Last week in Okinawa, Japan I attended the annual IOGKF Chief Instructors Gasshuku (CIG). This event is held for the heads of all IOGKF member countries and any students 5^th dan or higher. The point of the event is to help maintain the consistency and quality of the IOGKF organization’s instructors around the world. The event ran from Wednesday to Saturday.

This year there was over 75 people from 28 countries participating. This included a new IOGKF member country, Vanuatu. Some of you may recognize the name of this island country, south of Fiji, as it was a host to one of the Survivor shows.

The training was held at two locations. The first day of training was at the Budokan, the rest of the training was at the Karate Kaikan. Both locations have the most beautiful training floors. I felt that my suri ashi went 50% further on those floors.

Higaonna Sensei was in very good spirits and showed an amazing amount of energy teaching 4 ½ hours each day. It is hard to believe he will be 80 years old later this year, and that just over three years ago he was severely ill. He is a true representative of a strong, fighting spirit. Due to the high level of the participants it was a real treat to have such in-depth kata, kihon bunkai and oyo bunkai training with Higaonna Sensei. He also spent time talking to us about Chojun Miyagi Sensei, An’ichi Miyagi Sensei and the history of the IOGKF.