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OZREN ŠVEGOVIĆ

SEMPAI

He was born in 1981 in Zagreb. Martial arts fascinated him from an early age. In kindergarten, his best friend trained karate, so he tried it too, but he gave up after only three training sessions. The next attempt followed when he persuaded his mother to buy him the book "Summer Ninja Training", but he was more interested in looking at the photo on the cover and playing with the golden Shuriken sticker that came with the book as a gift. The predominant interest throughout elementary and high school was building computers and playing video games, of course.
At the age of 18, he started working and thinking a little more like a grown-up, so he realized that some physical activity would come in handy. Some friends went to the gym regularly, so he joined them, which worked pretty well. When their schedules changed and he had to train alone, he quickly lost interest.After a long break, he decided to try martial arts. It seemed like something that would be more exciting than the gym, so he tried Shorinji Kempo and Thai boxing. He also became interested in the mystical, so he passed two levels of a Reiki course and a course in Transcendental Meditation. Another break followed, but it was interrupted when he came across the Kempo Basic Course. It sounded more interesting than anything he had tried up to that point, that is, like everything combined into one. The summary of the Course mentioned martial arts, meditation, yoga, massage, and some kind of Path.

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He applied for the Course led by Sensei Goran Pizent in early 2012 and the struggles began. Kempo was fascinating but also difficult. It was not always easy to decide to get off the tram halfway home from work and go to training. That fight lasted quite a long time, but the mind was mainly winning. Every time he thought he had won, Kempo would find a way to prove him wrong by creating new challenges, both mental and physical: attending one-day or multi-day seminars, increasingly demanding training, reading literature, learning for the exams, writing diplomas... New challenges emerge even today.
At his first multi-day seminar Nenji Gashaku, held in Jadovno, he saw the cumulative value of multi-day training separated from everyday distractions. He experienced the spirit and energy of Kempo by living in the community with other practitioners. He saw how important it is not to give up, be patient, fight with your body and mind through training, slowly become aware of it, and push your boundaries little by little to not stay in the comfort zone for too long.

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