One Month Down, Ten to go...

Today was the last day in June, and the end of the first of the three hell months of dai ichi (the first quarter of our training, which is devoted to making our bodies suitable for Aikido practice).  I think this is an important landmark for me psychologically, because it demonstrates that the time is passing and that this will not go on forever.  However, it seems to me now that this first month will have been the easiest of the three dai ichi months.  Beginning tomorrow, we are going to have to attend extra classes with the regular dojo students on Wednesday and Friday.  Also, we are about to begin suwari waza training, which means doing all the techniques from a kneeling position. 

Suwari waza training originates from the fact that, in traditional Japanese culture, people hung out on the floor a lot, so a samurai would have to train for the contingency that someone might attack while he was eating or resting, etc.  The practical use of suwari waza training now is that if you can do the techniques from a kneeling position, it becomes much easier to do them from a standing position.  Suwari waza training is very painful and difficult, first because the tender skin on your knees gets immediately worn off, and secondly it is very painful for the toes.  When you are "knee walking", your toes are tucked underneath your feet because they provide a lot of the power and balance that you need, but it becomes very uncomfortable to have them stretched back like that with your full weight on them.  The other thing is that the toes are also used to propel your body forward at times, and this muscle strength is painful to develop.  The senseis all have their heels touching each other when they are doing suwari waza which is very difficult for me so far.  When you force your heels together when you are sitting in knee-walking position, it puts all the weight on your big toe and that hurts.  But when one becomes proficient at these procedures, one finds that one has developed some strong-ass toes.  Our sensei in LA was fond of demonstrating his ability to pin a person's foot to the ground using only his big toe, and this was entertaining because it gave that person a sense of what it might be like to be crucified.

I am fortunate thus far to be more or less free from injury.  I sprained my ankle when practicing breakfalls one day, and I have some unpleasant abrasions now near my tailbone, but apart from that, my body is just really tired and sore.  I know that I am losing weight, although I am trying not to lose the weight too quickly, because I know that can be a bad thing.  I would say that my breakfalls have gotten a lot better, and that my ability with the techniques has gotten sharper.  Thus far, the techniques we have done are Shihonage, Ikkajo, Nikkajo, Sankajo, Yonkajo, Sokumen and Shomen Iriminage, Kotegaeshi, Tenshin Nage, and Suwari Waza Kokyu Ho.  Of course, this includes both the ichi and ni versions (depending upon who is initiating the attack, you or your opponent) and also different versions of these based on the nature of the initial attack, which might be shomenuchi (front strike), yokomenuchi (side strike), kata mochi (shoulder grab), katate mochi (wrist grab), or ryote mochi (both wrists grab), etc.  The pace at which we are learning techniques is very fast.  We generally learn one new technique per day.  After class, we keep a log of what we just learned, which I would recommend to anyone who is studying Aikido.  If you take a moment to jot down what techniques you worked on and a few points about what you learned, it really tends to "stick" better.  Since this training is designed to make future instructors out of us, I also try to keep track of the teaching methods that I notice them using.

We have been asked to write a number of essays for our instructors, and one of the early ones had to do with our expectations about the course vs. the reality of the situation we now find ourselves in.  Of course, a lot of my impressions of what Senshusei training might be like were based upon the book "Angry White Pyjamas" by Robert Twigger.  This is a book that all the foreign Senshusei know about, but I don't think the Japanese guys have read because I don't think it's been translated.  I would say that the biggest difference between what it's like in the book and what our experience has been like so far is the dojo itself.  The book takes place at the old dojo which is not far away, and which is still run by a different faction of Yoshinkan people.  I guess that after Gozo Shioda died there was some dispute about how things should be run, so it appears that a couple of years ago, Kancho obtained a non-profit status and opened our current dojo here in Takadanobaba, which is called "Yoshinkai".  I haven't visited the old dojo yet, but I understand that our dojo is much smaller, about 1/3rd the size.  Everything is new and clean, and the air conditioning is usually running!  There is a small locker room with three showers which the Senshusei can use, and we actually eat our lunch with the cops on the mats because there is nowhere else to be.  The cops don't have a locker room; they just close the doors to the dojo and change in there.  I gather there is a tea room for the teachers, and an office with a small reception area for Kancho, but I have never seen these places. 

