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