by Robert Wolfe
A Major Milestone for the Dojo
Last Thursday on the way to work
I dropped in the mail a credit card payment. “That’s a milestone?” you
ask? Well, in this case it was.
I didn’t just make a payment
on the credit card bill, I paid the bill — and for the first
time in well over ten years the dojo is now completely, 100%, altogether
debt-free. (Mike Nickels says we should celebrate by throwing a party, and
charge it all on the credit card. Hmmmm… I think not.)
But this is cause for
celebration. To create the physical aspects of the dojo — the rooms, the mats,
the furniture and equipment — required an investment of more than $40,000.
Aside from a $12,000 portion of the cost of constructing the dojo, which the
landlords covered and then recouped in the first year from our rent payments,
all of the rest of the investment in the dojo was carried at one time or another
on loans or credit cards.
So this is a very significant
accomplishment and a huge weight off my shoulders.
More to the point, the
accomplishment belongs to the members and friends of the dojo. Everyone’s dues
have made possible the loan and credit card payments over the years, several
members excused repayment of loans they made to the dojo (which amounts to
thousands of dollars of outright donations), members and friends raised very
substantial donations in 2003 to cut down the loan from construction of the dojo
and reduce the remaining monthly payments, and then in 2004 the combined sale of
excess equipment and another round of donations cleared the loan entirely.
Several more months of dues and enrollments of a number of new members this
month have now made possible paying off the credit card.
Thank you, everyone, for all
that you’ve done. Your efforts have contributed greatly toward putting the
dojo on a solid foundation, financially. While we’re not yet entirely out of
the woods, there’s definitely getting to be more space between the trees and
daylight is breaking through.
New DVD: Ukemi from the
Ground Up
Ellis Amdur, technical advisor
to our aikido class, has just released an instructional DVD focusing on the art
of ukemi. As described by Mr. Amdur,
“This DVD offers a
step-by-step procedure to learn and/or instruct safe aikido ukemi. Whether
entirely new to the art, or desiring to retool one’s skills, the methods here
will enable any reasonably fit practitioner to be able to take falls in aikido
(and other similar arms-length grappling systems) safely. The methods here are
definitely not merely to assist in learning how to collude with the person
executing the technique these methods enable one to be prepared and able to
gracefully manage both the malevolent and the inept as well as skilled
practitioner executing ordinary technique.”
In January 2003 we implemented Mr. Amdur's method of
teaching and executing ukemi. Since that time, there has been a notable
reduction in the time required by new students to become competent at ukemi,
elimination of complaints of sore shoulders and/or hips, and considerable
increase in the capacity to employ ukemi to counter techniques. All this,
despite our having had in place for years a reasonably sophisticated means of
introducing students to rolling and falling.
As
is the case with his approach to aikido in general, Mr. Amdur's methodology for
ukemi is exceptionally pragmatic and, being based on a few simple principles,
the method is readily internalized by beginning students as well as those of us
having a bit of reprogramming to do in the transition. This DVD is an excellent
presentation of the Amdur method, very professionally produced, and is highly
recommended to all members of the dojo as well as to anyone with an interest in
aikido.
The cost of the DVD is $36, and
we will be putting together a bulk order to save on shipping charges. Persons
from outside the dojo can order a copy directly from Mr. Amdur by clicking
here.
Our New “Old” Format for
Aikido Classes
Although the members of the
aikido class clearly bear the brunt of supporting the dojo, in my attempt to
maximize training opportunities for all members of the dojo (including, to be
honest, myself) I somewhat compromised training for the aikido students a few
years ago. Although initially things seemed to be working out just fine,
eventually it dawned on us that all was not well. The senior members of the dojo
and I took a hard look at enrollment, participation, and advancement trends over
the course of the past year and concluded that we had a problem. Consequently,
effective the first practice this month, we returned to our “old” format for
weeknight classes: just one class per evening starting no earlier than 6:30 pm,
with a full hour open mat period prior to aikido practices. The new class
schedule looks like this:
Monday — SMR Jo, 6:30 to 8:00
pm.
Tuesday — Open Mat, 5:30 to
6:30 pm, and Aikido, 6:30 to 8:00 pm.
Wednesday — Open Mat, 6:30 to
7:30 pm, and Aikido, 7:30 to 9:00 pm.
Thursday — Open Mat, 5:30 to
6:30 pm, and Aikido, 6:30 to 8:00 pm.
Friday — No classes.
Saturday — Aikido, 9:30 to
11:00 am, and SMR Jo, 11:00 am to 12:30 pm.
The change really only affects
Tuesdays and Thursdays; the schedule for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays
remains the same.