In addition to the physical aspects of the dojo which are different, I think the main difference is the overall tone or atmosphere of the dojo.  My guess from all that I've read and heard about things back in the day is that, when Gozo Kancho was still alive, there was kind of a frantic, obsessive energy in the dojo.  People were very inspired by this incredible little man, and there was a lot of competition for his attentions, and there were also a lot of old grudges and bad feelings among some of the senior Japanese people that went way back to before anyone could remember.  Where we are training I think it's a lot more tranquil because Kancho is the undisputed ruler, and I also haven't detected any friction between any of the instructors or students there.  Further, Masa, who is Kancho's son, is about the nicest kid you could ever want to meet, and everyone tends to follow his lead because he knows everything already.  Finally, Bryn and I are the only foreigners, and neither one of us is a particularly hard-edged sort, plus we've both made a strong effort from the beginning to be on good terms with the cops.  Because of the limited space we are always together, and no sort of "us vs. them" dynamic has really arisen.

One final note, there actually is a new quasi-Seshusei, James, who will be participating in the course with us for the next month, and who will continue to train with us on Saturdays only once he has to go back to work.  James is a cool guy.  A former sniper for the Marine Corps, he is an American of Japanese descent who is very helpful because he's perfectly bilingual. 

3 Weeks Down

This week began on a low note when we realized that our beloved Bjorn did not show up for training on Tuesday.  I guess he gave it his damnedest try, but he was just too far behind.  The poor guy was really suffering, plus he was already extremely busy with his graduate school work.  At any rate, we persevered despite the casualty. 


All in all it was a very difficult week physically, but it did start to become more fun because we began doing some actual techniques in addition to the kihon dosa that we rehearse every class.  One amusing thing was the addition of a special English class just for Bryn and me, which Kancho asked Yanagihara Shidoin to teach on Thursday.  For some reason, Bryn and I got it in our minds that this class was going to be a breeze, and that it would be more of a laid-back discussion group in which we would iron out some of the things that we didn't understand over the preceding days.  However, to our astonishment, it turned out to be an exhausting and non-stop series of ukemi (falling down) drills.  So much for the easy class idea.


On Saturday evening there was a party to welcome all the Senshusei which was attended by all of our teachers and other friends of the dojo, as well as what I gather were some of the top brass from the police academy.  At first it was extremely formal and I had to be very cautious about what I did as I ate, and I had to go around from time to time and pour beer for my superiors.  (Remember, always use both hands whenever you give or receive anything!)  There was a lot of beer, however, and gradually people started loosening up, and then the tradition of the Senshusei offering silly performances for the teachers was begun. 

In the first skit we presented, Masa did his impression of his grandfather, Gozo, demonstrating aikido techniques.  We each played the younger versions of the old teachers in the room, and one by one "Gozo" called us up, only to smash us effortlessly into the mat.  In the grand finale, he had all twelve of us grab onto different parts of his body and then overcame us all by launching an invisible beam of "hip power" though us, causing us to writhe together on the mat like a heap of fish.


Next, the cops gave their numerous performances, none of which I understood, but all of which I enjoyed thoroughly.  After this, the ingenious Akimoto solved the problem of what to do for a performance (this is a young man who almost never speaks a word) by offering a Japanese-style show of suffering entertainment in which he drank a large quantity of soy sauce.  Later he told me that the "soy sauce" was actually coffee, which I thought was absolutely brilliant because the audience totally bought it.  Next up was Bryn who played a terrific rendition of "Lullaby of Birdland" on his trumpet, and then it was time for my rather odd choice of playing Shylock from the Merchant of Venice shrieking at the audience about how I was going to cut off a pound of flesh from their body.  I had offered a pre-written explanation of this scene to them in Japanese before I began, but still I'm sure it was somewhat bewildering for them to witness.  I later decided that Romeo Shihan had been the one who really enjoyed what I did.  As a foreigner and a speaker of English himself, I think he thought it was great that I threw them a curve ball.


