Monday, January 31, 2005
Some Junana Hon Variations
Atemi Waza Hontai
The basic forms of the Junana-hon (the basic 17) are practice at Shodokan from aigamae (matching stances) tegatana awase (fully extended tegatana arms just touching). So imagine right postures as I go on.
I want to talk about two details for aigamae ate and ushiro ate. The both have to do with how you twist uke’s arm.
Aigamae ate
In aigamae ate, you need to rotate your right tegatana down just a bit, grab uke’s arm, and then rotate his arm away from you—all while doing the taisabaki and moving to your left. That rotation on the arm will help to break uke’s balance (from his own perspective) to the left and onto the weak line. As he recovers and leans back, that is when your right hand comes up to the neck and throws uke with aigamae ate.
Ushiro ate
Here, the right hand reaches forward, over uke’s right wrist, curving over and under in order to grab. Once you’ve grabbed with the right hand, the left arm comes to push on uke’s right elbow—right at the elbow. As it pushes, the right hand rotates back towards you (since it was previously curled around, it uncurls) and that helps to twist uke’s torso (from his own perspective) to the left. You then sneak behind uke and throw him with ushiro ate.
Junana Hon Tanto Versions
The versions of the Junanan hon done against an uke stabbing with a knife are in some cases different than those done against an unarmed opponent.
In what follows, imagine you and the opponent are in right-foot forward stances and that uke has the tanto (dagger) in his right hand and is stabbing in such as way that he stays in a right-foot forward stance throughout the stab.
Waki Gatame
Here you move to the left as you get out of the way of the knife. This taisabaki, however, is done with the right foot remaining forward. Turn 90 degrees so that your right tegatana is now at a 90 degree angle with uke’s stabbing arm. Your tegatana (hand blade) should just be touching uke’s right wrist. Now use it to push up as your move forward towards the arm with your whole body. The rising combined with the moving forward will raise uke’s arm and expose the underside of his wrist to you. That is when your left hand comes forward, grabs uke’s wrist from underneath and applies the waki gatame.
Tenkai kote hineri
Here, the only difference is in how you throw uke. Uke falls back and to his right at the end of the technique.
At the start he stabs, you move forward and to your left as normal, grabbing the arm. Now perform the tenkai movement, turning under the uke’s arm. Stop. You should now be facing the same direction as uke. From this point on, move backwards, pulling down on uke’s arm with both hands. As you do so, uke will be (from his perspective) whipped back and to the right. His left hand will reach out to break his fall. As it does so, just keep moving backwards till he collapses onto the floor.
Ki Phrase of the Day
Ki ga nagai literally means that your ki is long. But the idiomatic meaning is to describe someone with a great deal of patience—someone who can do something “patiently, constantly, and without hurrying.” It describes a person’s character.
Ki ga mijikai literally means that your ki is short. But what it really describes is someone short tempered. It describes someone’s character rather than at temporary state of mind.
The basic forms of the Junana-hon (the basic 17) are practice at Shodokan from aigamae (matching stances) tegatana awase (fully extended tegatana arms just touching). So imagine right postures as I go on.
I want to talk about two details for aigamae ate and ushiro ate. The both have to do with how you twist uke’s arm.
Aigamae ate
In aigamae ate, you need to rotate your right tegatana down just a bit, grab uke’s arm, and then rotate his arm away from you—all while doing the taisabaki and moving to your left. That rotation on the arm will help to break uke’s balance (from his own perspective) to the left and onto the weak line. As he recovers and leans back, that is when your right hand comes up to the neck and throws uke with aigamae ate.
Ushiro ate
Here, the right hand reaches forward, over uke’s right wrist, curving over and under in order to grab. Once you’ve grabbed with the right hand, the left arm comes to push on uke’s right elbow—right at the elbow. As it pushes, the right hand rotates back towards you (since it was previously curled around, it uncurls) and that helps to twist uke’s torso (from his own perspective) to the left. You then sneak behind uke and throw him with ushiro ate.
