challenging thing I have and probably ever will have to encounter.

An example of the pain and hell we endured, imagine a 185 pound man (I was 200 at the time) kicking your groin at nearly full force, and falling knee first ito your groin with little to no slowing down, for 55 minutes (He was taking it easy the first 5 minutes, until Sensei yelled at him, unfortunately for me). Good thing about it is I can now take a full blown kick to the crotch and not even drop my guard ^_^.


So, thoughts on seminars? Who's been to some really good ones? Any go for as long as I did? Any horror stories from them? How good are they for the body, mind, and spirit?