Last up was Masa who brought down the house with his dance routine, and then there was a surprise encore performance by the office staff, including Yanagihara Shidoin who was dressed in drag and did an amazingly well choreographed Japanese-pop musical number.  As the alcohol continued to flow things got silly, and one of the cops demonstrated an innovative approach to practicing Hiriki no Yosei II, which is one of the basic movements.  What he hadn't counted on was the that the relentless Chino would not be able to resist the rowdy calls for him to provide an impromptu demonstration of his "take no prisoners" approach to correcting poor posture:

(click here)  http://www.youtube.com/embed/NLTJSqBIcp8

Once the party started winding down and many of the people had already left, I shared a brief but very nice conversation with Kancho, in which I told him that I had seen many of his Japanese TV appearances online, and how I had enjoyed watching him proving Aikido's effectiveness against a westerner who once visited his dojo.  He mentioned to me the importance of learning traditional Japanese ways and payed me the compliment of saying that he thought I showed a good understanding of Japanese thinking.

After the party was over, Bryn and I managed to crawl to a couple of bars, but then I had to announce an early conclusion to the night because I thought I might literally pass out on the street!

By the way, Warz Katsumata scored a first round TKO against his opponent on Friday night.  The Filipinos went bananas.

2 Weeks Down and a New Senshusei

So, I am hanging in there OK.  The first surprise at the beginning of this last week was the appearance of Bjorn, a new Senshusei from Germany (he's half Swedish).  I'm not sure why he missed the first week but now he is "in it to win it" with the rest of us.  He's a fascinating character who is working on a PhD in robotics from the University of Tokyo.  He is wry and cheerful, and has the kind of physique you might expect of someone who is working on a PhD in robotics from the University of Tokyo.  I give this guy a lot of credit - he knows absolutely nothing about Aikido and he has a lot of catching up to do physically, but he doesn't quit.  He becomes uncomfortable sitting in seiza almost immediately and he gets yelled at constantly because he can't get his ass off the floor fast enough when he's been thrown down, but as soon as we get back to the locker room, the jokes start again right from where he left off.  Bryn and I like him a lot, and it's comforting to have someone who's worse off than us.


Chino has quickly asserted himself as the most demanding teacher, but probably also the one who is getting the most results out of us.  His classes have basically consisted of us assuming each of the various kihon dosa poses and then holding them, as he walks around aggressively adjusting posture and barking, "Lower!"  People grunt and groan as he forces their bodies into better position, and sometimes they cannot hold the position he's pushing for at all and simply collapse to the ground.  This happened to poor Bryn at one point when Chino was adjusting his seiza.  Bryn's feet are covered in nasty cuts and blisters and he just couldn't stand the pain in his toes.  I'm lucky because my feet are unscathed, protected as they have been from the callouses already formed by the previous year at David Fryberger Sensei's dojo in Los Angeles.  I wish I could say the same about my back, which continues to bleed into my dogi jacket whenever we start doing koho ukemi.


When Chino forces us to hold these deep stances and walks around yelling at everyone, I try to trick my mind into forgetting where I am and the physical sensations I am experiencing, even if only for a second at a time.  I imagine a picture in my mind and I say to myself, "I am the billy goat staring into the wind upon the highest peak.  I am the porcupine with rigid quills.  I am the dolphin leaping toward the sky.  I am the bald eagle fiercely surging toward his prey."  Putting my attention into these images and words helps pass the time while my body is being transformed.  I try to imagine that I am not my body, but a noble spirit that is trying to conquer the beast that is my body.  I muse that in fact I am the spirit of all my ancestors existing in a timeless continuum, and that I am no longer encased inside this one rude shell.  These are the ways in which Aikido surprises you.  There is something profound to be discovered in even the most tiresome drills.  The tiresomeness itself is profound.  At any rate, it's a great gift Chino is giving us by being such a taskmaster.  After having to hold a pose deeply for minutes on end, it's quite easy to do it for shorter intervals.  Already I feel my kihon dosa have improved a lot.


The other day I got to see the great legends Takeno and Ando, who came to the Honbu Dojo for some sort of meeting.  They didn't stay too long, but it was interesting to see the men whom I have read about and seen videos of.  The shihan who actually taught us last week included Kancho, Ito, Sonoda, Kimura, Oyamada, Noriki, and Romeo Shihan.  Romeo Shihan's class is terrific because he speaks almost entirely in English.  The rest of the week we have to struggle and guess what's going on by looking at gestures, but on Saturdays, it's the cops' turn to scratch their heads.  It's fun to be the first one to respond to commands instead of the last!


