The aikido seminar on July 26th was well-attended by both university students and adult aikidoka. It was held in a really superb dojo, which sported three full-size judo competition areas. By my reckoning, that’s about 20×8-jō, which is quite large (see photo below).
Kokushikan University dojo
It was really hot and humid. By the time the morning session had ended, I think that the entire dojo raced to the nearest vending machine for a cold bottle of Pocari Sweat. My judogi was completely saturated by sweat before lunch, and the afternoon was even hotter than in the morning.
However, the seminar covered a lot of useful topics, focusing on application of basics (kihon waza) in randori situations. It seemed that there was remarkably little practice during the seminar, which is too bad because I would have liked to have had more time to try to practice the materials presented by Nariyama-shihan. But, even so, the trip was worth taking even if just to meet aikido players from the Kantō region.
Nili leaving the dojo
After the training, the Kansai participants (and some Kantō friends) went to dinner together at a local izakaya where a fair quantity of beer was consumed. For me, it was a great chance to meet new people and try out my fledgling Japanese. I particularly enjoy talking to the university students because they are such free spirits. It’s quite interesting to find those who are about to graduate and enter the “real world” in Japan, because there seems to be a moment of reality hitting squarely between the eyes.
The president of the Keio University aikido club is a case in point. He’s just been hired by a large American electronics company to work as a systems engineer in their Tokyo office starting in 2009. I asked him if he intended to continue practicing aikido once he leaves university. He said that he wants to, “but…”. In this instance, the use of the word “but” is a way of saying, in Japanese, that “I’m not going to be able to”. He said that he knows already that his work days will be long and very tough, and that this is the way of Japanese business. It’s a shame, because it means that another very good aikido player will likely vanish before our eyes. And that’s too bad.
