Masztalerz: Keeping Pushing Yourself

By Liese Klein, New Haven Aikikai

“If it looks pretty, it’s not Aikido. You have to have tension.”

That is just one of the many thought-provoking asides offered by Piotr Masztalerz Sensei of Wroclaw Aikikai last month at a dynamic seminar at Brooklyn Aikikai. Masztalerz, rokudan Shidoin and a leader of Polish Birankai, brought his innovative approach to ukemi, technique and weapons to the U.S. for the first time at a major seminar.

Masztalerz studied intensively with Chiba Sensei both as an uchideshi in San Diego in the early 2000s and as a leader of European Birankai who attended many seminars and hosted him for several large camps in Poland.

With a large full-time dojo and hundreds of students, Masztalerz devotes himself to all of the elements of Birankai Aikido practice, with a special emphasis on the study of ukemi. His home base of Wroclaw (pronounced “vrots-wahf”) in western Poland hosts a lively scene that brings together actors, dancers, motorbike drivers and a range of martial artists in the study of movement at Wroclaw Aikikai.

Ukemi should be challenging and gymnastic at all levels in Aikido, Masztalerz says, with the intent of freeing up the body’s potential and exploring the art on a deeper level. Beginners need to learn practical falling skills from the very beginning or they won’t come back, he adds. Also important is that senior students push themselves at all ages to maintain their conditioning and try new ways of taking ukemi and executing techniques.

“It’s very important for people with experience to challenge themselves with ukemi,” Masztalerz says. “Ukemi is very physical, so you have to be fit. As soon as you feel like you already know it, you’re dead.”

Stay tuned for a longer interview with Masztalerz Sensei here in coming weeks; see more videos at the Birankai Aikido Video Channel and the New Haven Aikikai Video Channel on Youtube. Find out more about his book in Polish about his lifelong study of Aikido here.

 

News from Europe

Check out this great newsletter put out by Birankai Europe in both English and French.  Our Birankai North America newsletter, Biran, will be available at Summer Camp with great articles on the theme of “The Art and Science of Aikido.” Also find out in detail what the Exam Committee is looking for in tests — make sure someone from your dojo picks up your copies!

BEM May 18 ENG BEM May 18 FR

News from Japan

Spring is the busy season for major Aikido events in Japan, with the annual visit to the Iwama Aiki Shrine one of the highlights. Check out the video above featuring Moriteru Ueshiba Doshu along with Mitsuteru Ueshiba, Doshu’s son and the great-grandson of the founder.

Below are some clips from the other big spring event, the annual all-Japan Aikido demonstration, or Embukai. Below are clips of Birankai favorite Yoko Okamoto Sensei and Akira Wada Sensei, a longtime student of Chiba Sensei’s from Tashiro Dojo in Nagoya. Wada Sensei started studying with Chiba Sensei in 1963 at Tashiro Dojo, which also served as an early training ground for another young Hombu Dojo instructor: Mitsunari Kanai.

Check out the many high-quality Aikido clips from Japan on the Seido channel on Youtube, in addition to lots of other video of arts including Yagyu Seigo Ryo Batto, Shibukawa Ichi Ryu Jujutsu and Chokugen Ryu Onaginata Jutsu.

Book Profiles a Generation

Instructors at the 1994 USAF Summer Camp, celebrating the 30th anniversary of New York Aikikai.

By Liese Klein, New Haven Aikikai

As we approach the publication date of “The Life-Giving Sword: Kazuo Chiba’s Life in Aikido,” I’d like highlight one important facet of the book – it’s not just about Chiba Sensei. At close to 400 pages, this book attempts to profile an entire generation of Aikido pioneers. These are the young Japanese men who left Hombu Dojo in the 1960s under the direction of Kisshomaru Ueshiba to heed O-Sensei’s call to build “bridges across the ocean” and bring Aikido to the West.

Using Chiba Sensei’s writings, historic materials and in-person interviews where possible, I’ve attempted to profile many of these men and tell their stories of struggle and triumph in Europe, the U.K. and the Americas.

The book also explores the foundational role of several of Chiba Sensei’s most important sempai: Koichi Tohei, Morihiro Saito and Mutsuro Nakazono, along with influential teachers like Tadashi Abe, Kenshiro Abbe, Sadateru Arikawa, Kisaburo Osawa, Seigo Yamaguchi and Hiroshi Tada. These men, along with Kisshomaru Ueshiba, shaped the Aikido and careers of Chiba Sensei’s generation and continue to influence many across the Aikido world.

Chiba Sensei, Kanai Sensei, Yamada Sensei and Tamura Sensei, 1980s.

