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.