The reason why I didn't attend Tampere Kuplii - Polish Military Camp 7!

...I can hear some people already asking "Why is this here since this has nothing to do with cosplay?". Let me explain that first. I know that there are people in the cosplay scene who are into different martial arts. This blog post deals with one of them: Krav Maga. I decided to post this here since I thought that some people would find this interesting and this camp is also the reason why I decided not to attend Tampere Kuplii.

Let's roll~!

Friday (pre-camp)

We - the instructors of Ronin Krav Maga Eura and I - left Eura to Helsinki in the Friday evening. I can tell you that I was pretty nervous; this would be the first Military Camp I had ever attended and probably my last one too which is VERY unfortunate.
During the trip I managed to relax a bit, mostly because of the jokes and (sometimes very bad) humour. When I told that I have never seen the Kill Bill movies, the reaction was pretty much like this:

Picture found on Google.

In a way it was hilarious (but I think that I seriously need to watch those movies though) xD

The drive took us a few hours but in the end we arrived to Helsinki.
I had decided to reserve a room from Radisson Aleksanteri - a very good hotel, I must say. The only minus: some parts of the building reminded me strongly about Stanley Hotel - also known as the hotel from The Shining...

Forgive me the poor quality, this picture was taken with my mobile phone.

After I had left my stuff in my hotel room I decided to go to the hotel's bar and just spend time there - for a couple of hours only though, I got tired quite early and decided to go to the bed. Probably one of my best decisions ever since I truly needed to rest before the camp begun.

Saturday - day 1 

The camp - which was held at Combat Academy of Finland - started at 10.30 a.m on Saturday. That meant that waking up early was quite necessary. I hadn't slept too well (I woke up at least seven times during the night so yeah) but the luck was still on my side: I managed to wake up and drag myself out of bed when I was supposed to, yay! 

After I had eaten my breakfast I went to fetch my training bag (which contains for example boxing gloves, my Maga belt and teeth protectors) from my room. When I was waiting for the elevator one of my instructors called me and told me that they would be in front of the hotel in no time. Let's just say that I stepped out of the front door when they arrived; perfect timing is perfect! :D I think that the clock was 09.45 a.m at this point so we had plenty of time to drive to the Academy. 

Once there I went to the dressing room to put on all the protectors (except the teeth protectors, I don't use them if it isn't obligatory); you see, Krav Maga is a contact sport. Even if the trainees are careful and don't rush the techniques, accidents can still happen. Better safe than sorry. 

I spotted some familiar faces in the crowd (instructors and trainees, mainly from Tampere and Helsinki but there were two more guys from Eura too) and went to say hi to those people - you see, at this point I felt very unsure about myself and my surroundings. I was nervous and didn't know almost anyone so... Yeah. Luckily the feeling decided to fade away quite soon.
Soon we were ordered to form three rows; our place in those rows depended on our belt grades. A few words were said (insert blackout here, I don't remember what they said) and then we started warming up our muscles by walking and running all around the training room.

And one wasn't allowed to touch anyone.
I can tell you that it was a challenge - the room was full of people! :DD

Quite soon we begun to train the techniques. I'm sorry but I won't go into details; I can't take the risk that someone would begin to practice those techniques at home without an instructor. It would be a bit too dangerous, especially with these kind of Krav Maga techniques.
As you can see from the title of this post, the camp was called Military Camp. Yep. Military-styled Krav Maga techniques, originally developed by the Israeli army.

I think that I'll cut this wall of text at this point and let you see some pictures, © Roni Tamminen. I've got the permission to use these pictures on this blog post, thank you so much! :)

The group photo! 

(Looks like I managed to avoid the camera pretty well on Saturday... :'D )

On Saturday we trained for 4,5 hours. During the training I didn't feel that exhausted but when I got into the car it felt like I had no strength left at all. No kidding.

In the Saturday evening some of the trainees & instructors had a dinner with the Polish instructors. The atmosphere was relaxed and everybody had fun. I think that the dinner was one of the best chances to get to know new people during the weekend; you can't speak when you're training. If you do that your concentration says goodbye and walks out of the door (and that's something you don't want to happen when you're about to get thrown to the ground or something similar to that).
After the dinner some of us - including me - decided to go to hang out in a bar for a while. I decided to leave to the hotel quite early though; I just didn't feel like staying awake anymore. And my feet had already died. My boots weren't made for walking, apparently. Demonia shoes ftw.

Sunday - day 2

In the Sunday morning I packed up my stuff and gave back the key card of my hotel room at the reception. Quite soon after that my instructors came to pick me up and we begun our journey to the Academy once again. 

On Sunday we trained for 5 hours. In my opinion the Sunday training was even more interesting - it was so different when compared to the "normal" Maga techniques & training! I think that the pictures will tell you more than thousand words since it's very hard to actually explain these techniques without going into detail and, like I said, that's not something I'd do. Pics © Roni Tamminen. :)

Thanks Heidi for training with me! :D ...and if it's unclear, I'm the one with the yellow belt.

Looks a bit like an awkward hug, huh? I can tell you that it's definitely not a hug...

From right to left: Piotr, Ari, Wlodek and Soili. The Finnish people in this pic are instructors at the Academy.

Oh! During the break on Sunday I decided to ask the Polish instructors, Piotr and Wlodek, a couple of questions! 

It seemed like they had enjoyed being here in Finland - this was Wlodek's 7th and Piotr's 5th time here. They said that being with us Finns felt like being with family. I don't wonder why; the Krav Maga people are basically "the family I have chosen" so I understand what our Polish friends meant. They also told me that they have been into Krav Maga for 21 years. Respect, honestly! 

During that break we - the trainees and instructors of Ronin Krav Maga Eura - also took a pic with the Polish guys~!

...I have no memory who took this pic though. Oopsie-daisy.

From right to left: Torsti, Piotr, Kaitsu, Wlodek, Hanski, Marko & I.

When the clock was 4 p.m it was time to stop the training. The camp was over way too fast - well, physically I was very exhausted (walking was quite of a task to do) but still! ;__; This was one of the most amazing weekends of my life and an experience I will never forget. So, yeah, I'm very happy that I decided to go to Helsinki instead of Tampere. 5/5, would do it again if it was possible for me... ;__; 

This camp taught me a lot; not only the techniques, mind you. During the weekend I learnt a lot about myself, how to control my body and how to control my nerves. Especially when one of the instructors wants to show a technique to everybody and suddenly it's you who is asked to be the uke in the situation... Shock therapy for panic/anxiety disorder, definitely. :'D
A big thank you to everyone with whom I trained and spent time with - and even more big thank you to the ones who made this camp possible! <3

See you next time (I have a lot of stuff to post, sleepless nights here I come)~!

-Firith