Spring blossoms and Kumi Jo

Fragile, pink Spring blossoms covered the small trees that surrounded our outdoor Sunday morning training spot. Seeing these trees in bloom reminded me of how long it had been since I'd attended a Sunday morning Weapons class.

Medium overcast shed a flat light on the parking area as I angled across the lot, but my spirits brightened at the sight of some old training partners from the 1990s in Rohnert Park who had arrived today ahead of me.

The biggest surprise was to see that, perhaps in my long absence, Shaun had returned to training with Tatoian Sensei, and he was standing in the lot along with Craig, Carmen, and Jor. The presence of Craig, Carmen, and Shaun made it a mini-reunion from the mid-90s Rohnert Park dojo cast of characters.

Shaun is a complex, good-natured, and very strong young man who was my sempai when I first began training. There were people you could mess around with, even if you didn't know anything, but Shaun wasn't one of them. Sensei would warn us newcomers that we ought to not resist techniques with Shaun, but just go with it. It was for our own protection. Sensei never wanted anyone to get hurt, and you got the impression that Shaun was like some partially trained, wild animal, who might become dangerous as easily as smile. That's Shaun about to throw Carmen in the middle of Kumi Jo 6.

The fact that there were a lot of people like that training during those days with Tatoian Sensei only added to the general mystique of Iwama Style Aikido as something a little bit too menacing. In any case it had led a number of well-meaning Aikido friends to shake their heads in dismay when I told them that I had begun taking classes from Tatoian Sensei. I didn't quite understand their concern, since I'd taken ukemi from Sensei and he was full of power but it felt safe and effortless. And in fact, nobody ever got hurt who wasn't doing something monumentally stupid.

Shaun had disappeared from Aikido before we got evicted from our dojo space in 2001, and I'd seen him only a few times on the mat since then. I had remembered a day of training with him in which we moved through a back and forth sequence of shomen uchi Ikkyo Ura that felt as smooth and seamless as though it had been one move.

Today I paired off with Carmen and Shaun to do kumi jo. We started with Ichi no Kumi Jo and did stop-start first, followed by a few rounds of awase. Working our way through the forms when we got to Shichi no Kumi Jo Sensei commented, "now you know why Saito Sensei originally had only seven kumi jo, that's all you can practice in the space of an hour." I looked at him suddenly realizing that a whole hour had passed.

It was fun laughing and bantering with Carmen and Shaun just like old times, all the while remaining focused on the fact that we were striking and thrusting at one another with lethal sticks, each of us drawing on the cold emptiness of pure martial intent.

The picture above shows Shaun, Sensei, Jor, Carmen, and Craig after class standing in front of one of those beautiful trees full of spring blossoms.

technorati tag aikido

Comments

[Kethan]

Ho ho, who wlouda thunk it, right?

[Vanantorn]

I haven't been to the gym in almost 3 weeks!! My mshierembp expired and due to hubbie making an "oops" on the budget...no funds for new one. And I was on a really good roll too. I had a great routine going....now I will have to start all over again.And worst of all....I was afraid I'd pack on the pounds so I have been doing SlimFast shakes, 2 meals per day since then. It's not too bad, but every 3rd day I feel so hungry, I fear I may eat our goldfish. And I don't mean the crackers.