Junana Hon Tanto Versions
The versions of the Junanan hon done against an uke stabbing with a knife are in some cases different than those done against an unarmed opponent.
In what follows, imagine you and the opponent are in right-foot forward stances and that uke has the tanto (dagger) in his right hand and is stabbing in such as way that he stays in a right-foot forward stance throughout the stab.
Waki Gatame
Here you move to the left as you get out of the way of the knife. This taisabaki, however, is done with the right foot remaining forward. Turn 90 degrees so that your right tegatana is now at a 90 degree angle with uke’s stabbing arm. Your tegatana (hand blade) should just be touching uke’s right wrist. Now use it to push up as your move forward towards the arm with your whole body. The rising combined with the moving forward will raise uke’s arm and expose the underside of his wrist to you. That is when your left hand comes forward, grabs uke’s wrist from underneath and applies the waki gatame.
Tenkai kote hineri
Here, the only difference is in how you throw uke. Uke falls back and to his right at the end of the technique.
At the start he stabs, you move forward and to your left as normal, grabbing the arm. Now perform the tenkai movement, turning under the uke’s arm. Stop. You should now be facing the same direction as uke. From this point on, move backwards, pulling down on uke’s arm with both hands. As you do so, uke will be (from his perspective) whipped back and to the right. His left hand will reach out to break his fall. As it does so, just keep moving backwards till he collapses onto the floor.
Ki Phrase of the Day
Ki ga nagai literally means that your ki is long. But the idiomatic meaning is to describe someone with a great deal of patience—someone who can do something “patiently, constantly, and without hurrying.” It describes a person’s character.
Ki ga mijikai literally means that your ki is short. But what it really describes is someone short tempered. It describes someone’s character rather than at temporary state of mind.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Some Thoughts on Taisabaki
Non-Japanese aikido players tend to be very bad at taisabaki, the avoidance of an attack in such a way that you are in a good position thereafter to respond with an effective technique.
The honest reason is that we just don't practice it enough. A more shocking thing that has become apparent to me on this trip is that you don't have to practice all that much to get good at it. You just need to do it all the time.
Nearly every practice session at Shodokan ends with about 10 minutes of tanto taisabaki practice. That's all. But 10 minutes a practice soon produces very good taisabaki.
The way they do it is to have toshu (the unarmed person) and tanto (the person holding the dagger) stand at ma-ai (proper distance). Since two points obviously make a line, they're standing on a line. And they will continue to use that line throughout the drill.
Tanto moves forward and stabs at toshu's heart--but stabs right over the line so that even if toshu moves, tanto just stabs over the line. It is a drill, not a contest.
Toshu then uses good sliding footwork to get off the line and do a taisabaki movement of his choice (to the side, to a front diagonal, whatever.) They then both turn around, so that they are again standing on the same line, but now have reversed positions. That is, toshu is now standing where tanto used to be, and tanto is now standing where toshu used to be.
Then toshu stabs again, and tanto gets out of the way by doing a good taisabaki. And they again pass each other, reversing places.
And they do this over and over.
But with variations.
The first time they do it (about 60 seconds each as tanto and toshu), the toshu's arms stay by his side. That is, there is no arm blocking at all, nor any attempts by toshu to grab tanto's stabbing arm.
When those two minutes are done, a rotation takes place in the dojo so that everybody ends up with a new partner.
Then they modify the drill by allowing toshu to not only get out of the way but to use arm blocks and even to lightly grab tanto's stabbing arm. The point is to be able to move smoothly and quickly out of the way of an attack and then be in a position to grab the stabbing arm properly--that is, with your hands in front of your center line and your weight well balanced between your two feet.
Again, this happens for about two minutes, with each person doing 60 seconds as toshu and 60 seconds as tanto.
Then, a rotation takes place in the dojo such that everyone gets a new partner again.
