Go Ryu dojo turns 25
1 September 2022
Go Ryu, the Ghent dojo of the international aikido school Ban Sen Juku, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
In 1993, Tomita Seiji Shihan, Joost De Wulf and Henk Coudenys founded a Ghent branch of the international aikido school Ban Sen Juku (BSJ).
From 1999, Erwin Sevens led the Ghent dojo. Erwin started at the end of 1986 in a Ghent aikido club of the Flemish Aikido Association. In that club he met Tomita Sensei. He could not miss the chance to learn from a Japanese aikido grandmaster, and together with Henk Coudenys he began to attend classes regularly at Tomita Sensei's dojo in Antwerp.
In 1994 he moved to BSJ for good. In the early years, Tomita Sensei often came to teach at the Ghent BSJ dojo. In 1999, with the approval of Tomita Sensei, Erwin took the initiative to turn the dojo into an independent dojo affiliated with Ban Sen Juku.
The dojo was named ‘Go Ryu’, which means ‘confluence’. The name refers to the location of the club, where the rivers Leie and Scheldt meet. It also holds the core idea of aikido: the flowing together of forces, harmony.
In September 2012, Dries Cappon took over the leadership. In October 2013 the club moved to the Neptunus sports hall in Wondelgem, where we now train twice a week: on Tuesday from 20:00 to 22:00 and on Thursday from 21:00 to 22:30. In September, the month of the Ghent sports club, everyone is welcome to try a class.
Seminar and anniversary
To celebrate this anniversary properly, a seminar led by Shihan Tomita Seiji takes place on Sunday 18 September 2022. The anniversary should have been celebrated earlier, but because of COVID-19 we could only now be sure of the right conditions.
