Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

I am really enjoying my beginning Aikido classes!  The last two weeks were so hectic work wise that it was nice to look forward to the tri-weekly Aikido classes.  I'm finding these classes really addicting because I always leave class feeling good about my day.  In every class we find time to work on our forward and backward rolls.  Aimen Sensei uses humor so effectively that when he pointed out (using his Maurice voice from the film Madagascar) that my rolls had chicken wings I knew I would never forget that analogy.  I love watching Louise Sensei demonstrate an Aikido technique because she makes it appear so simple and thus attainable.  However, I have to say the highlight of the class so far was last night when I got to be Glen Sensei's uke for a few minutes.  My Aikido partner and I were learning shomen uchi irimi nage which is supposed to look like this (Christian Tissier demonstrating shomem-uchi irimi-nage) but as beginners we do this at a snail's pace and don't fall as spectacularly.  Glen Sensei came into our class near the end and helped my Aikido partner and I practice this technique.  There was no time to think about where my feet were supposed to go as Glen Sensei's uke.  After the initial striking motion I was on the floor exactly as he intended before I even knew what happened.  I intellectually understand that Aikido is about redirecting the attacker's energy but I had never felt it before last night.

When my mom talked about O-Sensei I always thought that what she said sounded impossible - she was basically describing a man in his eighties who could effect one finger pins and no touch throws.  She discussed similiar stories that many of the foreigners, particularly those who had trained in other martial arts, at the Hombu dojo have described;  when O-Sensei threw you - you were never quite sure how you ended up on the ground.  I thought O-Sensei sounded almost supernatural.  One of my mom's friends from the Hombu dojo was Alan Ruddock who was the first Irish Aikido practitioner and he pointed out in an interview with Guillaume Erard (Erard's Interview with Alan Ruddock) that O-Sensei wasn't supernatural but rather just a man operating on a completely different level of spiritual/martial understanding.  I think it would be great one day to find out through Aikido just what Alan and my mom were talking about.

                                              Virginia Mayhew and Alan Ruddock (1964)

Beginnings

Yesterday marked my first full week of learning Aikido. Louise Sensei and Aimen Sensei from Aikido of Santa Cruz are great instructors because they understand that not everyone comes to Aikido with experience in the martial arts, and they do a fabulous job of explaining the purpose of each movement.  This first week I learned that ukemi, the art of falling, is a key component of Aikido.  Much of the practices of Aikido are based on partnering work where one student takes the role of uke (the person who receives the fall) and another student takes the role of nage (the person conducting the Aikido technique that causes the fall). So half of Aikido is falling!  So far we have learned the sitting forward and sitting backward rolls.  Personally, the important lesson I learned this week was not to wear a bra with a metal shoulder clasp while on the mat.

My mom had a lot of experience with falling when she first learned Aikido from Yasuo Ohara Sensei in 1961. She had already spent five years pursuing a black belt in Judo studying under George Yoshida of the New York Judo dojo.  She and two other Judo students, Eddie Hagihara (her husband at the time) and their friend Barry Bernstein had heard about Aikido and began studying it with Yasuo Ohara Sensei, who was in town attending New York University.  They all began training in the basement of a home of one of their Judo friends.  My mom was especially inspired by Kochi Tohei Sensei who had brought Aikido to the States and who had a dojo in Hawaii.  My mom wasn't happy with Judo because she felt it focused too much on competition and trying to best one another rather than on learning the spiritual principles behind the martial art.  So when she heard that Aikido was a martial art that focused on love, compassion, and cooperation she had to learn more about it.  She went to Japan to receive her shodan and then returned to New York. While in Japan she had the opportunity to be uke to O-Sensei who told her that because she was a woman she would understand that true strength and power comes from within.  In 1963-1964 my mom started a full on publicity campaign to generate public interest that would support a dojo in New York City.  This involved an appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, demonstrating Aikido at the United Nations and discussing and presenting Aikido for many of the NY based newspapers.

Virginia Mayhew was the director of New York Aikikai in 1963-64.  She often took side jobs working as a belly dancer at a Greek night club in order to pay the rent.  Once Yoshimitsu Yamada Sensei arrived in New York from Tokyo she went back to Japan to study with O-Sensei full time.

Why Aikido?

I started this blog to document my training in Aikido which has the personal goals of 1) fulfilling a promise I made to my mother, Virginia Mayhew, who was possibly the first American woman to teach Aikido 2) a heart felt effort to nurture the mind, body, and spirit.  Aikido means the way of harmonizing ki.  And ki is that energy or spark that animates the universe.  So who wouldn't want to be in harmony with the universe!

After finishing a dissertation that did so much to nurture my mind and surviving two quarters of teaching new classes, I came to realize that only exercising one part my of soul isn't really all that fulfilling.  My mom passed away while I was in graduate school almost seven years ago and it is still hard for me to realize a world without her.  It had always been my mother and I against the world as anyone who was raised by a single parent and later cares for that parent surely understands.  But our story is also a tale about gender, race, and class and it is through these intersections that her history and my foray into Aikido can best be understood.

So I finally started my beginning Aikido classes this week at Aikido of Santa Cruz.  I recently moved to the area, got the monkey of the dissertation off my back, and live five minutes away.  However, in addition to logistics, it is a dojo my mom would have really liked.  It is designed to be more than just a place to train but rather a place that fosters community.  That's exactly how my mother envisioned the Hong Kong Aikikai way back in 1967.

I could really see the community building in play at Aikido of Santa Cruz yesterday during the Japanese Cultural Fair.  The dojo hosted an all day schedule of demonstrations which included demonstrations from Sanford's Martial Arts and the School of Sword and Staff, and culminated with Glen Sensei disarming an actual sword attack!  The Japanese Cultural Fair was great fun and ended with an absolutely riveting performance from the San Francisco Taiko Dojo.