Then, there is another modification of the drill. Here, you are allowed to not only grab uke's stabbing arm, but then to do the beginning part of a technique in order to break uke's balance. Since the point of the drill is for toshu to do good taisabaki and then to get kuzushi (balance breaking) on tanto, the drill stops each time after kuzushi is achieved. The kuzushi is not followed up by throws or locks. In addition, leaving the final part of the technique out saves a lot of time so that many more repetitions can be done in the limited time.
And that's basically it. Sometimes they do two or three rounds of one of these variations (so a couple with no arms, or a couple with just grabbing, or a couple with grabbing and kuzushi), but the total time spent is typically no more than 10 minutes.
Which isn't much. But is more than sufficient to develop great taisabaki skills. I think it is a practice that more non-Japanese dojos should consider doing since it takes so little time and yields such huge results.
Even the brown belts at Shodokan do better taisabaki than I do. Their movements to avoid a stab are are crisp, well balanced, and leaved them perfectly positioned to do a technique before for the small window of opportunity presented by a stab has passed. It is a skill I sorely need to work on.
Ki Phrase of the Day
I am reading a wonderful book about the Japanese language called Nihongo: A Japanese approach to Japanese. It's author is Makoto Sugawara, a Japanese journalist who for many years wrote a newspaper column that tried to explain to foreigners the subtleties of Japanese. The book is by far the best explanation not only of the Japanese language but also of Japanese culture that I've ever come across.
A fun chapter in the book concerns the word ki, which translates as spirit or energy in most cases. It is a big deal in Japanese since it is used idiomatically in dozens of phrases having to do with a person's state of mind or character.
Since it's also part of Ai-ki-do, I think it will be fun if I pass along some of these usages of the word ki so that aikido practitioners can get a better appreciation of its meaning.
So, here is the first Ki Phrase of the Day.
Ki ga ookii.
The sound ga is used in Japanese to make whatever word proceeds it the subject of a sentence. So you know that in this sentence ki is the subject. The word ookii means big. (The initial o sound is like the O in OK. The i sound is like the i in igloo. The oo doesn't mean to say two separate o sounds, like o-o. Rather it means hold the o sound for two beats. Similarly for the ii. It means to hold the i sound for two beats.)
So this literally means "The Ki is Big." Idiomatically, however, what it means is that a person is "emboldened and indifferent to trifling things." That is, it means you've got Big Spirit, and Big Energy. And will be bold--maybe even too bold.
The opposite of this idea is given by the espression,
Ki ga chiisai.
The word chiisai means small. So this sentence literally means that "The ki is small." But what it means idiomatically is a timid person, a person who is by nature cowardly or overly worried about trifling things.
A key difference between Ki ga ookii and Ki ga chiisai is that the former describes a temporary state of mind while the later describes a person's ongoing character.
More Japanese Novelties
Yesterday, I came across a very interesting sink in the men's room at Senri-chuo Station in Osaka. It is a sink that both runs and blows!
That is, the inner lip of the sink (the one you stand next to) has a built in hand blow dryer. The far side of the sink has both a soap nozzle as well as a water nozzle. Everything is attached to motion sensors.
So you first place your hands in front of the soap nozzle and foamy soap squirt out. You then place your hands in front of the water spigot and water comes out. And then, after you've washed off the soap, you bring your hands to the closer side of the skin and the built in hand blow dryer gets going. Its air flow is angled down, towards the drain so that any water blown off your hands gets sent downward into the bottom of the sink.
To make it all work, the sinks is rather deep and rather large, so that you have plenty of room to maneuver your hands around.
The honest reason is that we just don't practice it enough. A more shocking thing that has become apparent to me on this trip is that you don't have to practice all that much to get good at it. You just need to do it all the time.
Nearly every practice session at Shodokan ends with about 10 minutes of tanto taisabaki practice. That's all. But 10 minutes a practice soon produces very good taisabaki.
