An ACV reunion at Hombu Dojo.

At the beginning of June I received a message via Facebook from fellow ACV member at large Jeremy Gilpin. Jeremy, for anyone at ACV who doesn't know him, was an Uchi Deshi at the dojo until the end of 2006 when he moved to Beijing. In the email, Jeremy told me that he would be in Tokyo training at Hombu dojo during the later part of June, and asked if I would like to join him at some point. I responded that I would love to join him for some training and planned to go to Tokyo for the one weekend which coincided with his trip. As it turned out, some friends I had made during my trips to the Ibaraki Shibu dojo in Iwama were also training at the dojo at that time. They were spending some time as Uchi Deshi in Hombu which all long term Uchi Deshi of the Iwama dojo do.

When I finished work on June 19th, I rode the train to Tokyo for a weekend of training with Jeremy and my friends from Iwama. It had been over six months since my last visited to Hombu dojo and I was pretty excited to be getting back there. I arrived at the dojo just in time for the second evening class to find that Jeremy and my Iwama friends had already become acquainted. Jeremy looked almost the same as I had remembered from nearly two years earlier. except for the foot long Chinese sage beard that he now sported. I barely had time to say hello to everyone when Doshu stepped on the mat for training. While I had seen him around Hombu Dojo before, and had watched his demonstration the month before, this was to be my first class with Doshu. I was pretty excited, if for no other reason than his geneological connection to the founder.

My first experience training in one of Doshu's class was a positive one, since it was the first day of summer the heat and humidity combined with the many bodies on the mat made the environment a little stifling. As for the training, it was quite good. From my limited experience, Hombu Dojo in particular and Dosh focus specifically tend to basic technique. In general I would say that his Aikido is plain but very solid.

After training that night Jeremy and I went to a local Izakaya(traditional Japanese style bar that serves food) to catch up, have a couple of beers and eat some much needed food. At dinner, Jeremy made an interesting comment about Doshu's keiko. He said "Everytime I have taken one of his classes I have felt obsolutely drained of all energy, even when the class didn't seem that intense." This imediately caught my attention because I that was exactly how that felt.

I spent a total of three days training at Hombu dojo during this trip and and took some great Classes with many great teachers including: Doshu, Osawa Sensei, and Kanazawa sensei. I note Osawa sensei because he is probably my favorite Hombu Dojo Shihan. His Aikido is big flowing which is one of the major characteristics of Hombu Dojo, but with and imense amount of speed, precision and martial intensity. Kanazawa sensei is the shihan who oversees the group that I train with here in Hamamatsu. I had trained with him previously when he came to teach a seminar in Hamamatsu, and will likely be the Shihan that oversees my shodan exam. One interesting sidenot about Kanazwa Sensei's visit to Hamamatsu was what he said to me at the nomikai(drinking party/banquet) after training. He asked me who my teacher had been, but before I could answer, he guessed that I had either trained with Chiba Sensei or one of his students based on my ukemi. Kanazawa Sensei's Aikido is much like Doshu's and was primarily a student of the current Doshu's father. I had a lot of fun training and catching up with old friends during that trip to Hombu, and it helped to reinforce the notion that Aikido is just as much about the connections we make on and off the mat, as it is about the training.

The Zen Nihon Aikido Embu Taikai, or All Japan Aikido Demonstration.

o

Every year in May, the Aikikai in Japan hosts the All Japan Aikido Demonstration at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. The event brings together many of the top Shihan in Japan, as well as representatives from dojos all over Japan. My main dojo in Hamamatsu does not participate in the event, but I attended this year as a spectator, and to support my friend who was performing as an uke for Inagaki Shihan. Inagaki Shihan, if you don't remember was the teacher from Iwama I mentioned in my Shoshin article. Incidentally I missed Inagaki Shihan and my friend Enzo completely because I had gone to use the restroom just before they began, and returned just as they were bowing off the mat.

