Where is everybody?

For the first time since November of 2008, Ryu Dojo is completely empty in terms of Gasshuku visitors. In January there was Mikey(England), followed by Watanabe-san(Germany) in February, Rod(England) in March, Ali(France) in April, Gregory and Monika(Poland), Dan(Israel) in May, and 7 people from Ukraine and 2 from Czech throughout June.

During the last week of March the 6 people from Kiev, Ukraine's Kiyokan Dojo arrived. Andriy Sensei has been to Japan a few times, but for Inna, Alexey, Konstantin, Sergii, and Oleg it was there first time. Everyone trained consistently, averaging 3 classes/day(that's including the early morning 6am class, which required them leaving their hotel at 5am).


On June 5th, Sergii tested and passed his 3kyu test. Unfortunately due to his work, the following Monday Sergii had to return home to Ukraine. But 3rd time visitor to Ryu, Boris Kogan, soon arrived in Japan to take Sergii's place at the Jimbocho Sakura hotel (thanks to Ishida -san).

From June 1st, Martin and Jan from the Boyokan Dojo in Czech had been training along with us. Although they were staying at Hotta Sensei's house they still made it to all the classes and ate lunch with us everyday. Now both Martin and Jan are doing a little sightseeing before returning to Czech this Sunday.


Last Saturday after regular training 3 people tested. Congratulations to Oleg and Martin for passing there shodan.

Sunday June 21st, we had a sayonara party for all the June visitors (the pics throughout this post). Ando Sensei presented his calligraphy for both Alexey's Towa Dojo and the Czech's Boyokan Dojo.


Adding to the loneliness, Ando Sensei and Hotta Sensei left on Tuesday for a week of seminars throughout Southern Ontario, Canada. Thursday in Windsor at the Seikokan (Mark Lemmon Sensei), Friday at the Aikido London Dojo (Ashley Hennessey), and Saturday and Sunday in Barrie at the Hiryukan (Stephen Ohlman Sensei). We hope everyone enjoys the training!


I guess for this short time I should just enjoy the quiet. Soon enough Sensei will return, and so will the visitors. In July we are expecting Eddy (England), followed by Lou (France), then Gaby (Germany) in August, and Francoise(England) in September.

For more information on coming to Ryu Dojo for a Gasshuku, please see the website and contact us by phone/fax or email.


Jim Dawes

Letter from London

With thanks to Mikey Steinbock:

"I turned up for my Ryuseikan Dojo class on Monday at midday as usual, put the mats out and changed into my dogi. One of my students had already sent a text message to my cellphone to say that his work was going to keep him away that day. Then I got a call from another student to tell me that his meeting in town had gone on much longer than expected, and he could not make it.

At that point, I could have packed up and gone home BUT I decided to follow Sensei's example and do what he does early on Monday mornings when there is no class.

I warmed up on my own, then someone else came in to the hall. She asked my permission if she could do her boxing training if it would not disturb me, and of course I agreed. The punchbag was very heavy so I assisted her in hanging it from its ceiling support. She started training on her own and I continued with a hundred cuts with my bokken, shumats dosa ichi and ni, kihon dosa renzoku with bokken, etc.

After a while, the lady who was doing her boxing training said "you are doing aikido, aren't you?". It turned out that many years ago, she too had done aikido when she was a student at university. She asked if she could train with me and of course I agreed. She showed me what she recalled from the dim recesses of memory of many years before, then we worked on katate mochi shiho nage ichi, shomen uchi shomen irimi nage ichi and then katate mochi tae no henko ni kokyu nage. She especially loved the grace, simplicity and elegance of this last technique, we did it over and over again. Each time she or I did it, she enjoyed it more and more.

After an hour of training together she offered to teach me boxing. She taped up my wrists with the special strapping and put the gloves on me. Then she showed me their "kamae" which is of course very different from what we are used to. She taught me how to keep my guard up at all times, to use the rotational energy from my hips rather than upper body power and this all sounded quite familiar. However, the movements are all very different, and I enjoyed training myself to move in a very different way to what we are all accustomed to.

When I asked how come she did boxing, that it was not so common to find females training in that area, she explained that many years before, she had entered herself for a charity boxing match event and in order to prepare herself, had persuaded trainers from the UK Olympic team to train her. Subsequently she had continued with her boxing and had progressed to become an Olympic team trainer herself.

After an hour of aikido and an hour of boxing, we were both well warmed up. We had so enjoyed training with one another, even though we did such very different martial arts.

As we cleared away the mats I thought to myself that my training had turned out so well that day ONLY because I had a mental image of Sensei in my mind and decided to do what he would have done in those circumstances - that despite the other students not turning up, I was going to train anyway.

