In the Japanese martial arts tradition, students of each of the various schools typically hold a special training session called “kangeiko” (寒稽古 in Japanese), which means “mid-winter training.”

No one is certain of the exact origin of the kangeiko, but the tradition appears to have started in the middle of the Edo period, sometime in the Hōreki era (1751~1764), as a way to improve the general health of the adherents to each particular martial arts school.

Though particular to Japanese arts, the tradition of kangeiko has spread worldwide with the global popularity in the martial arts, and now kangeiko training can be found everywhere, from Tokyo to Paris to Chicago to Sydney. Because it’s cold almost everywhere in Japan after the turn of the year, stories of people training in pretty cold conditions are commonplace. Kangeiko is more than just a training session: it’s an opportunity for reflection, for starting afresh in the new year and for bonding with others, all in a setting steeped in tradition.

Shodokan aikido honbu in Osaka follows the same pattern, and is presently holding its 2010 kangeiko training session in the Showacho district of Osaka in the headquarters dojo each morning this week (2010-01-18~23), Monday through Saturday, from 6:30~7:30, plus one summation session on Sunday in the afternoon.

On Monday and Tuesday, Tetsuro Nariyama, shihan of Shodokan Aikido, discussed the tekubi waza (wrist techniques) focusing on kote hineri (wrist folding) techniques and applications on Monday morning and kote gaeshi (supinating wrist lock) techniques and applications on Tuesday morning.

To be honest, no matter how many times I try them, I find the kote gaeshi techniques and applications to be difficult to perform, even with minimal competency. But, I guess if I could do it all well, there’d be little need for training! I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s lesson!

Sensei tied my belt, but jeez did he ever tie the knot tight! I can hardly budge it.

Finally. After a year on the sidelines, I’ve finally returned to aikido!

This morning, I decided to go to the afternoon 2 pm aikido session at Shodokan honbu, hoping for a small class size. Almost a year ago to the day, I broke a finger (the proximal phalanx of the left pinky, to be precise) during a routine warm-up exercise.  At doctor’s orders, I laid off any exercise that might aggravate the injury — and fingers take a long time to heal.  But then, weeks turned to months, and eventually months turned into just short of a year.

Now, roughly a year later, I feel as if I have forgotten all of the aikido I ever knew. I even forgot how to properly tie my belt! I’m pretty rusty on the warm-up routine, too, even though it’s perhaps the most standard part of each training session.

Restarting sport is always harder than keeping going: that part I remember.  Now, carrying quite some more weight than at this time last year, I feel as if I have the grace of a brick and the flexibility of a piece of rotted wood.  But, no matter; if I stick with it, it’ll get better. And the people are very much fun — that part I had somehow forgotten!

Art credit: chigu2nahito

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.

The training plan handed out last week said that the first session (10-12:30) will focus on randori kihon (basics) and practical application (ura waza, kaeshi waza, renzoku waza no henka [reacting to change]. The second session (14-16:30) will focus on perfecting & correcting kihon dousa and helping develop the ability to use waza in competition.

It should be interesting and fun!

Before traveling to the conference, I decided to seek out an aikido venue in which to train whilst there. Finding a venue turned out to be an adventure in and of itself, for it appears that aikido in the long shadow of Tomiki-sensei in the United States is somewhat cantoned up. This goes back to my earlier comments about the confusion between terms like “Tomiki aikido” and “Shodokan aikido”. I’m not going to follow that line of discussion here, but simply point out that it led me to a variety of disjoint answers to the question, “where can I train?”

In the end, and after several quite helpful e-mail exchanges with people from JAA/USA and other organisations, I found a Tomiki Aikido club at the University of Baltimore’s Athletic Club. With e-mailed instructions from Jaime Williamson in hand, on Monday, 26 April, I set forth to find the University’s athletic club and its aikidoka. The University’s club practises aikido according to the principles set forth by Aikido America International, which is apparently a parallel to JAA/USA that aligns itself more with Waseda University’s aikido practises than with those of Shodokan hombu.