In other news I completed one marathon 4-hour English conversation lesson with the inexhaustible Yutaka-san, and I have two new pupils lined up for this week.  One I met at a bar, and one responded to an ad I put up at "my-sensei.com".  I don't have a working visa yet (the dojo helps with that once they've decided you're definitely in it for the long haul) so I have to work under the table as a private tutor for the time being.  I went to a print shop today and made up some fliers, and then Bryn and I proceeded to stroll around handing them out.  Hopefully we will be able to wrangle enough students to avoid starvation!


Here's a nice little video about Aikido:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sud8bsZyn84&feature=related


After the shots of nature the first thing you see is a line of guys performing the kihon dosa that I keep mentioning.  We will spend the first three months of the course learning how to do the drills you see them demonstrate.  As I think I mentioned previously, one of the great insights of Shioda (the little old man you see in the end of the video) and some of the other early Yoshinkan membership was to distill Aikido's essence into these six basic movements that can be repeated until the body begins to grasp what is known as the riai, or the internal logic of Aikido.


It's also interesting to note that Aikido demonstrations are not necessarily meant to resemble what Aikido would look like in real combat.  The techniques that you see are a relatively safe way of practicing the art of unbalancing an opponent, and then exploiting that unbalance.  This is something that requires perfect timing.  Shioda himself estimated that in real combat situations, the moment of unbalance achieved against an opponent would usually be exploited by means of a strike rather than a throw.  Even with relatively little force, because of the momentary vulnerability of his opponent and his impeccable timing, Shioda's strikes (which he would apply with any part of his body including his back) were devastating.

So Far So Good

The first week of training was very challenging.  We did quite a bit of conditioning exercise such as I described earlier, where we would be paired with a partner and run relay races of various kinds.  One of the most amusing of these in retrospect was a piggy-back race which I ran in without a shadow of irony.  Thus far I have been universally paired with Bryn, which was a good thing for that particular "event" since he is a big guy, quite a bit taller than me.  I think that if any of the Japanese had been stuck with having to haul my 200+lbs around the mat, the termination of their Senshusei aspirations would have been immediately announced by the snapping sound of their slender spinal columns buckling under the load.  To help motivate us, Uchikawa Sensei, the second of our two sewanin, set up some incentive for winning these contests.  As I payed my losing penance of crouching into a catcher's stance and slowly describing circles on the mat with my two index fingers, I was reminded of the famous catch-phrase of the Navy SEALS' B.U.D.S. Course - "It pays to win!"  Needless to say, so far I have won nothing.  The good news is that what I lack in overall physical conditioning at this point, I make up for in my Aikido experience.  Even the couple of cops who have done Aikido before come from a different tradition of training and are not accustomed to performing the six basic movements that we drill at the Yoshinkan.  My body is somewhat used to assuming and maintaining these poses, so that gives me a bit of help.  You can spend a lifetime perfecting your execution of these maneuvers, so we all have plenty to work on, and it feels good to be getting better.


Another of the classes consisted of us solemnly kneeling in seiza for 60 minutes while Kancho gave us a lengthy pep talk.  I'm pretty good at seiza too because I used to practice sitting that way while playing Xbox Women's Tennis against my arch rival Jeremy back at our apartment in LA.  I sat absolutely motionless even as Bryn began to show signs of discomfort almost immediately, but when we reached about minute 40, my body sort of shuddered and I became very concerned that I might pass out.  Now, before the seiza began, I was told that we would each be asked to say a few words about where we were from, etc., and that didn't seem like much of a problem, except that when the cops took their turns to speak, they all barked out their comments in these loud samurai voices.  (Mind you, I understood absolutely nothing of what was being said.)  I didn't know what it would sound like in English, but I decided that I had better sound off like these other fellows were doing.  When my name was called I felt like I was on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness, and as the words escaped my mouth, they sounded very strange and I began to lose my train of thought.  I said, "HELLO.  MY NAME IS MICHAEL WOOD.  I AM FROM AMERICA.  I DO NOT SPEAK MUCH ENGLISH...I MEAN...I DO NOT SPEAK MUCH JAPANESE, BUT I AM WORKING ON THAT..."  I'm afraid it would be wishful thinking to suppose that no one understood what I was saying.  I think the Japanese can all understand English, but that they just pretend that they don't because they don't like having to speak it.  Plus I know for a fact that Kancho lived in England for some time.  Anyway, after the initial blunder I guess my speech went about as well as could be expected.