In the evening we had the Meidokan Dojo special 18th anniversary training followed by a meal out and our Annual General Meeting. Rubens Sensei asked each of his shodan and nidan students in turn to teach the class of sixteen students. When the class was over he told us that he was really proud of his students, that they were living proof that his last eighteen years of teaching had produced excellent students who would continue to pass on the teachings of Kancho Gozo Shioda Sensei in the dojos which they had founded.

All in all it was a Very Good Day."

Wedding Bells

On Sunday, Ando Sensei and I went to Etsuko Kasai's wedding at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay in Urayasu. Kasai san (now Sugiyama san) has been a member of Ryu Dojo for about twelve years. For the last three of those twelve years she has been teaching the 6am class on Wednesdays at Ryu Dojo. However, Etsuko Sensei's connection to Ando Sensei and Ryu Dojo goes back much further in time than that. Etsuko Sensei was born in Shodoshima in Kanagawa Prefecture where her grandfather has a dojo. When Etsuko Sensei was about two years old, Ando Sensei went on a summer training camp to her grandfather's dojo with his university aikido club. At that time, Ando Sensei had only heard of Shioda Kancho but in the dojo he spotted Shioda Sensei's autograph and he found out that Shioda Sensei had taught a seminar there about two or three years before. I think most of you know that the "Ryu" in Yoshinkan Aikido Ryu is "dragon" in Japanese. At the wedding Etsuko Sensei's mother told Ando Sensei the story that at the opening ceremony of the dojo in Shodoshima, a dragon was said to have been spotted rising from the dojo and ascending to heaven (cute detail - it was a pink dragon!).

Etsuko Sensei and her husband, Kei, worked at the same company for a long time and their romance started a year or two ago at the annual company cherry-blossom viewing party.
The wedding ceremony was held in the Crystal Chapel at the Sheraton Grande and the reception was held in a large banquet room with stunning views over Tokyo Bay. I have mostly only ever seen Etsuko Sensei in a dogi so it was a big change to see her in her beautiful white wedding dress! (There were quite a few Ryu Dojo ladies at the wedding looking unrecognizable in dresses actually.) Later, she changed into another equally beautiful black and pink ball-gown. There was lots of champagne and speeches and delicious French food and also, unusually, the groom proposing to the bride halfway through the wedding reception!

Ando Sensei's speech.

Cutting the cake.

Ryu Dojo members.

The Proposal - not a dry eye in the room!

On the day, double congratulations were due because the Sugiyamas are also expecting a baby in October. Due to this, obviously Etsuko Sensei has been unable to teach the Wednesday morning class. That class has been taken over by her older sister, Izumi Sensei, who has been a Ryu member for 16 years.

The Kasai sisters.

Thank you to both the Kasai and the Sugiyama families for a wonderful, wonderful day. Congratulations again to the newly-weds and we wish them nothing but health and happiness for their future together and with their soon-to-be little family!

Stephanie.

HIS Part 24

As Jim Sensei said, we didn't have any HIS guests for a while and then suddenly two in a row! Thursday morning saw two more HIS visitors to Ryu Dojo. Dave is from Toronto in Canada and has the very interesting and unusual profession of building airplanes! This is Dave's second visit to Japan and he is also not new to the martial arts - he has previously studied a little bit of everything. Inna was born in Russia but is of Greek heritage and lives in London and works for Merrill Lynch. Both Dave and Inna said they enjoyed their lesson very much and Inna is interested in studying aikido further in London. She flew home the following day while Dave went on from Japan to visit Korea. So we hope Inna had a safe trip and that Dave enjoys the rest of his time in Asia. Maybe we'll see Inna on the mats again soon in London or here!



Stephanie.

HIS Part 23

After almost 2 months without any HIS visitors (maybe because of the dreaded "swine flu"...),Yesterday 2 guys from Norway joined us for a half day of training.


Ana and Andreas are in Japan on vacation, (well were in Japan, they left today). It was their first time anywhere in Asia, and after a week of sightseeing they wanted to finish everything off by trying a Japanese martial art.

This day was quite different then any other HIS visit due to the number of International guests who are currently training here at Ryu Dojo. 6 people from Ukraine, 2 people from Czech, and Harry from Australia (who was only here for the day).

We hoped they enjoyed the class and wish them a safe flight back home.

Jim Dawes

Uchi Deshi Life

Yesterday the uchi deshi had some extra training before the 2pm kenshu class. This was taught by Hotta Sensei and the subject of the lesson was "How to Ride the New Ryu Scooter".

Theory lesson.

Ando Sensei has a go.

Mitsuhashi Sensei takes a spin...

...and comes back smiling!

Jim Sensei straps his helmet on...

Katagiri: "How do you start this thing?"