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| Student
Interview with Arjan Stavast |
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MI
Magazine this month talks
with Scott Clark of Camberley,
England. Scott is a student
of Kancho Bill Cox of
Spirit Combat International
and we find out about
Scott's seven and a half
years in Jujitsu…
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| MI:
Your age and rank? |
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| Arjan:
25 years old, 2knd kyu in Ninjutsu, no rank
yet in Aikido |
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| MI:
Your art and style? |
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Arjan:
Currently, I'm very much into Aikido
and I think our style is Aikikai (although
my sensei says it's simple and plain aikido)
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| MI:
Your dojo name and location? |
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Arjan:
Isshin Dojo, Rotterdam, Netherlands
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| MI:
Your instructors? |
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| Arjan:
Wim Krijgsman Sensei |
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| MI:
How did you get involved in MA? |
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| Arjan:
When I was really young, I did judo, but
I stopped that when I started soccer training
(which is pretty much compulsory if you're
a Dutch kid... ;-)). Then, I got involved
in Ninjutsu, which I did very intensively
for about 5 years. It was a great time, since
we had a really nice group of people. I think
I trained for some 20 hours a week and also
started with the teacher training. Unfortunately,
slowly but steadily the atmosphere within
the dojo changed and became increasingly aggressive.
I had a break for about 4 years and now finally
started Aikido last January, a thing I have
wanted to do for the past few years, but somehow
didn't succeed in doing. The thing I really
prefer about this dojo is that it's also open
for disabled people. Training with them is
a great experience for me and has taught me
quite a lot about them, but also about me.
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| MI:
How often do you train? |
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Arjan:
4 times a week when I'm in Holland, but I
have to travel abroad fairly often for work
and miss some trainings then. So, my average
is probably about 2 1/2 times a week.
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| MI:
Do
you set yourself any specific goals
regarding your training? |
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| Arjan:
No, not really. Of course, I always
try to improve, but there are so many
things I still can't do, that I'm not
focusing on something specific yet. |
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| MI:
What has been the most difficult thing
to learn? |
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| Arjan:
I reckon it was starting at the bottom again
and accepting for myself that there are some
things I need to learn again and some thing
that are just completely different from what
I used to do. |
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| MI:
Do you practice much outside of the dojo? |
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| Arjan:
Not really, but that's mostly due
to the white Gi! ;-) My old Ninjutsu
Gi was black and was great for rolling
through the grass and mud outside. |
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