Dojo on break

As I write this the dojo has been on break because of the coronavirus for one week.  It seems a bit unreal. My life tends to go from class to class whether it's the dojo or San Jose State.  So lots of what Nadeau sensei calls downtime. During this time I remember my favorite Osensei story from his son's biography of his father.. Son Kisshomaru, who would become nidai Doshu, goes up to Iwama to see his father. Osensei was farming, training, building the Aiki Shrine. His son lamented that Aikido was dying. The dojo in Tokyo was closed and housing families that were homeless because of the bombings. The best of the pre-war students and teachers were fighting in the war, possibly dying. Osensei's reply was,"No, son. Aikido is just beginning."

So it's things like this that inspire me during this crisis. The source of my energy for Aikido has always come from Osensei. I have been blessed to have teachers who studied with him personally. Initially Robert Frager and Robert Nadeau senseis. Then to Japan and Hikitsuchi sensei and the Kumano Juku dojo shihan Anno, Yanase, and Tojima senseis. But for me the source of inspiration and therefore the energy for Aikido has always come from Osensei. So studying his war years and how he continued to grow and train has always been an inspiration...

Starting Monday evening we will be doing online instruction via my Youtube channel(jackwada). If you subscribe you will be notified when we do a class. Nadeau sensei has started to do online classes Friday evenings. My thought is to have online classes Monday and Wednesday evenings at the regular class times. 7 to 8pm. This is definitely a new phase for Aikido. Eventually we may shift to an Aikido of San Jose Youtube channel. My understanding is that the classes will be live but recorded and available for study after the class is broadcast.

My thoughts for a first class on Monday evening include maybe a half hour on bokken. I have been doing some very basic suburi practice with the bokken. My strongest influence here has been Tojima sensei..His deep cut has been a recurring theme recently. I shot a home video which is now on youtube which I will post with the blog....For me the purpose of the suburi is to get to what Bruce Lee called 'bodyfeel'.

Lee contended that the branches of the tree were surface knowledge. The real knowledge was in the root...The surface knowledge is important, including proper grip, proper stance and posture, proper mechanics. But the root was the real essence and he defined root as 'bodyfeel'. Tojima sensei would often use the expression 'Karada ni ireru' or 'put it in the body'. One can get trapped in the details. And as long as you are floating in the details or fixing on the details, ' bodyfeel' is elusive. Of course 'bodyfeel' includes the mind, but more mind as consciousness, not merely knowledge. One other thing Tojima sensei would say is "nankai mo nankai mo" which translates as again and again. You can cut 500 times or 1,000 times but not to count. If you count you are getting exercise and there is physical development through that. But Tojima sensei said he was talking about "motto fukai mon" or something deeper. My memories of his bokken classes are that we would swing and swing with little explanation. And he would stand in front of each student and cut and have you match him. My sense was he was trying to get you to the bodyfeel place. You could always tell the sound his sword cuts made. I tried to demonstrate that in the video. It is a body feel sound. Not a whistling sound many people make. In fact sometimes after class he would pick up a bokken and when we heard that sound he would have all of our attention.

I use an Einsteinian inspired thought experiment to get to 'bodyfeel'. Remember, Einstein once said that Imagination was more important than knowledge. Knowledge gets you caught up in the branches. When I was swinging with Tojima sensei my thought was I'll figure it out later. Know I just try to go back to the bodyfeel of the moment he was standing in front of me. So tune in Monday night if you feel like it.