During the past year, we have, within the Swedish Shorinji Kempo Federation, been working to formulate a vision for how we want to develop Shorinji Kempo in Sweden. Our core activities are intense exercise – mental, physical and technical – with the goal of becoming skilled in self-defense and with the greater purpose of being good role models in everyday life. The latter is what budo is really about. To train our characters and to discipline ourselves through regular exercise – this is our method.

The vision for 2025 is about developing our training methods so that they, even more than now, give desired effects. We will study how to develop properties as speed, strength, endurance and mobility. How to best best convey knowledge to our members, and how to improve technique training with respect to reaction time, coordination, and automation. Another important area is how we can make the mental aspects even more useful in our everyday lives – concentration, mindfulness, patience and several other aspects.

In recent years we have seen evidence that our methods work. Swedish practitioners have earned qualified levels in the Shorinji Kempo grading system, and our knowledge is well met within the Shorinji Kempo world. Our members have also gained several gold medals at major international championships in recent years, both our women and men. We now look forward tothe next major step for swedish Shorinji Kempo.