Osensei Memorial Training 2025

Osensei passed away on April 26th, 1969. We usually do a special training around that date. This year we would probably have done it Sunday April 27th, but due to other dojo circumstances, we wound up doing it quite early, Sunday April 20th. So we were also competing with Easter, which tends to be a strong family holiday pull.

Anyway, I had a conversation with Linda Holiday sensei, who had just gotten back from Japan and a visit with Anno sensei. Now Anno sensei is a direct student of Osensei, and a powerful influence on both Linda and myself. And what he passed on to Linda was that the most important thing for her, and by extension for me, was"to pass on the heart of Osensei".

And so this led me to ponder what this might mean. We both went to Japan in 1973 and trained at the Shingu dojo. Osensei's beard and hair were enshrined in the kamidana of the dojo. Many times after the morning early 6:30 am class Hikitsuchi sensei would chant norito or traditional Shinto prayers of Purification that were an essential part of Osensei's practice. It was once explained to me that the norito was a structured form of what he called kototama, tuning into the vibrational reality of the universe and achieving a union of sorts with it. In spite of the fact that it was strongly ritualized, and in ancient Japanese, hearing Hikitsuchi sensei chant norito resonated with me at an almost cellular level. I was inspired to learn amatsu norito and even the much longer and more challenging Kami Goto.

So last Sunday I chanted to full ceremony. I'm not sure if the current age and my rendition of the chanting has the same effect for those in attendance that the experience had for me in the early to mid seventies. So passing on the heart of Osensei. What might that mean? I guess for me there was always a sense to understand the movements at deeper and deeper levels and in the process understand my self in the process. Finding the  deeper and hidden dimensions of the movements stimulates my imagination and opens me up to creative force. But at the same time the heart of Osensei was passed onto me through my teachers. Robert Frager sensei(with whom I recently had lunch ) and Robert Nadeau sensei, with whom I still meet weekly to work on what he got from Osensei.  Hikitsuchi sensei, who passed onto  me the formal chants along with instruction in sword and staff/spear. Anno, Tojima, and Yanase senseis, with whom I spent many formative hours both on and off the mat.

This weekend, which is a formal date for the mitamasai or celebration of the date of Osensei's passing, we will be doing a booth at the San Jose Japantown Nikkei Matsuri. Hopefully our new dojo will open there soon and it's an important time to meet the community and re-establish our roots there.

Here is a video of the Osensei Memorial class for 2025. It has full norito, along with a demonstration of the Aiki sword or sho chiku bai no ken.

https://youtu.be/mrACdzzQaZE?si=fPa7GNph9dUIi4PT