A Fun Dichotomy

by Alexis Keenan Gist

I first heard about the uchi deshi opportunity at the Founder's dojo in Iwama, Japan about a year into my training at my home dojo, Aikido Institute. A couple years later, during a TAA Tahoe Gasshuku, Kim Peuser Sensei was telling our dojo members that being an uchi deshi in Iwama was uniquely important to our training; I personally remember him saying, that if one is serious about Aikido they should try to spend a year in Iwama. Life being what it is, this can be difficult to do, but I am serious about Aikido and 10 days is a good start. So, when the opportunity came to join a small group from my dojo headed to Iwama this October, I joined!

However, as excited as I was about this much anticipated trip, I was also very nervous.

I'm a 40 year old woman with some aches, pains and a 2nd kyu rank, and I have a decent sense of where I am in my Aikido journey. Like everyone, I have my strengths and weaknesses, and I was getting anxious picturing a dojo full of the most powerful, intimidating, talented Aikidoists in all the land. I'd heard stories of senseis showing a technique and sending their ukes flying across the room. I was told that the mat was hard and the training intense (knuckle push-ups on boards!). Someone, who shall remain nameless, even got a broken arm while training in Iwama. I do not know the full story there. My imagination was flowing and all I could envision was myself flying through a shoji after some failed attempt at ukemi. How embarrassing and potentially painful.

Now that I am back home and have had time to process it all, I can say that while all of this was accurate, it was also very far from the truth. In the end, the training was intense, the mat was indeed quite hard, but the training was also the same as what I do in my home dojo. The people were incredibly kind despite some language barrier frustrations and all of the senseis were wonderful.

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, so our first class was that evening. It was 75 degrees outside and humid. The class pace was faster than most of our classes back home and every time the class stopped to learn from Sensei, it felt like the room was a heat lamp pointed directly at my face. Hirasawa-sensei taught the class and we did nikkyo, shiho-nage, irimi nage and kote gaeshi. As laughable as this sounds, I recognized all the techniques, which immediately put me at ease. This of course didn't prevent me from making a bunch of rookie mistakes, whether due to nerves or simply the newness of the environment, I'm not sure.

One of my partners correctly indicated to me that I was collapsing my arm during shiho nage, but of course there is a language barrier, so he demonstrated this by dramatically pushing my arm in and then stretching it out. He looked annoyed. I felt embarrassed, but took the lesson, sort of. I kept repeating the mistake and he kept showing me again with more powerful kokyu every time how I was collapsing and not extending. He was wonderful, by the way. I really appreciated what he was showing me, even if my body was not learning the lesson, my mind was.

When class was over, everyone was dripping with sweat. We all rushed for brooms to sweep the mat, followed by damp towels to wipe the wooden beams and walls of the dojo. Some people continued to train afterwards and others kept watch over Sensei and walked him out to his car after class. Then it was a whirlwind to get dinner, shower and get to bed, since in the following morning the alarm was going off at 4:50am.

Welcome to Iwama!

Even though I was achy from heat, the pace of the class, mental stimulation and a pretty hard mat, not to mention sleeping less than 8 hours on a hard surface and don't even get me started on buckwheat pillows, I was so happy and having a blast. It is strangely possible to be tired and cranky and also thoroughly enjoying an experience. This was a fun dichotomy that I found ever present during my full 10 days in Iwama.

I loved all the classes that followed. The chores were even fun in their own way, and I really enjoyed the dark mornings at the Aiki-Jinja. I am not, and never will be a morning person, though even as I squinted and frowned at the early hour, I enjoyed the quiet raking and tasks that help care for the Jinja and the special morning energy of the space.

