After our Vovinam schools from Hamburg and Hanover visited Thây Bùi Long Cu and his school in Munich last year, it was our turn to invite all Vovinam disciples to Hamburg for the Gio To celebrations 2009.

Friday: Preparation & Arrival

After 3 months of planning and a few minor purchases, the big purchase of food and beverages was done by 3 cars on the day of arrival, as food and beverages for over 100 people are too big to store. On the list: over 1000 liters of beverages, salads in 5 kilo buckets and hords of pigs, chickens and sausages! At the same time another group was busy cleaning and preparing the gym for 113 participants and making room in the shed for all their luggage.

Fortunately the families of our disciples supported us with a huge buffet for dinner, so that we did not have to prepare food besides the shopping and cleaning. Everybody enjoyed the variety of dishes from fried noodles and salads to sushi and meat balls. Restored we were ready for a lot of sporty games until 22:30pm organized by Tim. R. and Anh Tuan.
Meanwhile our Bavarian friends caught up the time they lost during traffic jam directly around Munich and arrived safe but tired shortly after midnight in Hamburg.

Saturday: Training & Sightseeing

After a comfortable but very short night (the first children were already up and playing before 6am!) the first duties of the day began: every disciple of our school in Hamburg is of importance for such a huge event. Preparation and cleaning up of every meal offers a variety of task for every disciple, no matter which age.

The first training session was started by Thây Cao Hai Thanh Trung by giving a few important safety instructions for the weekend and wishing us all a nice time. After the warming up session of HLV Dương Hai-Duy Antony all shirts were wet and the disciples ready for instructions by Thây Cuu and Thây Trung and HLV Ngô Dình Kiem, Trân Thanh Vinh, Dominik Skierecki, Akiko Asada, Bùi Thi Túy, Hang, Hai Duy, Jenni Zietz and Bùi Dominic Thy Long. In spite of our quite small gym all 6 groups with in total almost 100 disciples had enough room to practise. At the same time our friends Huynh Trang and Cao Thanh-Thanh and the disciples Ly Thanh-Phung und Rainer Eichler took care of our lunch.

Without their help our food would probably have done a few more rounds around our school as the delivery service was lost. Fortunately our friends were able to guide him by phone so that only 30 minutes later we had a delicious lunch with rice and fried vegetables with chicken. Yummy!

To offer our guests not only education for their bodies but also for their brains Hai Duy and Tim had prepared a sightseeing tour for adults and children. 3 groups of children headed for the play ground in „Planten un Blomen“ (nothern German dialect for plants and flowers) to answer questions on capt'ns, pirates and other Hamburg related subjects. A group of young adults headed for the shopping area in the center of the city and another group enjoyed the city center in bright sun shine starting from the train main station via the city hall to the harbor. Arriving at the beautiful harbor of Hamburg, we decided spontaneously to do a tour with a boat instead of heading back via Saint Michaels church. Also this
group had to answer questions which were equally hard for everybody from Hanover, Munich and Hamburg. As a result the best results were achieved by the young disciple Huyên Anh (14 years) from Munich! When we returned to the school with tired feet the first sausages were already barbequed by our friends Trang, Thany and Thanh-Mai to feed 113 hungry participants.

After dinner all Huan Luyen Viens and 3.Cap disciples had the chance to get an additional training session from Thây Cuu and Thây Trung. Meanwhile Quach Tuong-Vi Sophie und Lie Vincent took care of the remaining approx. 80 disciples with a lot of funny games. The analysis of known techniques is very important for everybody giving training lessons and enables us to explain and show the techniques in a correct and understandable way. Testing different approaches and practicing for a real life situation are part of such an advanced training. Everybody was thrilled to do so and enjoyed the training with other disciples of the same level so much, that we finished the training session with a delay of 30 minutes.

Sunday: Training & Gio To Ceremony

Thanks to a busy Saturday and sporty games nobody was up and running before 7:45am and everybody was able to enjoy a full night’s sleep.
The Gio To ceremony was introduced by Thây Trung with a short explanation of the ceremony and its purpose: every year thousands of Vovinam disciples remember the founder Nguyen Loc on the day of his death. They burn incense and do a minute's silence. After the Vovinam hymn a disciples recites the history of Vovinam. This year this was done by Tuong-Vi with a passionate and strong voice that made everybody listen, as if they had heard this story for the first time.
The remaining hour until lunch was covered with a short but hard training session. The main training session followed after a relaxed lunch break in the sun with basics for children and beginners, one-toone fighting for blue belts, Long Ho Quyen and Chien Luoc for 1.Cap, Don Chan for 2.Cap and Quyens for 3.Cap.
The free hours after dinner were used by our disciples from the south for another sightseeing tour, while the adults played soccer in the yard and the children dodgeball in the gym. After that everybody enjoyed games in two big groups until nearly midnight as this was the last evening together. The tournaments were finished by a free ride for all winners through the gym on the backs of the „second winners“.

Monday: Training & Departure

Monday started with the last training session of this year’s Gio To after a short but quite night. The training session was used for free style training and practicing of one-to-one fights.
At lunch the parents and friends of the disciples from Hamburg showed us again that no Vovinam event can take place without their continuous support: they offered us a huge buffet of salads, fried rice and barbeque. After lunch we had to say goodbye to old and new friends and a lot of phone numbers were exchanged.
We hope that this year’s Gio To further improved the relationships between the participating schools of Hanover, Munich and Hamburg and within our Vovinam community and we are looking forward to next year!

Best regards,
HLV Akiko Asada
The Organization Team 2009.