Because of our friend Mayang, Bryn and I are becoming intimately acquainted with the large Filipino population living in Tokyo.  On Saturday we went to the grounds of the Imperial Palace where they were doing a 5k "Fun Run". 

That's the ever-exuberant Mayang in the center there wearing the straw hat and the wildly colorful jumpsuit thing.  She's pumping her fist like that to symbolize that Japan is strong in its recovery from the tsunami.

Here's some more pictures taken on the grounds of the Imperial Palace (which I believe was re-built in the 60's after the original was destroyed during WWII.):

 

After the fun run I met a Filipino boxer named Warz Katsumata, who will be fighting on the 17th of this month.  I'm a boxing fan but have never seen a live bout, so Bryn and I are going to go check it out.  Here's a video I found on youtube of this kid fighting: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpNWIxeOJT8

Nice left jab!

Senshusei Days 1 and 2

The course began yesterday.  In a sense it was a bit anti-climactic because the majority of the day was spent learning how to clean and listening to numerous speeches in Japanese while sitting in seiza, the kneeling posture.  It was the first day at the dojo for the cops, so they had to be debriefed and learn everything we were taught the day before.  There was an official ceremony welcoming all of us into the program, and we all had to formally introduce ourselves.  At the end of the day we did have one class in which Noriki Shihan Dai (his rank) lead us through the basics of how to stand, how to fall down, and how to kneel. 


Each day begins and ends with a formal meeting called "Shinkoku", in which we must ask for the privilege of being trained or express our gratitude for having been trained.  This is a highly militarized, scripted exchange that involves everyone lining up in front of the door to an office where a teacher is waiting.  The weekly captain of our group knocks on the door and then shouts, (in Japanese of course) "SORRY FOR BOTHERING YOU!  THE MEN ARE READY FOR SHINKOKU!  ONCE AGAIN, SORRY FOR BOTHERING YOU!"  The captain lines back up with the men, and when the teacher comes out he screams, "BOW TO INSTRUCTOR NORIKI!  MIKE SENSHUSEI ALONG WITH TWELVE OTHER MEN REQUEST OUR DAILY EXERCISES!"  At which point the teacher responds and then everyone bows again until the teacher goes back into the office.  This was a procedure which we had to practice many, many times.


Today was day 2 and we got a taste of some of the conditioning work that we are going to be doing.  We did some rather intense crawling back and forth on the mat, ran suicides, etc., and if you were too slow you got yelled at.  Then, of course, there were the koho ukemi, which involve falling backwards onto the ground and then getting up again in one smooth motion.  We did about 150 of these; I was "encouraged" to go faster several times. 


Apart from the intensely exhausting stuff, the day was rather enjoyable.  We are extremely fortunate to have Masa-san, Shioda's grandson, as a fellow Senshusei.  At 22, he is bright, kind, and patient, and has a wonderful sense of humor.  He knows exactly what he is doing and is serving as our first captain.  At his side is the impenetrable Akimoto-san, who already holds a first degree black belt in Yoshinkan Aikido.  Then there's Bryn and myself, and rounding out the cast are the 9 cops, who all seem very gracious.


Everything is presented in a well thought-out, logical manor.  Although everything is being said in Japanese and is rarely translated, you more or less pick up what is happening.  It really is a wonderful privilege to have teachers of this caliber take the time to teach us their art in this kind of painstaking and step by step manor.  Aikido was created by Osensei, (the great teacher) but truly the credit for devising this method of imparting the fundamentals to students in the modern world belongs to Shioda and the early members of the Yoshinkan.  (Incidentally, "Yoshinkan" is the name Gozo Shioda's father gave to his own practice hall.  It means, "place for cultivating the spirit".  I suppose that is a good way of describing what I am trying to do here.)