2021

We are just about to turn the corner on 2021.We look to be heading into the 3rd year of the pandemic. We are transitioning to our permanent location at 3rd streen Japantown, which will happen in 2022. We are currently using the Mountain View dojo Wednesday noon and Sunday mornings 11;30 to 1pm. We are continuing our online noon classes Mondays and Fridays.

I am proud to announce that Harry Concepcion sensei has been promoted to 6th dan. This will be done with the New Years promotions in January. And Cliff Winnig will be promoted to shodan. He has been steady since the shutdown and has kept up training both online and since July in Mountain View.

So the dojo continues, even in this most difficult of times. I draw strength from Osensei during World War II. Dojo in Tokyo closed. All his students in the war. He farmed. Trained. Did his spiritual work. Built the Aiki Shrine. brought Aikido from pre-war to the present postwar Aikido. My sense is that we use these difficult times to forge our own interior shrines. Misogi 

During the pandemic with the dojo just online for most of it. I have focused my own training on 3 areas. First Tai Chi Ch'uan is easy to do and allows one to maintain and develop the energy body. We will be starting a new online beginning tai chi course early in the New Year. It will be online as the Omicron variant lurks. I probably won't do an in person tai chi class until we open on 3rd Street. Second, I have focused a lot of my development on the basic sword cut I learned from Tojima sensei. The up down finish movement and rhythm of the cut can create the infrastructure within one's own mind/body system to develop what is commonly called kokyu. When we finally move in on 3rd Street I intend to see that practice in that is expanded. And I have explored to much greater depth the movements of the staff/spear. We have started a certification program which we will continue. I am eager to try to take people to the(my term) takemusu level where the movements happen through you with increasingly less a sense of patterned form  Here is a link to the last in person class of the year, which covers the sword and spear movements.  Click the link.   sword spear staff

We will be holding a New Years Day training Saturday 11am to 12 noon at the Mountain View dojo. If you havent filled out a release for the Mountain View dojo you must do so to attend. The release requires proof of vaccination. Masks are required. Ventillation is excellent as one wall completely opens. And we have many fans strategically placed to make the ventillation even better. Here is the link:

 Mountain View dojo release

 For those who haven't heard, Elle underwent surgery for cancer and it was a complete success. They got it all. All the cancer found was dead tissue. And all the potential hotspots were nothing of concern.

Happy Holidays

 

 

 

 

And we plan to hold a New Years training this year, which we did for many years at Martha Street. It will be New Years Day Saturday