Training at Aikikai Hombu Dojo...

I have been sporadically training in Aikido since I was first introduced to it in the mid-80s, a couple years before Steven Seagal showed the world how Uber bad-ass the "gentle art" can be. My introduction to Aikido came from a French Yundansha that joined the Karate studio I was training at at the time. We incorporated some of the wrist and arm locks into the style, specifically Ni-kyo:

(image borrowed from the interwebs)

I started training actively with the Aikido club at IUPUI, but my training was infrequent due to part-time jobs, school, or just plain laziness. After getting selected for the JET Program, I was fortunate to be placed in Ota-shi (太田市群馬県), where I had the opportunity to train with Teruo Tsuhiji-sensei.

There are significant differences in the way Aikikai and "Iwama-ryu" (Students of Morihiro Saito-sensei and his students) people train, and I think they both have merits. What I appreciate about my time with Tsuhiji-sensei was a solid grounding in the basics of Hanmi, and training partners that grabbed you like they meant it, and the importance of blending to successfully escape a real grab. I have had far too many partners at Aikikai that grab so wimpy I can (and probably *should* to help expose their openings) pull my hand out of their "grab" and back fist them. I also notice far too many Aikikai people pulling their hand toward themselves when doing basic Tenkan practice. If Aikikai taught the basics better, they would know that the grabbed hand needs (and WILL if the attacker is much stronger) to stay in the spot it is grabbed, and the Tori needs to blend with/at the point of the attacker's grab.

Having said that, Iwama-style Aikido tends to be too static, and rarely did I ever practice at realistic speeds, everything was done super slow to get a good grounding in the basic movements. A solid foundation in basics is a good thing, but can make for some frozen toes when training at this slow pace in the dead of winter in the unheated dojo. The flowing style of Aikikai makes for a hell of a workout, as can be seen by how red my face was after last Saturday's class taught by Watanabe-sensei:

(Not a sunburn, and I wasn't drunk, just well done from training on a hot afternoon at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo/Sauna.)

...and the faster pace is better for getting used to things coming at closer to realistic speed. Different strokes for different folks. Saw this ad for the Hombu dojo in Higashi-Shinjuku station for the recently opened Fukutoshin-line. Its all about the marketing...