I was traveling around Baltimore by hire car, since it is nearly impossible to navigate around any American city using solely public transit. I was fortunate enough to have been given a car with satellite navigation. All I needed to do was to plug in “1420 N. Charles Street” and it whisked me away to the University campus. Alas, the directions were so straightforward that I arrived just over an hour early! I had to find a place to pass some time, so I drove around aimlessly looking for a coffee shop.

And, wow, did I find one! All I saw was a sign saying something about coffeehouse, so I stopped in to Red Emma’s Bookstore & Coffeehouse, an anarchist/communist bookstore situated not far from the University campus. It was hilarious walking in and then realizing that I was probably walking in to one of the more radical bookstores in that part of the country. So, I enjoyed it by having a nice latte, browsing the truly unique collection of books, and departing. It did occur to me that maybe the police were photographing those who went in and out of the place… But I digress.

At the appointed hour of 6:30 PM, I arrived at the club and found Jaime with no problems. After changing into my dogi, I met the other people with whom I would be practising that evening. It was a wonderful group. Remembering that I was, at the time, a freshly-minted 8th kyuu (the lowest kyuu grade in the Shodokan system), I was working on extremely elementary things. My goal for this trip was to practise zempo kaiten ukeme (“forward rolling breakfalls”) from a standing position. It turns out that I had a real fear of doing rolling breakfalls, and it took quite some time (far beyond this one trip to Baltimore) to get over that fear. However, the good patience and help of the club members went far in helping me get there.

What were my impressions of this Tomiki aikido system? The taiso and the exercises were, in my opinion, quite different than what I had experienced at our Shodokan club. However, it is clear that there is a common source of, and a common heritage between, the two strains of aikido. No matter how you look at it, the aikido that Professor Tomiki developed is very elegant, and its stewards have done a good job in developing it.

But aikidō has given me a new opportunity: now, before I travel, I look for shōdōkan aikidō venues in which I can train whilst away. This has been fun and, frankly, quite enlightening in a number of ways. After all, I started this blog precisely because I wanted to share my views about the venues I’ve visited and the great people I’ve met along the way.

As of this writing, at the end of 2006 and at the close of only my first year of practising aikidō, I’ve been a visitor to dojos in Wales, Scotland, Australia, three places in the United States, and two places in Japan. I plan to write more about these places and the people in them, but, for now, I’ll simply say that visiting these clubs and meeting their members has been a fabulously rewarding experience. If you practise aikidō and you find yourself “on the road”, like me, don’t miss out on an opportunity to train!

But, I suppose I should say that it’s through traveling that I have also found out some of the less desirable features of aikidō:

• there seems to be a needless splintering-up of shōdōkan aikidō, some preferring the term “Tomiki aikidō” and others preferring to emphasize the links that Tomiki-sensei had with Waseda University;
• in some parts of the world, shōdōkan clubs don’t follow shōdōkan hombu’s grading syllabus, which can lead to some awkward moments; and
• kyū grade uniforms (obi colors) are not globally uniform, which can cause some confusion and, potentially, extra expense

One thing is common, however, and it is a very positive aspect:

• every dan grade I have met is willing to go out of their way to help kyū grades attain proficiency in the art

To the extent I can, I ignore the politics. Frankly, one of the great things about being a kyū grade is that I couldn’t get involved in the politics of aikidō even if I wanted to. But it does bear mention that I am aware of what goes on around me, and to that extent, observing the operation of shōdōkan aikidō is interesting.

Fast forward to May…

Eventually, May rolled around, and by that time I’d been involved in aikido less than three months. On Friday afternoon, five of us from our club travelled from Paddington station in London through Newport in South Wales to our ultimate destination: the town of Abergavenny, Wales, where we were to be put up in a bed & breakfast, named Ty’r Morwydd, that caters to groups.

On Saturday, we made our way to the dojo in the (relatively) nearby town of Skenfrith. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by lots of aikidoka from all over the UK, plus some from abroad. And, gulp, I was the only ungraded person there.