The current schedule for
Tuesdays and Thursdays was put in place three years ago, with the idea of
allowing people practicing both aikido and Shinto Muso-ryu Jo to cover both arts
in one trip to the dojo. But in order to add SMR Jo practices to Tuesdays and
Thursdays, I had to cut in half the open mat period prior to aikido practice,
shift the start of class half an hour earlier to 6:00 pm (which made getting to
class difficult for a number of people), and shortened the class by 15 minutes
to provide a break between aikido and jo. Whereas we used to finish aikido
practice, clean the mat, and then spend 15 minutes stretching and visiting, we
had the situation of aikido students being chased off the mat to make way for
jo. After having had to rush to get to the dojo in time for practice, and then
being rushed out afterwards, I can imagine the aikido students might have gotten
the impression they weren’t that important in the grand scheme. Nothing could
have been further from the truth, and it’s past time the class schedule
reflected that reality.
The seniors and I realized that
in returning Tuesdays and Thursdays to the training format used in the past, we
would also see a return to more aikido students consistently at more classes,
people practicing test sets prior to class (not to mention people advancing more
quickly), and people staying to stretch and socialize a bit after practice,
restoring an atmosphere that has admittedly been missing for some time.
Although now the people training
in Shinto Muso-ryu may appear to be compromised, the fact is for 2005 we were
going to consolidate SMR practices to facilitate a greater number of training
partners at individual practices. Those people wanting to train in both arts
during a single trip to the dojo can still do so on Saturdays, or during the
open mat periods, or even by staying after aikido practices. Because our SMR
practices are properly called godo-geiko, which means people just getting
together to practice without a teacher, it doesn’t so much matter if jo
students are getting together in as many “formal” practices or more during
open mat periods.
January 4th was the first aikido
practice of the New Year, as well as the first practice conducted in accordance
with the revised format. As a special class, I took shiho-nage and worked sword
vs. sword (aikiken), sword vs. empty-hand (tachi-dori), and
empty-hand vs. empty-hand (yokomen-uchi shiho-nage). For more than half
the people there, it was the first time doing anything with a bokuto
(wooden sword), so I wasn’t sure this idea was actually going to fly. And the
first ten minutes of the instructional portion of the practice looked a lot more
like Keystone Cops than budo. But, remarkably, the class pulled it together to
the extent they were able to perform an impromptu embu (demonstration) at
the end of the class, with an appropriate degree of formality and poise, and
with the junior person in each pair executing the three techniques while the
more senior person provided the attacks. This carried the day with two potential
students watching the practice, because they could see immediately the
effectiveness of the training methodology.
Practice
for Thursday of that week was even better than Tuesday had been. At about twenty
minutes to six, there were just five of us in the dojo. I grumbled something
about “people still showing-up ten minutes prior to class, just a half-hour
later in the evening.” But then about five minutes later people began to
arrive. By ten after six, there were almost a dozen people on the mat and the
noise level was a dull roar — they weren't standing around talking, they were
throwing techniques and critiquing each other.
We
also got a call around six, and that person (a gym owner from York, PA) and his
girlfriend made it in time to watch practice from the start — they ended up
enrolling, too.
Because
of the two first-night students starting that evening, I planned a class around
kosa-dori ikkyo, but I had some special touches for the more advanced people,
including some difficult ukemi, counters, and henka-waza. The new people hung
right in, and everyone (13 people, total) was utterly drenched from start to
finish. We wiped the mat and then stretched, but unlike how quiet it had been
during stretching the first time we’d followed the new class format on
Tuesday, there was a buzz of conversation and laughter. People paid attention
and stretched thoroughly, but there was constant, loud chatter.
The
thing that amazed me most was the energy and enthusiasm in the dojo, and how
like "the old days" in the Campbell building it was (the original
location of the dojo was in Camp Hill, on the second floor of an office building
owned by the late Bill Campbell). At the height of our time in the Campbell
building, we were on a crusade — we believed in what we were doing, had the
largest group in the organization to which we belonged at that point, and were
having a great time. We've certainly had some high-points and spirited practices
in the new dojo, but overall there has been something missing.
Thinking
about it, just as we were preparing to move to our new dojo, the head of the
organization to which we belonged came under considerable fire on the Internet
due to questions of his training history and the lineages of the arts he taught,
so we had that hanging over us right from the start and it took the joy right
out of training. Since that time, between departing that organization,
completely re-engineering the dojo, and then dealing with some of the other
hoops we’ve had to jump through, it's been one thing after another.
But
so far this year it’s been hugely different: The spirit in the dojo is
palpable, attendance is increasing steadily (as are enrollments), and we’re
experiencing some of the most intense and productive training we’ve ever had.
I think we’re entering a new era.
Koryu Budo
I’m also giving serious thought to reviving the old Koryu Budo publication, this time as just the eight-page newsletter rather than as the previous quarterly journal with newsletters in the months in between. If I can pull this off at all it will be purely an in-house affair. I’d like to publish monthly, but every other month is probably more realistic right now, all things considered. In addition to articles addressing various topics, there would be a centerfold section devoted to a detailed presentation of an exercise or technique, so that over time members could build their own aikido training manual.
Noted aikido sensei and author
John Stevens has very graciously granted permission for me to use each issue one
of the Doka (Ueshiba Sensei’s poems of the Way) he translates in his book The
Essence of Aikido. This feature would be in the nature of a self-study or
topic for discussion focusing on the spiritual or philosophical aspects of
training.