My 'Curriculum Vitae' for Budo Sport

In short:

  • 1944, March 07 : I was born in Lugano, Switzerland
  • 1965, March : Ju Jutsu at the ETH (my university school)
  • 1978, November : starting KENDO in Wädenswil, Teacher: Toni Schob.
  • 1983, March : starting IAIDO in BUDOKAN Zurich, at first with Richard Eisenschmid
    under the supervision of Gerry Tscherter.
  • 1987, April 27 : 1st DAN KENDO in Malmö (Sweden) Euro-Championship
  • 1992, June 08 : shodan IAIDO in Paris (France) International seminar
  • 1993, May 31 : nidan IAIDO in Paris (France) Euro-Championship
  • 1995, August 20: sandan IAIDO in Warwick (UK) International seminar
  • 2000, August 05: yondan IAIDO in Brighton (UK) International seminar
  • 2006, August 15: godan IAIDO in Brighton (UK) International seminar

My first contact with Martial Arts was when I was a jung student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Looking for something completely different than my study I took a Ju-jitsu course (It was about 1965).
I believe that this helped to save my life when I had an accident driving a motorbike because I could 'roll' over the car in which I crashed when I missed a curve driving downhill near Lugano.

I had to wait till 1978 to read in a local newspaper about the Swiss Championship in KENDO which was held in Wädenswil, a small town at the Lake of Zurich. There were a picture with two Kendoka fighting and the name of the winner: Erwin Manser. I phoned him and he invited me to join the training in Wädenswil. The Dojo was run by Toni Schöb who becames my first KENDO teacher. There I found Herbert Meierhofer who won later many times the Swiss Championship and was once Vice Europa Champion. Later he also cames to Zurich to teach KENDO. At that time I was not the only one coming from Zurich to have trainig with Toni, Herbert and Erwin: Gerry Tscherter often cames to Wädenswil. He was the founder of the BUDOKAN Zurich and becomes many times Swiss Champion. In 1982 I joined the BUDOKAN. There was also Richard Eisenschmid who introduced me to IAIDO (about 1982 or 1983). Thanks to Gerry I got my first DAN in KENDO in 1987 in Malmö (Sweden). Unfortunately I run into problems with my health and I could not practice KENDO anymore. (For the same raison I had to stop my activity as pilot instructor for glider flying). So IAIDO becomes more important for me. My teacher Gerry Tscherter went often to Japan and his IAIDO teacher was YAMASHIBU SENSEI who was also the teacher of HARUNA SENSEI who was teacher of OSHITA SENSEI.
Every year I went to England to follow a Seminar with HARUNA and OSHITA sensei.
Luckily we also have the support of Peter West (by now 7th DAN IAIDO) and Fay Goodmann (who made her 7th DAN in 2002 in Japan) who come to Switzerland to teach us. Of course they are following the teaching of HARUNA and OSHITA sensei.
Thanks to Peter we also learned the Niten Ichi Ryu katas.

Unforunately Haruna Sensei passed away in September 2002.
We will continue on his line with the help of Oshita Sensei
(to be continued ....)