After flying to Moscow and then on to Tomsk which took 8 hours we finally made our descent. As I looked out of the plane window the sun was just coming up over the horizon but the temperature on the ground was still a chilling -3c but it would soon rise to a comfortable 18c during the day.
I was met at the airport by the senior instructor in Tomsk, Andrei Odintsov who drove me to a comfortable hotel which is for sportsmen. The breakfast room was at the very top of the hotel and was made of glass from ceiling to floor so the view was fantastic one could see around the city.
Tomsk has as a population of about 500,000 it has 5 universities and numerous colleges teaching an array of subjects. As a consequence there are a large contingent of young people in residence, who congregate in the local parks to socialise and have a picnic.
The training was over 3 days and was for 6 hours a day. I counted about 120 people most of which were children which was great, there were about 20 Ð 25 adults from an array of backgrounds including Mixed Martial Arts. One man that stood out was very good at aerobatics and put up a good show when it came to pad work after he finished he lay on the floor exhausted, well done Sergey.
3 hours in the morning was for instructors and assistants, I managed to cover the IOGKF curriculum with lot of corrective training and the breaking down of each Kata, up to and including Kururunfa, every morning would start with Sanchin and Tensho.
But it was not all about training I managed to go fishing on the river Tom which is about a kilometre wide but only caught very small fish, however it was very relaxing. I was also treated to a traditional Russian Banya some wonderful Russian food and of course Vodka with some wonderful and friendly people.
I would like to thank all the people and the children that made this trip a very special event for me, and look forward to returning in May 2010.