Life as a direct student of O-Sensei at both Hombu Dojo and Iwama is also explored in-depth in a section on the early careers of the post-war generation. Throughout the narrative, several of Chiba Sensei’s close colleagues, especially Yoshimitsu Yamada, Mitsunari Kanai and Nobuyoshi Tamura, are discussed in detail as they developed their own dojos, organizations and teaching styles. As far as I know, this is the first full-length treatment of this period of Aikido history.

Sign up now to reserve a first-edition copy of “The Life-Giving Sword: Kazuo Chiba’s Life in Aikido.” You will be notified as soon as copies are ready for sale and directed to an online purchasing page.

(Active Birankai North America members will be notified automatically, but if you want more than one copy, please submit the form below.)

Teaching in Brazil

By Roger Park, Huron Valley Aikikai

I was invited to teach in Brazil by a gentleman by the name of Mauricio Nascimento, who trained with us here in Ann Arbor while he was at the University of Michigan for graduate studies. He is now a professor in the city of Maringa in southern Brazil, and runs an Aikido club there. He’s associated with Aikido Parana Brasil, an organization whose lineage is through Kawai Shihan. Kawai Shihan is credited with introducing Aikido to Brazil in the early 1960s and lived in Sao Paolo until his death in 2010. Aikido Parana Brasil is now Continue reading “Teaching in Brazil”

For Whom the Bell Rings

By Alexander V. Gheorghiu, Ei Mei Kan

eimeikan.org.uk

Reader, please stop. Stop thinking about this piece, how strange the story that follows is, or how good or bad this experience may have been. It is not what you think, it couldn’t be, as I will try to make clear.

I went to Sesshin, a five-day boot camp of zazen, and I cannot tell you that story. I resented this platitude when Mooney Sensei gave it to me, but now I understand why he did, and I remain eternally grateful to him. However, I will describe something of my journey. Not so that you may understand what Sesshin is like (I already said that I cannot tell you that story), indeed this article is not even for you, and it is not for me.

At the end of September 2017, I completed a one-month uchi deshi program at Ei Mei Kan, with the final week in an intensive seminar. After a busy, and hard summer, the day I finally left the dojo I had a long conversation with Sensei about everything I had been through in the preceding period – intercontinental travelling, three summer school in one month, being uchi deshi, the intensive seminar etc. At the end I found myself saying that I wanted to go on Sesshin. Sensei barely responded, he took a deep pause and then said simply ‘Look for Genjo.’ What on earth is a Genjo?

From this to boarding the airplane out of Birmingham International Airport, the only other remarks I received was that it would be the hardest thing I ever did… actually, there was one magnificent piece of advice which I now whole heatedly pass on to you: whenever in doubt, just bow.

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On the 21st of February 2018 I landed in Bonn, Germany, with two names in mind: Monika and Genjo. Out of the airport I took a taxi towards the city, the driver was an active supporter of Golden Dawn, the nationalist fascist party of Greece. He was in his 50s and lived his whole life as an immigrant in Germany, but somehow had the Greek air about him. If not the irony of his immigration status, I found him entertaining in the way he declared everything ‘Unbelievable!’ in that way only southern Europeans can. It was already dark outside.

In the city I found the restaurant Monika had emailed me, a Pizza place called ‘Amigo’ – let me observe here that ‘Amigo’ is Spanish, not Italian, but I digress. I Continue reading “For Whom the Bell Rings”

The Challenges of Aikido – Aikidosphere Interview with Chiba Sensei

This article originally appeared (circa 1993) in issue No. 70 of Terry O’Neill’s Fighting Arts International, a magazine published in the United Kingdom. The interviewer was one of Chiba Sensei’s long time students, Arthur C. Lockyear.

Sensei please tell me how you came to study Aikido?

Well, I was very keen on the martial arts from when I was little, and I decided early on to train seriously in at least one of them. I began with Judo and stayed for four years. I then moved to Karate.

You trained at the Shotokan headquarters I believe: what was the training like there?

Oh, I really loved it, it was a very hard spirit in the training, very satisfying, I liked it a lot. Nakayama Sensei was the Chief Instructor but I did see the Master, Funakoshi Gichin on a number of occasions. I joined the Japan Karate Association about a year before Master Funakoshi died I remember that there was a big ceremony to mark his passing.

Where any of the present-day Shotokan Masters there at that time?

Yes. Nishiyama Sensei, Okazaki Sensei and Kanazawa Sensei. Kanazawa Sensei was first Kyu then, or maybe 1st Dan, I’m not sure. Asano Sensei was 3rd Kyu level and Kase Sensei was there also.

Was there anything in particular that converted you to Aikido?

Well, when I was 1st Kyu (the level just below Black Belt) in Judo I entered a competition and happened to be drawn to fight against my senior from the dojo – a second Dan, I think. So I beat him and afterwards he came over to me and said: “You have taken away my Judo, but I still have Kendo.” He issued me a Continue reading “The Challenges of Aikido – Aikidosphere Interview with Chiba Sensei”