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.
