CHRISTMAS COURSE
This years’ Christmas course was extremely poorly attended by the Yamabushi as a whole with only 13 students actually training. Only 3 students: Julian, Andrew and Alex attending from the. Southern contingent, not that we from the North who had such a short distance to travel can talk! We could only muster one student from the Shugenja Dojo at Atherton whilst Shihan Jamie brought his newest students Jenny (Shodan Shotokan) and David orange belt from the same style. The others coming from Perison Street, Wigan. The training as normal was impeccable with 3 Shihans ‘plying their Arts’ to very good reviews, with an extra session by Shidoshi Adam Vile.
A
good selection of sandwiches for lunch and mince pies for the afternoon break
was provided by lngrid with help from Carol Scarrott and Celia Moxey (Sensei
Terry’s, Shihan George’s and Sensei Steve’s BETTER halves respectively).
The
course ended with the normal course certificates being handed out and Shihan
Jamie presented Jenny with a special certificate for the weapon training she
has been doing in Earlestown.
We
headed for the Pub after the course at 5.30pm ready to start the festivities
before the meal was due to start at 7.3Opm. As Sensei Steve and his wife Celia
said their goodbyes, we managed to sneak Shihan Jamie into his Ninja Vanishing
mode to enable him to sabotage their car thus preventing them from leaving us,
which worked as nobody saw him leave or return.
After
3 or 4 drinks we yomped it to the New China Restaurant where after the
performance of Jacob Sibley the previous Saturday, we were ‘invited’ to dine
upstairs in a separate room. We started the banquet as usual in a sober state
and got louder and louder as the evening wore on, renaming the Wigan contingent
with names ranging from Mr. Ben to Posh Spice with David Beckham making ‘her’
first appearance. The evening started to disintegrate with Mr. Ben collapsing
on the stairs and being pushed into a taxi at about 1 o’ clock. Julian decided
he wanted to leave with Shidoshi Adam Vile but was rugby tackled on the stairs
and decided to carry on with the party. At 4am the magnificent 5 decided to
leave the restaurant before being ejected by the Tong.
We
headed for the Last Supper, a local watering hole that remains open until 5am.
After Shihan Jaimie and Jacob managed to pick their eyeballs from the floor at
5 o’clock after nearly 45 minutes of ogling ladies in various states of attire
and Shaun enjoying himself at the Bar (no comment!), we headed for Asda in two
taxis but were informed en route the breakfast was off as Asda was closed, so
we went on a breakfast crawl around Wigan but were unlucky and had to go home.
We
dropped Jaimie off at his mum’s home where Sensei Steve, Celia and family were
staying overnight. Of course the household was then up and the Moxley’s decided to
leave for London!!
A
good time was had by all and we hope for a better attendance to all the courses
in the New Year.
Sensei Terry Hall