The way they do it is to have toshu (the unarmed person) and tanto (the person holding the dagger) stand at ma-ai (proper distance). Since two points obviously make a line, they're standing on a line. And they will continue to use that line throughout the drill.
Tanto moves forward and stabs at toshu's heart--but stabs right over the line so that even if toshu moves, tanto just stabs over the line. It is a drill, not a contest.
Toshu then uses good sliding footwork to get off the line and do a taisabaki movement of his choice (to the side, to a front diagonal, whatever.) They then both turn around, so that they are again standing on the same line, but now have reversed positions. That is, toshu is now standing where tanto used to be, and tanto is now standing where toshu used to be.
Then toshu stabs again, and tanto gets out of the way by doing a good taisabaki. And they again pass each other, reversing places.
And they do this over and over.
But with variations.
The first time they do it (about 60 seconds each as tanto and toshu), the toshu's arms stay by his side. That is, there is no arm blocking at all, nor any attempts by toshu to grab tanto's stabbing arm.
When those two minutes are done, a rotation takes place in the dojo so that everybody ends up with a new partner.
Then they modify the drill by allowing toshu to not only get out of the way but to use arm blocks and even to lightly grab tanto's stabbing arm. The point is to be able to move smoothly and quickly out of the way of an attack and then be in a position to grab the stabbing arm properly--that is, with your hands in front of your center line and your weight well balanced between your two feet.
Again, this happens for about two minutes, with each person doing 60 seconds as toshu and 60 seconds as tanto.
Then, a rotation takes place in the dojo such that everyone gets a new partner again.
Then, there is another modification of the drill. Here, you are allowed to not only grab uke's stabbing arm, but then to do the beginning part of a technique in order to break uke's balance. Since the point of the drill is for toshu to do good taisabaki and then to get kuzushi (balance breaking) on tanto, the drill stops each time after kuzushi is achieved. The kuzushi is not followed up by throws or locks. In addition, leaving the final part of the technique out saves a lot of time so that many more repetitions can be done in the limited time.
And that's basically it. Sometimes they do two or three rounds of one of these variations (so a couple with no arms, or a couple with just grabbing, or a couple with grabbing and kuzushi), but the total time spent is typically no more than 10 minutes.
Which isn't much. But is more than sufficient to develop great taisabaki skills. I think it is a practice that more non-Japanese dojos should consider doing since it takes so little time and yields such huge results.
Even the brown belts at Shodokan do better taisabaki than I do. Their movements to avoid a stab are are crisp, well balanced, and leaved them perfectly positioned to do a technique before for the small window of opportunity presented by a stab has passed. It is a skill I sorely need to work on.
Ki Phrase of the Day
I am reading a wonderful book about the Japanese language called Nihongo: A Japanese approach to Japanese. It's author is Makoto Sugawara, a Japanese journalist who for many years wrote a newspaper column that tried to explain to foreigners the subtleties of Japanese. The book is by far the best explanation not only of the Japanese language but also of Japanese culture that I've ever come across.
A fun chapter in the book concerns the word ki, which translates as spirit or energy in most cases. It is a big deal in Japanese since it is used idiomatically in dozens of phrases having to do with a person's state of mind or character.
Since it's also part of Ai-ki-do, I think it will be fun if I pass along some of these usages of the word ki so that aikido practitioners can get a better appreciation of its meaning.
So, here is the first Ki Phrase of the Day.
Ki ga ookii.
The sound ga is used in Japanese to make whatever word proceeds it the subject of a sentence. So you know that in this sentence ki is the subject. The word ookii means big. (The initial o sound is like the O in OK. The i sound is like the i in igloo. The oo doesn't mean to say two separate o sounds, like o-o. Rather it means hold the o sound for two beats. Similarly for the ii. It means to hold the i sound for two beats.)
So this literally means "The Ki is Big." Idiomatically, however, what it means is that a person is "emboldened and indifferent to trifling things." That is, it means you've got Big Spirit, and Big Energy. And will be bold--maybe even too bold.