Aikidoka friends

But, I must say, it was an excellent experience. Still at the stage where I was completely self-conscious about the fact that I didn’t know [insert the name of whatever was being taught at the time], Skenfrith was great both for my aikido (total overload) and for my ability to socialize with other people who were interested in the same thing (lots of interesting people from all over).

Special mention to my friend Keith Harry who, then a 5th kyuu, laid on one of the most effective shomen ate I’d ever experienced to date. We were in the midst of an ukeme drill, where whoever was at the head of the line had to throw everyone in the line as quickly as possible using straight shomen ate. After everyone had circulated through, the head of the line changed to the next person. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Anyway, everyone else in the line was a dan grade, except yours truly. So when I was next in line to be thrown, Keith turned and threw me before he realized that I was not one of the dan grades. That’s to say, he didn’t “take it easy” on me. That was the moment when I gained confidence that my ukeme worked!

Hills and dales and Skirrid

Skenfrith is a beautiful place nestled in the hills of south Wales. The dojo we used for the course was a small church with an all-wood façade, the interior of which had been removed of seating. The floor of the main hall was covered wall-to-wall by the type of thick tatami mats found in judo dojos. What’s more, the location was situated almost immediately adjacent to the ancient Skenfrith Castle, which added a bit of colour to the setting.

The course was actually divided up between two dojos, one in Skenfrith and the other in the nearby town of Monmouth. This latter venue was made from a ball court inside a modern sports facility there. While it didn’t have the same charm as the more historic Skenfrith venue, it did provide a bit more space.

Sonia reaching the peak of Skirrid Hill

One of the natural features in the local area is Skirrid Hill, also known by its Welsh name, Ysgyryd Fawr. On Sunday, after the training sessions had ended, but before the evening’s dinner, a small group of us (including fellow clubmate Sonia, shown in the photo running to the summit, a mere hundred metres away) decided to join in a run up to the top of Skirrid Hill.

Okay, for all but a couple of people it was more of a “fast walk to the top” than a run. But, in any event, the view from on top of that landmark hill is worth the effort: on a clear day you can see as far south as the ocean ports around Newport, and you can get a good view of all the surrounding towns. If you go up there, remember to take a good jacket, as the wind is quite stiff year-round.

When I woke up the morning of Wednesday, 8 February 2006, I didn’t have any idea that my life was going to change that day. Well, it wasn’t quite that dramatic. However, it was that evening that I took my first tentative steps onto the tatami to learn a martial art, aikido. I now feel as if everything’s changed for me since then.

Back in the 1980′s, a close friend and mentor suggested that I look into something called “aikido”. He, himself, is a former karate-ka who believed that aikido would be good for me — not only for my general fitness, but also to help me feel more comfortable with myself. Although I didn’t take up his suggestion at the time, he gave to me a copy of Gozo Shioda‘s well-known book on aikido entitled, “Dynamic Aikido“. Alas, that book sat on my bookshelf for years.

For years, that is, until late 2005 when, spurred by overwork and office stress, I decided to pick up that book and read it. Sure, it’s easy to read a book about sports — there are thousands of them at any major book retailer. But I was in a mood to act. And this book really moved me, not because of the specifics of aikido, but because of its gracefulness. It really looked like something I could once again sink my teeth into.

You see, it had been over 10 years since I had seriously participated in any sport, and my passion at that time was racing bicycles (road cycling, to be specific). Unfortunately, road cycling takes an extensive time commitment, one that modern work-life seems to not allow me. Cycling also requires roads (preferably uncongested ones), and that’s quite a tall order for someone living in central London.

But, what do you do when you are interested in something like aikido, but you don’t know where to go to find it? I haphazardly started searching on the web for dojos, completely oblivious to the idea that there are many different styles of most martial arts (aikido is certainly no exception). I eventually found the website of the British Aikido Association which, at that time, was the home for all styles of aikido in the United Kingdom, and from that website I discovered that voila! there was a shodokan aikido dojo a mere two blocks away from my office in London.

And so it passed that on the 8th of February in 2006, I found myself at London’s Central YMCA learning how to safely fall backwards onto tatami mats. I’ve been falling ever since and, thank goodness, I see no end in sight.