I would like to dedicate my first 5 posts to give you an understanding of how I work. Following that, there are to be posts about the latest developments – always short and sweet – and there will be an extra post on the odd topic or two.
I have been training goju-ryu karate-do of the Yuishinkan school since 1998, the representative of which here in Germany being the honourable Hanshi Fritz Nöpel. He likes visiting out Dojo in Eibau and is a long-time friend. Over the years, I have increasingly expanded my martial arts studies and soon came into contact with the Ryukyu-Kobudo. Under Sensei Katherine Locoupolus, I learned the first Bo-Kata and from that point on, I was fascinated by weapon training.

So it didn’t take that much time until I bought my first own equipment. Yet, whether tonfa, bo or bokken, even as a beginner, the quality mostly available didn’t satisfy me. And so I began at the early age of a schoolchild to sand down my wooden weapons and varnish the surface myself. I even built my first makiwaras and nunchakus. These first experiences with wood were probably the trigger for training as a carpenter. I completed the first year of apprenticeship at the technical school for wood as the top of the class.

Yet a continuance of the training course did not thrill me. After the first year of mere manual workmanship, the rest of the apprenticeship and beyond that throughout one’s entire working life was only to be machine work.
That couldn’t persuade me so I turned my back on state training and from then on, became self-employed as an autodidact. Besides actual carpentry, today I also master carving, turnery and making bows
At the beginning of 2009, I then entered the future workshop in an almost 300-year old half-timbered house, as are typical for this area. Thistles still grew up to the windowsill (inside) and the flooring merely comprised firmly tamped mud. 6 months later, 100 kg paint remnants less and rich in many hours of work, the re-exposed wood gleamed in new splendour. The brickwork was re-plastered and the flooring re-laid.

So began Peter’s passion for wood.