The Honbu dojo is quite small with only a handful of black belts regularly training and a few (brave) kyu grades on occasion. It’s something that surprised me at first given the dojo’s famed reputation. Another thing that caught me off guard when I first arrived is how truly international the student base is – there are students from America, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and surprisingly few from Okinawa or mainland Japan. Add to this the almost weekly influx of visitors from around the word – England, Guatemala, France, Germany, Holland, Spain... With the constant supply of people from different styles and countries this melting pot of a dojo makes for some interesting training sessions and it’s fair share of language confusion.Training runs from 8-10pm every night but usually kicks off a little late and runs even later. On normal training nights, the few of us without work commitments (or possessive partners) often stay late to work on corrections, practice sparring or applications, or do a few more reps with the metal clogs (tetsu geta) or gripping jars (nigiri-game). On nights when Sensei’s feeling particularly ‘genki’ - it’s not uncommon for us to find ourselves training through until 11.30/12pm and sometimes staying even later while he tells us stories about Kanryo Higaonna and Chojun Miyagi’s era. In any case, my life training at the Honbu dojo seems to have become a little nocturnal and even when I get home before midnight, I find myself needing at least another hour or so to slow my brain down to speed capable of sleep.
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