I am Leif Bagge. Here has previously
been mine and Susanna's pages. Having had a hard time to find time and
energy to maintain a page for us both I now decided to cut the work by
half and leave the part I know a little better, me. The previous page had
maybe been upgraded once this year thousand and had pictures that had
their 10 years anniversary this summer.
(As I just started to compile it there will probably be some changes,
addings, removings over the near future.)
I was born in Borgå
(Porvoo) in Finland in 1955. Here's my story in short.
When I was 3 years old my
family moved to Linköping in Sweden. There I attended primary school,
classes 1 and 2. My family moved back to Finland in 1963.
I still live in Borgå.
The musician
Since as long as I can remeber I have been playing various instruments
and even attended a class in Mandolin playing as a child while living in
Sweden. I also played mouth organ. This was just contempotemporary
and just for my self.
In the mid sixties the "music" really hit me, listening to the
Beatles and Rolling Stones etc. on my cousines record player. Songs like She's A Woman and Honky Tonk
Women really had an deep inpact on me. Yet I was not prepared for the
reaction in the following case: Visiting my aunt I heard a song (partial)
that my aunt had recorded from the radio to her C-cassett. She did not know what
or who it was
and next time I visited her she had already wiped it away! This was in
1969 or 1970. The impact of that song on me was amazing. I just had to
find out who played and what they played. It took me quite some time to find
out that it was
Creedence Clearwater Revival (no Google back then). The song was either Who'll Stop the Rain
or Down On The Corner. My life would not be the same after that. I got
my first CCR album Green River in January 1971and the second Willy and
The Poor Boys a little after that. The first song that so to say "blew
my brains" was CCR:s Born On The Bayou and believe it or not, It still
blows!
Then I found the Creedence Complete songbook with lyrics and guitar
chords. On the 22.nd of February 1972 I got my first guitar. A friend of
mine showed me what these funny lines and dottes with characters like A,
Em, C7 etc. were and how to use them.
Around this time I run into Kris Kristofferson, you know: Me And Bobby
McGee, Sunday Morning Coming Down etc. Kris also hit me. His lyrics were
fabulous.
In the late 70ies I started to write songs (with rhymes, of course). I
also started to play more instruments. And I wrote more songs. I have
until today stood on the stage as a trubadour and participated in some
song contests (both singing and song writing contests).
The Judoka
I can't remeber at what age the martial arts and
especially Judo started to attract me. I did borrow some books from the
library and even picked up some Ukemi-technics in the late 60ies. In
September 1973 I then attended my first Judo-class. It definitely was my
art. In December 1975 I got my blue belt (2.nd kyu). I was the leading
teacher in the club for 12 years and had hundreds of deciples.
The author
At the age of 24 I attended the Technical School
on the line for Building Engineers. While there I had some very productive
times when it came to makeing music. Annoying was that the melodies
usually appeared during classes and most of them went away by the time I
got to my quarters where I had my instruments. One of my own favorites "Tåren"
was, however, created in the hall of the school where they have a piano. I
sat by that and "picked" some chord patterns. There I also figured
out that I could write and that I liked writing.
As I was a Judoka I
started to write in the societys magazine "Ippon" and I also covered
several Finnish Judo Opens for Hufvudstadsbladet. My main subjects have
been martial arts (budo) and zen. I have no idea how many articles I've
written over the years but they're quite many. Many of my articles have
been published in the magazine Budoka but also other magazines have
published them.
In 2001 I had my first book, Kyudo, published.
The Kyudoka
In
1984 I learned that a man from the west coast had together with the chief
for the Budoka-magazine been trying to arrange to have Kyudo introduced in
Finland. We agreed that I and my Judo club would pull it through. I phoned
the German Kyudoka, Mr. Hoff, that had been approached before and agreed
on that he'd come over to Finland to have an intruductionary weekend
course in November 1984. I got a new schools gym in my home town rented
for this purpose and I sent 168 invitationletters to Judo, Aikdo and
Karate clubs all over the country. 22 showed up at the first seminar.
In December I gathered the participants from Porvoo to found the first
Kyudo club in Finland. We gave it the name Heiwa No Yumi. I was
elected to be the president. I was thr president for about 10 years. The
next thing to do was to find a national federation. So I invited all 22 to
a meeting in the Helsinki Olympic Stadion the following month just, 3 days
prior to my 30 years birthday. I was elected as its first president, a
post I had for 6 years.
Hoff-sensei have over the years arranged numerous chances for me and Mr.
Laine (one of the attendants of the first seminar) to attend
seminars by the grand master of our Ryu ha, professor Inagaki (1911-1995).
This way he made it possible for us 2 to build up the Kyudo-activity in
Finland. I got the 1st dan in Kyudo in 1987 and the 5th dan in 1992.
The organization man
The teacher
The Zen man