The opposite of this idea is given by the espression,
Ki ga chiisai.
The word chiisai means small. So this sentence literally means that "The ki is small." But what it means idiomatically is a timid person, a person who is by nature cowardly or overly worried about trifling things.
A key difference between Ki ga ookii and Ki ga chiisai is that the former describes a temporary state of mind while the later describes a person's ongoing character.
More Japanese Novelties
Yesterday, I came across a very interesting sink in the men's room at Senri-chuo Station in Osaka. It is a sink that both runs and blows!
That is, the inner lip of the sink (the one you stand next to) has a built in hand blow dryer. The far side of the sink has both a soap nozzle as well as a water nozzle. Everything is attached to motion sensors.
So you first place your hands in front of the soap nozzle and foamy soap squirt out. You then place your hands in front of the water spigot and water comes out. And then, after you've washed off the soap, you bring your hands to the closer side of the skin and the built in hand blow dryer gets going. Its air flow is angled down, towards the drain so that any water blown off your hands gets sent downward into the bottom of the sink.
To make it all work, the sinks is rather deep and rather large, so that you have plenty of room to maneuver your hands around.
Monday, January 24, 2005
It's Good To Be Back
Last night, I practiced at Shodokan Dojo in Osaka for the first time in five years. What sublime pleasure!
As much as I enjoy teaching aikido, it's really much more fun to just be a student and at a world class dojo like Shodokan, I'll always just be a student.
There are two evening practices. One runs from about 6:30 to about 8:00. It stresses basics and drills and techniques from the basic kyu rank and dan rank curriculum. The second runs from about 8:30 to about 9:30 and is applications, that is, interesting variations on the standard techniques.
During the first practice, you might do kotegaeshi out of normal wrist grabs. In the applications practice, you would find yourself doing kotegaeshi after being grabbed from behind by the collar, for instance, or from a choke, etc. Applications.
As usual, Nariyama Sensei ran a tight ship. After a short warm up, it was off to drills. He uses a stopwatch, calls out each drill and off you go. There were all the standards: shote awase (the pushing drill where you each push using fully extended tegatana and uke slowly gives ground); lots of very light run throughs of the Nanahon Nage Kuzushi Waza; tegatana awase (where you dance about maintaining proper posture and distance while both you and uke lightly tough tegatanas); Gassho no Renshu defense against strikes and kicks; Ippon Bogyo, which is much the same except you only defend with one tegatana to block rather than both in a prayer position as with Gassho no Renshu; and a version of tegatana awase where uke sometimes begins either a punch or a kick and as soon as he does, you push in with a shomen-ate towards uke's neck, thereby breaking his balance and collapsing his tegatana arm; and so on.
A fun variation that I had forgotten about was doing tegatana awase without the tegatana. Start in the normal position, just touching tegatana. Then lower your arms. (Both you and uke lower your arms.) Then dance about, maintaining proper distance. It's quite fun and when sensei yells stop, you can both raise your arms to see if you, as a couple, have indeed maintained proper distnce. They tegatana should, of course just touch.
For the rest of practice, sensei sent us through sets of techniques. The first set was from matching (aigamae) posture (both uke and torii standing with right feet forward, for instance). Uke then does a cross-hand grab (aigamae katate dori), grabbing torii's right wrist with his own right hand. There are then three techniques in the set. They are all variations of oshi taoshi.
For the first, uke just grabs. For the second, he grabs and then pulls. For the third, he grabs and pushes.
For the first, enter in the normal way (forearm rotating to bend uke's elbow, left hand coming up to push on uke's bent elbow ) and then do oshi taoshi.
For the second, when uke pulls, you're going to do the ura (backward spinning) version of the technique. As he pulls, enter right foot forward, rotating the forearm to bend his elbow. As usual the left hand comes up to the elbow. But then slide your left leg forward, so that it sits to the the outside of uke's right foot. Now spin backwards. Pivot on the left foot, with your right leg swinging behind you. Push on uke's elbow as you do and spin him down.