This year's demonstration was held on May 23rd. I awoke that sunny Saturday morning to catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo with my friend Carl. There are two kinds of Shinkansen trains that stop in Hamamatsu. The Kodama, which is the slower of the two takes about two hours to get to Tokyo travelling at approximately 200 miles per hour. The Hikari, the faster train, takes about ninety minutes. We arrived in Tokyo just after 10:00 but by the time we navigated from Tokyo Central Station, to the Budokan and had something to eat at a nearby konbini(convenience store) the time was nearly 11:30. At that time spectators and performing Aikidoka were just arriving at the Budokan. When we arrived at the Budokan, we met up with the intructors and members of the Ibaraki Shibu dojo in Iwama, which Carl was a former member of at the time. Currently, as I write this posting he has returned to Iwama and now trains at that dojo again. I knew nearly everyone there from the Ibaraki Shibu Dojo, as I have spent around fifteen days training there over the course of multiple trips while in Japan. This was my first time seeing the Iwama dojo crowd since my one week stay in March.
After an hour of milling around, the event, which was televised by NHK television, finally started with a number of speeches. The speeches included contributions from Doshu, and a member of Japanese Parliament who once trained in Aikido under O Sensei. During the course of the semonstration there were stand out performances from many Shihan, which for me, included Horii sensei from Kobe, Wada Sensei from Nagoya(The current dojo cho of the dojo that Chiba Sensei started in Nagoya when he finished his term as a Hombu uchideshi), and a sensei from Osaka who's name I didn't catch. For the most part though, the event was dominated by group demonstrations where whole dojos performed together. These group demonstrations were a lot like watching a seminar from the side without participating...interesting but they just made me want to suit up and jump on the mat.
In total, the event included about four hours of Aikidido demonstrations with demonstrations by many dojos. The end of the event was reserved for the Hombu dojo, it's Shihan and Doshu. While the majority of the Shihan demonstrations seemed to last around one or two minutes the demonstrations from the higher ranked Hombu Shihan like Endo Shihan and Tada Shihan ran longer. The final slot was reserved for Doshu, whose demonstration ran longer than ten minutes and included a large variety of waza from suwariwaza, and hanmi handachi to Jo and Bokken taking.
The scene in the Budokan parking lot after the demonstration had concluded was really quite remarkable. As the mass of demonstrators and spectators seperated and each individual group piled onto their busses and opened celebratory beers, the sounds of numerous "Kampai!!"(cheers) could be heard throughout the lot. The feeling of a job well done was palpable. As the Ibaraki group began to pull away, one of the Sensei from the Ibaraki Shibu Dojo handed three beers down to myself, Carl and our friend Giles and called "Kampaii!!" If at all possible, I hope to participate in the event at least once before I leave Japan, but if not, I am just happy to have been a part of it in some small way.

Imppressions of Training in Japan...The first few months

.

