ASJ @ Aikido of Mountain View

We are still in the pandemic, but this Summer California experienced a re-opening of sorts. Our old location on Martha St was no longer available. We are looking longterm to our permanent location on 3rd St San Jose, just outside of Japantown. In the interim we are training Wednesday noons and Sunday Mornings at Aikido of Mountain View at 1924 Plymouth St in Mountain View. So far it has been nice to have the indoors contact training. And we continue with our Monday and Friday online Zoom classes.

When I first started Aikido in fall of 1969, the Mountain View dojo was in some sense the central dojo in Northern California. There was a school somewhere in South San Francisco. A dojo in Sacramento. But Mountain View was pretty much it. There were a lot of clubs and Rec Department  groups. I myself started at a University Club at the UCSC campus In fall of 1969. Robert Frager was my home dojo sensei. At the time he was in close collaboration with Robert Nadeau. Both senseis(now shihan) used to hold monthly weekend ki-ins at the Mountain View dojo, which was then located on Castro Street. This was way before it became Restaurant Row. UC Santa Cruz club members would car pool over on Friday nights, sleep over Saturday, and conclude Sunday late afternoon. Frager and Nadeau senseis are both direct students of Osensei. Much of the work we did was on meditation, sound practices, and energy excercises. They were experimenting with things they had been introduced to by Osensei. There was usually an evening Aikido class on Fridays, followed by meditation. Saturday morning Aikido, followed by energy/meditation afternoon and evening. Sunday morning was another Aikido class, followed by afternoon energy work and meditation. This obviously has influenced my Aikido and what I teach.

The Mountain View school lead to the opening of the original Aikido of San Francisco(now City Aikido). Also Tamalpais, which was originally opened by Nadeau sensei's students. He opened Aikido of San Jose in Summer of 1976, invited me to be one of the original teachers, then sold me the school in February of 1980. So it is somewhat ironic and yet fitting that we for now find ourselves, albeit in an interim situation, at Aikido of Mountain View. It is still holding for now a lot of the fabric of Aikido in Northern California together.

Lately the theme of the classes has featured what I call 'the cut', which I associate with Tojima sensei. We have been tracking it from form, to motion, to what I am calling vibration. It for now represents my understanding of what Osensei might have met when he talked of Manifest Hidden Divine. This is of course my willingly admitted lack of the totality for the present. Form is the Manifest or Genkai. Movement is the Yukai or hiddent realm. The Vibration(for now) is the Shinkai, the Divine Realm. Both the Manifest and Hidden are dimensional, in that they go finer to finer. The Divine Realm is internal, it is in you(or me) in this very moment. Both the Manifest and Hidden, if you follow the dimensional Path(which is necessary) go from finer to finer, with the result that the form and or movement also becomes finer to finer. They represent a journey, an adventure.  The third is origin and destination in one, right here and now in you(or me). I can admit to having a good time with this. A good time means it appeals to my imagination(not really interested in what doesn't). Sundays in Mountain View are followed by Mondays on Zoom. Wednesdays in Mountain View are followed by Friday's on Zoom. So I have started editing the Mountain View classes  to illustrate points on the online broadcasts, because the movements in the dojo can't be dupilated online. Likewise the in person classes often don't explain what is going on in the depth that the online classes do. So that's what I'm trying to do. Tojima sensei once said,"Instead of learning ten thousand things, instead learn the on thing that gives birth to ten thousand." This is my attempt.So this cut is very deep. In the in personal classes I can demonstrate that through movement using the body arts, which we can't do online(for now).

Here is our latest' https://youtu.be/YKD65hkG3dI