For the third, when uke pushes, you're going to first give ground by spinning backwards. Pivot on your right foot (which was in front to begin with), with your left leg swining behind you. Go about 270 degrees. Then swing back sharply, raising your arms as you do. This will get uke into the position to do oshi-taoshi. From uke's perspective, when he pushes and you give ground, he falls forward. Just as he's trying to right him self, that's when you spin back into him. He gets rasied more than he was intending to rise, and his arm is up, and he is now an easy prey for oshi-taoshi.
Some thoughts about Japan and how it's changed in the last five years.
Every package of disposable chopsticks now comes with a toothpick. Living standards rise in strange ways.
You can now get reasonably soft toilet paper nearly everywhere.
Dental floss is still very rare.
Everything in the country now seems to be handicap accesible.
The Japanese obsession with cell phones has noticably reduced the number of people reading on subway cars. A large fraction of those under 40 years old spend their time text messaging rather than reading. I can only imagine that this will make the Japanese dumber.
As much as I enjoy teaching aikido, it's really much more fun to just be a student and at a world class dojo like Shodokan, I'll always just be a student.
There are two evening practices. One runs from about 6:30 to about 8:00. It stresses basics and drills and techniques from the basic kyu rank and dan rank curriculum. The second runs from about 8:30 to about 9:30 and is applications, that is, interesting variations on the standard techniques.
During the first practice, you might do kotegaeshi out of normal wrist grabs. In the applications practice, you would find yourself doing kotegaeshi after being grabbed from behind by the collar, for instance, or from a choke, etc. Applications.
As usual, Nariyama Sensei ran a tight ship. After a short warm up, it was off to drills. He uses a stopwatch, calls out each drill and off you go. There were all the standards: shote awase (the pushing drill where you each push using fully extended tegatana and uke slowly gives ground); lots of very light run throughs of the Nanahon Nage Kuzushi Waza; tegatana awase (where you dance about maintaining proper posture and distance while both you and uke lightly tough tegatanas); Gassho no Renshu defense against strikes and kicks; Ippon Bogyo, which is much the same except you only defend with one tegatana to block rather than both in a prayer position as with Gassho no Renshu; and a version of tegatana awase where uke sometimes begins either a punch or a kick and as soon as he does, you push in with a shomen-ate towards uke's neck, thereby breaking his balance and collapsing his tegatana arm; and so on.
A fun variation that I had forgotten about was doing tegatana awase without the tegatana. Start in the normal position, just touching tegatana. Then lower your arms. (Both you and uke lower your arms.) Then dance about, maintaining proper distance. It's quite fun and when sensei yells stop, you can both raise your arms to see if you, as a couple, have indeed maintained proper distnce. They tegatana should, of course just touch.
For the rest of practice, sensei sent us through sets of techniques. The first set was from matching (aigamae) posture (both uke and torii standing with right feet forward, for instance). Uke then does a cross-hand grab (aigamae katate dori), grabbing torii's right wrist with his own right hand. There are then three techniques in the set. They are all variations of oshi taoshi.
For the first, uke just grabs. For the second, he grabs and then pulls. For the third, he grabs and pushes.
For the first, enter in the normal way (forearm rotating to bend uke's elbow, left hand coming up to push on uke's bent elbow ) and then do oshi taoshi.
For the second, when uke pulls, you're going to do the ura (backward spinning) version of the technique. As he pulls, enter right foot forward, rotating the forearm to bend his elbow. As usual the left hand comes up to the elbow. But then slide your left leg forward, so that it sits to the the outside of uke's right foot. Now spin backwards. Pivot on the left foot, with your right leg swinging behind you. Push on uke's elbow as you do and spin him down.