On December 28th 2008 I was returning home after a few days spent traveling and training. As I raced past the looming figure of Fuji-san at Two hundred miles per hour on a Shinkansen bound for my home in Hamamatsu, I thought back over the events of the previous few days and my Japanese Aikido experiences over the first five months of my stay here.
My first training experience in Japan was at the Hombu dojo in Tokyo. At the time I was staying in Shinjuku, the ward of Tokyo where Hombu is located. At the time, the very idea of training at Hombu felt like a pilgrimage. This was, after all, the center of the Aikido world; The place where O sensei and so many of his direct students had trained. I must admit that on that first visit I was a little let down by the dojo itself. It was nice, but the place seemed like any other sterile, modern sports facility; complete with vending machines in the lobby where one could purchase Pocari Sweat( a Japanese sports drink) and other soft drinks. For the most part, my first impression of the place was that the spirit of O sensei was almost completely absent. The dojo does seem a bit more traditional once on the tatami where the mats are made of real traditional tatami covered in canvas. My first Hombu keiko was with Masuda Shihan 8th dan, which was great but due to my Jet lag and the brutally hot and humid Japanese summer was a bit hazy. I felt like I was going to pass out from heat exhaustion and dehydration within the first ten minutes, but luckily the custom is to take a short water break in the middle of class during the summer months.
Once I had settled in my new home in Hamamatsu about two hours from Tokyo on the Shinkansen, I began to look for a good local place to train with my friend Carl, a colleague and fellow Aikidoka. Luckily for me, Carl’s Japanese is quite good because if it weren’t for him I might still be searching for a place to train. After trying a few different places we both finally settled on a place to train. The dojo(club really) where I currently train is the Hamamatsu Aikidokai, or as I sometimes jokingly call it, the Hamamatsu Aikido Roninkai. Very few people began training here in Hamamatsu.
We have students of Seiseke Abe, Morihiro Saito and Yasuo Kobayashi to name a few. Classes are generally led by whoever happens to be the most sempai that night; usually 2nd or 3rd dan. The variety of perspective that this this provides can be very interesting but it can lead to a lot of contradictory teaching within the group and a general lack of cohesion. The training isn’t bad but generally class feels like it is being led by a sempai rather than a proper teacher which is generally the case because the two top instructors both 4th dan rarely teach. The training here in Hamamatsu here isn’t bad but I travel to places like the Hombu dojo in Tokyo, Aikido Kimori dojo in Nagoya, and the Aikikai Ibaraki Shibu dojo in Iwama when I can. One such time was over the holidays.
On Christmas eve I traveled to the Hombu dojo to participate in the final keiko of 2008. From there I would travel two hours north to spend fours days at O sensei’s dojo in Iwama. I was really looking forward to the training at Hombu on this day because the classes that I had planned to take were taught by two teachers whom I was really looking forward to seeing in action. This was my third trip to train at Hombu. My second trip had been about one month earlier when I had taken an overnight train to Tokyo so that I could participate in Doshu’s early morning keiko. Unfortunately, Doshu had been out of the country that day, but I was lucky enough to have Osawa sensei teaching in his place. Now on my third trip, I was here to take class with Endo and Miyamoto Shihans. When I walked into the reception area at the dojo I told the woman in halting, grammatically incorrect Japanese that I lived in Hamamatsu and would like to train for the day. Due to the amount of foreigners who come to Japan just to train at Hombu, most of the people who work behind the desk speak decent English but I am finally getting comfortable enough to at least try and speak in my dreadful Japanese, and to me, part of the allure of training in Japan is to try and learn to speak some of the language. While my Japanese has not progressed as fast as I would have liked, this has really helped me to work on stealing technique. Since I cannot understand much of what teachers are saying, this forces me to watch what they are doing much more intently than if I could understand all of their verbal instructions.
Once changed and on the mat I began to warm up in preparation for Endo Shihan’s class. All that I knew about Endo Shihan was that he was very soft but very good. When I watched him perform techniques I often thought that there was an almost billowy softness to his Aikido. When he entered on uke, he was almost like a river. It was as if he flowed through through uke’s attack while uke was caught up in the current of his technique. There were times when I thought that his movements were maybe too soft and fluid, I would have wondered if his waza had no substance and his ukes were simply falling over if I hadn’t been working with one of his ukes for the entire class. He would move in much the same manner as sensei and each time I felt as I had been caught up in the current of his technique.