Inagaki Sensei's morning training was really powerful. We started each morning with a prayer to the Kami-sama during bow in, followed by a set of stretches. Before starting he would usually impart some historical story to us, sometimes repeated depending on who was in the room. We would spend some time exploring extension and kokyu through various means. One of my favorites was a tai chi-like exercise that took us through the 6 forms of kokyu. “Master this, and you will know Aikido” was the message Sensei shared one morning with a smile. Of course, performing the pose correctly is only a small fraction of the practice. Anyone can strike a pose, but moving with the correct kokyu extension is the mastery, then applying this to your practice.

We also did a series of kokyu tanren practices while rotating partners. My forearms long ago stopped showing bruises but my bones were definitely feeling this practice on days two through ten, and having Inagaki-sensei as a partner is like hitting your forearm on a steel beam. I've felt strong partners before, but I'd never felt anything like meeting Sensei's kokyu extension from a yokomen strike. That memory and sensation will stick with me for years to come.

Unfortunately, I ended up with some old knee pain flair up, which caused me to sit out a few classes. This crushed me, since I was dying to be on the mat and watching felt like such a disappointment. However, it seemed “mitori geiko” was going to be at least some of my training time in Iwama. Fortunately, from my perspective, no one really seemed to care, and as bummed as I was, I actually learned a lot by watching other people train and observing sensei walk around the room to provide pointers.

​As a 2nd kyu, my biggest observations and take-aways from Iwama seemed to be principles that have been repeated by my own dojo instructors, but hearing and seeing them again there was really impactful in a way that I find hard to explain, so I'll share my best remembered quotes and lessons from the various senseis during my time there.

Owada-sensei taught two classes while I was there and always imparted some wisdom about practice. In my first class with him, he focused on the use of power, or rather, not using power. “If you train with strength and power in mind first, you won't progress even after 10 years of training.” In the second class with him, he reminded us to take our time, be slow, learn the technique. “Kihon is about learning, don't brush past this training and start to go fast.”

Power was a key theme that popped up in nearly all the classes. Carl-senpai, who leads some morning classes and sometimes fills in for the senseis, literally dropped like he passed out to demonstrate that during morote-dori your partner cannot hold up a relaxed person by a grip on their arm alone. Relax and drop your center, everything down. Inagaki-sensei also mentioned this at another class where we did morote-dori variations. “You can't do this with power, you must relax in order to drop and throw.”

During partnered weapons practice, Inagaki-sensei reiterated the importance of committing to a strike for the safety and training of everyone involved. Your partner is trying to learn and needs to feel threatened by your strike. If you pull back or try to strike where they will be or off their line, they can't train and someone might get injured. So, for safety and good training purposes, strike (down the center line) like you mean it.

Another take away from my time in Iwama centered around the reminder that, as practitioners of Iwama Aikido, we are part of a large global family. We are very fortunate to have entered into this family through our own home dojos and train in these techniques that are practiced globally. We can come together and continue to learn and grow as Aikidoists and people. As Inagaki-sensei reminded us several times, Aikido is an art that doesn't see race, gender, religion, country, etc, it's about harmony and love.

For this reason uchi-deshi life is really special. Not only are we learning amazing Aikido straight from the source, but we are meeting people from all over the world who share the same interest in this art and seeing first hand the message that Aikido is without boundaries. There are always going to be personal, cultural, language, among other barriers, miscommunications, etc. But on and off the mat, I think of this message alongside leaving power behind in your technique. When we focus on harmony, all the struggle with power, ego, who is right or wrong, doesn't enter into the equation. We blend with life and people, to help make the world, even if that's just our small life experience, a better place.

The day before I left, I wandered over to the Jinja to pay my respect to the Kami-sama and thank them for keeping this special place. People and places are always changing, and it seems like some special places change faster than they have any right to, but I really hope to come back again soon and find O-Sensei's dojo still thriving as a space for people from all over the world to come and train.

For any white belts who feel nervous about training in Iwama, my advice is this: trust your training, have an open mind, take care of your body, have respect and be kind to your fellow training mates. No one will throw you through a shoji, you will be just fine.
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by Alexis Keenan Gist