For the third, when uke pushes, you're going to first give ground by spinning backwards. Pivot on your right foot (which was in front to begin with), with your left leg swining behind you. Go about 270 degrees. Then swing back sharply, raising your arms as you do. This will get uke into the position to do oshi-taoshi. From uke's perspective, when he pushes and you give ground, he falls forward. Just as he's trying to right him self, that's when you spin back into him. He gets rasied more than he was intending to rise, and his arm is up, and he is now an easy prey for oshi-taoshi.
Some thoughts about Japan and how it's changed in the last five years.
Every package of disposable chopsticks now comes with a toothpick. Living standards rise in strange ways.
You can now get reasonably soft toilet paper nearly everywhere.
Dental floss is still very rare.
Everything in the country now seems to be handicap accesible.
The Japanese obsession with cell phones has noticably reduced the number of people reading on subway cars. A large fraction of those under 40 years old spend their time text messaging rather than reading. I can only imagine that this will make the Japanese dumber.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
The First Post...Hajime!
Welcome to the Tomiki Aikido Blog. The purpose of his blog is to provide a forum for aikidoka from around the world to discuss Tomiki Aikido and related issues like the place of competition in budo. I'm also hoping that it will attract the broader community of martial artists.
My name is Sean Masaki Flynn, and I'm a third degree black belt registered with the Japan Aikido Association/USA. I'm also the marketing director of the JAA/USA. I've been doing aikido since 1992, and now serve as the sensei for the Vassar College Aikido club in Poughkeepsie, New York. (I'm also a professor of economics at Vassar College.)
I'm on sabbatical as I write this, and living in Osaka, where I'm doing a research stint at Osaka University's Institute for Social and Economic Research. I will also begin training tonight at the Shodokan Hombu Dojo, the head dojo that Tomiki Sensei established in 1972 for the future development and study of his aikido system.
The head instructor is Tetsuro Nariyama, 8th dan. I've studied with him before and his aikido is among the best in the world. I am eagerly looking forward to my time with him.
In a few months, I will migrate to Waseda University, where I will train under Fumiaki Shishida, also an 8th dan and also world class. We were fortunate enough last school year at Vassar to have Shishida Sensei teaching us for the entire year. He was on sabbatical from his teaching duties at Waseda, and we were lucky to have him vastly improve our aikido.
For the next few months, my posts to this blog will mostly be about my training and what I'm learning. I'm going to do my best to post a lot and in great detail so that those who weren't able to make this trip will be able to share in some of what I'm learning. My postings will also, hopefully, encourage more people to make the trip to Japan to train. There's nothing else like it.
My name is Sean Masaki Flynn, and I'm a third degree black belt registered with the Japan Aikido Association/USA. I'm also the marketing director of the JAA/USA. I've been doing aikido since 1992, and now serve as the sensei for the Vassar College Aikido club in Poughkeepsie, New York. (I'm also a professor of economics at Vassar College.)
I'm on sabbatical as I write this, and living in Osaka, where I'm doing a research stint at Osaka University's Institute for Social and Economic Research. I will also begin training tonight at the Shodokan Hombu Dojo, the head dojo that Tomiki Sensei established in 1972 for the future development and study of his aikido system.
The head instructor is Tetsuro Nariyama, 8th dan. I've studied with him before and his aikido is among the best in the world. I am eagerly looking forward to my time with him.
In a few months, I will migrate to Waseda University, where I will train under Fumiaki Shishida, also an 8th dan and also world class. We were fortunate enough last school year at Vassar to have Shishida Sensei teaching us for the entire year. He was on sabbatical from his teaching duties at Waseda, and we were lucky to have him vastly improve our aikido.
For the next few months, my posts to this blog will mostly be about my training and what I'm learning. I'm going to do my best to post a lot and in great detail so that those who weren't able to make this trip will be able to share in some of what I'm learning. My postings will also, hopefully, encourage more people to make the trip to Japan to train. There's nothing else like it.