The other two classes that I participated in that day were both taught by Miyamoto sensei. One criticism I heard from a gaijin Aikidoka in Japan was that he was just like Chiba sensei from twenty years ago and just wanted to show how tough he was. I for one thoroughly enjoyed his class. It was spirited, Martial and Shinken(earnest, serious, committed). At one point Miyamoto sensei came to me after watching me practicing and asked me where I was from and who my teacher was. When I said Benjamin Pincus, and he said he didn’t know I said a former kensusei of Chiba sensei’s and he said “good" with a devilish smile. Later when Didier Boyet said “Pinkusu San” using the katakana pronunciation of Pincus, Miyamoto sensei said “ah yes Pinkusu San”. I had the privilege of taking quite a bit of ukemi for Miyamoto sensei, and found his technique to be quite powerful. At the end of keiko for the evening I had to rush out of Hombu as I still had get to get to Ueno on the other side of Tokyo to catch a northbound train for O sensei’s Iwama dojo..
The town of Iwama is by far the most Inaka, or rural town that I have experienced since arriving in Japan. Regardless of ones personal views on the kind Aikido being practiced in Iwama, it is the one place in Japan that I have seen where the traditional spirit of Budo can be felt, and where the presence of O sensei abounds. When I arrived at Iwama station on Christmas eve it was 11:02 at night. This was the second time in Iwama for me but the first time alone and the first time to arrive at night. Once I arrived at the dojo I was given a futon and some blankets and shown to the dojo’s genkan, or entry way, and instructed that I would be sleeping there. On multiple occasions in the middle of that night I thought that I heard footsteps across the tatami coming from the direction of O sensei’s cottage, which was attached to the dojo. I later learned that some people believed that the dojo was haunted by O sensei.
I was woken the next morning, Christmas morning at 5:30 by one of the long term uchi deshi at the Iwama dojo. I had to be dressed and ready to meet Inagaki sensei outside the dojo for morning practice by 6:00. After he arrived and said “ohayo gozaimasu”( good morning) to everyone, Inagaki sensei went on to add “samuii desu ne”( cold isn’t it). When we were in the dojo warming up for keiko, Inagaki sensei began to tell us in English how cold it was the winter just before O sensei died when he had been staying at the dojo as an uchi deshi.
Morning practice at the Aikikai Ibaraki shibu dojo consists mainly of weapons work and various conditioning exercises. In one common exercise done during these sessions one person grabs their partners wrist and applys nikkyo into sankyo into yonkyo as Inagaki sense yells “ichi”, “ni”, “san”. When both partners have gone, the line of kohai students rotates and the excersize is repeated again. After a series of such exercises, the training switches to weapons. The majority of the weapons training that I have done here in Japan has been in the Iwama style; not only in Iwama but also in Hamamatsu with my club here. At first I found everything about it strange and confusing and I could only see the differences between it and the style of weapons that I practiced at ACV. But with a little time, I have come to see the similarities and connections as well.
After morning practice I was given an hour for breakfast then it was time morning chores around the dojo. I was assigned to go with two others to groom the Aiki shrine with a German named Helgi and a Pol named Artur. The three of us gathered rakes and walked across the road to the Aiki shrine for daily grooming. Ｄaily grooming at the shrine is　comprised of raking up leaves and other debris, and raking the small stones that cover the area in front of the shrine into straight neat lines. As I worked in front of the shrine on that brisk sunny day it occurred to me for the first time that it was　Christmas morning. I felt a little homesick at the thought but as I continued to work and the the zen like nature of the work began to overcome to me I realized what a special experience I was having. By staying here at this traditional dojo that was built by O sensei in 1946, I felt like I was experience that true shugyo( traditional) budo spirit in a way that I had always imagined would be part and parcel of all training in Japan, but which up till this point I had been mostly lacking, and it was great to feel the presence of O sensei, and see examples of his calligraphy hanging in the dojo, with a hole in it where a Jo had pierced it, and sleep feet from where he himself had slept for over twenty years when in Iwama. In all I spent four days in Iwama on this trip. I had some great training and made some great new friends.
While at times disappointing, I have found that training in Japan has been a great experience, As I have spent time here I have been able to see how much of the reigi we use in the dojo is a part of everyday life in Japan. At the beginning of my English classes, the whole class stands up and as I say “hajimemasu”(begin) the class responds with a bow as they say “onegaishimasu”. As I have spent time here and seen everyday how important harmonious interactions between people are so important in daily interactions, I have really begun to appreciate how intrinsically Japanese Aikido really is.