by Ron Tisdale
On January 28th and 29th, I had the
pleasure of training with Ellis Amdur at the Toman, the hombu dojo of the Itto
Tenshin-ryu and Yamate-ryu, located near Gaithersburg, Maryland, in a seminar
hosted by Aikido of Northern Virginia and Jim Sorrentino. We trained for six
hours each day, with Saturday focusing on atemi in aikido and Sunday on
swordsmanship. Both days were absolutely fantastic, and definitely eye opening.
The purpose for this review, however, is not to give a blow-by-blow account of
the techniques taught. Something much more important is going on here. Ellis is
now working with the Itten Dojo on their aikido curriculum, and is shaping their
program in a very positive way, which I believe can have a huge impact on the
way aikido is practiced and viewed as a martial art.
Revived Sword Kata of Toda-Ha Buko-Ryu
While the empty hand training is definitely my main motivation for writing this piece, I do want to spend some time speaking about the weapon training on Sunday, simply because it was so unusual. Ellis has full transmission in the classical martial art of Toda-Ha Buko-Ryu Naginatajutsu. He has revived some of their sword forms that have been lost to the membership of the ryu, and it was one of these forms that he taught in the Sunday seminar. Ellis, assisted by Fred Little, demonstrated a number of classical forms (tachi vs naginata, tachi vs bo), and then introduced the sword form. But before we started working the kata, Ellis took us through a detailed set of suburi to establish proper cutting technique (in terms of Buko-ryu). This set the platform for the rest of the day.
Step by step demonstration, keiko, correction, demonstration, and more keiko was
the order of the day. What I liked most is that we had six hours to constantly
refine and rework the one kata. Because of the high level of many of the
participants in various martial arts, I was never even close to being bored.
When people attack correctly and with true intent, you must be mentally present
to move correctly and not get whacked. Some of us had that down better than
others, but the best raised everyone’s level, so things worked out fine. One
important point that Ellis constantly stressed was to slow down. I
believe in almost every answer to a question I had, Ellis reiterated that
phrase. By slowing down, we were able to work the basics that he taught in the
beginning back into the kata, and constantly improve while adding new sections.
To have access to such classical training is a rarity. To have access to such a
competent and methodical teacher is even more so. Ellis not only imparted some
of the physical movements of the ryu, but some of the mindset as well. Even the
lessons on kiai were worth the price of the seminar.
Open Hand Aikido Keiko
The focus on Saturday was basic aikido movement and atemi, but in a free flowing randori setting that went ’way beyond the standard forms practice I have seen almost everywhere I have ever trained. I haven’t had exposure to Shodokan aikido yet except through books and the Internet, so I can’t compare what we did at the seminar to that. But the ability to enter into the waza from katate mochi / dori iriminage, and to have uke respond with counters, and then shite respond to any openings presented, and back and forth...it was a treat. Ellis kept reminding us to be careful, and to be aware of who we were working with, and I am sure his close supervision had a lot to do with the lack of injuries. But what really made the difference was the willingness of the participants to simply tap, smile, and say, “That was yours”; to acknowledge superior position, posture, and technique in a given situation, and start again.
The techniques demonstrated varied from iriminage, ikkyo, nikyo, shihonage, and
others, but each pair explored many more options, always (in my experience)
working on the basic ideas of positional and postural integrity, and the ability
to place atemi from any position. Because of the free flowing nature of the
practice, sometimes techniques from other arts crept in to a certain extent. But
that too flowed well into yet other aikido variations. The end result was that
the aikido we brought to the seminar with us was sharpened and made alive again
in ways that I rarely see in even the best of formalized aikido keiko.
Conclusion
I heard someone at the seminar ask, “What rank is Ellis?” Personally, I
think this shows a fundamental flaw in how we often look at aikido and it’s
instructors. Ellis’s seminar was simply beyond issues of rank. It was beyond
issues of style. It was beyond the sort of formulaic training we see and
participate in 90% of the time. Ellis worked on showing us how to organize our
bodies, how to flow from one technique to another, how to work with resistance,
how to place atemi, how to power atemi, all while putting what we’ve learned
from our own styles into practice in a free form environment…with people that
in many cases barely knew each other, if at all, and with no injuries that I am
aware of, and no bad feelings (even when I had a brown belt kicking my butt).
I am beginning to think that people like David Valedez, Bob Wolfe, Ellis Amdur
and other independents are often more on the forward edge of aikido than some of
us stuck in the mud of organization, affiliation, and rank. It would be to the
detriment of Aikido and each and every person who practices it, if these
perspectives are not seen, trained and included in some fashion in the
mainstreams of aikido. It’s not that the forms taught in the mainstreams are
not correct, or even that they are “dead.” It’s more a case of the need to
step outside the box, to look deeper, and to really find what works on more than
just the kata level, more than just the form level, so that we can return to the
kata with more than we had when we left it. I do know that there are probably
others out there doing this type of training...I think we all need to look for
ways like this to innovate and enliven our keiko. When I say this I mean no
disrespect for my teachers; each of them keeps aikido alive every day on the
mat. But we the students sometimes forget to really learn what they teach us,
and to make it our own.
These seminars are important events, and I hope to see more of us there at some
point. I give my thanks to Jim Sorrentino, Ellis Amdur, and our hosts for such a
fine venue (the dojo was truly a work of art itself). And to my training
partners as well. Any errors or things I misremember are totally my own fault.
