Cultivating Birankai’s Next Generation

Rob Schenk, Chief Instructor, Aikido Institute of San Francisco

Many of you are aware Doshu was recently hosted for a weekend seminar in the San Francisco Bay Area (September 2019). During the weekend activities, I was fortunate to attend a special discussion on ‘The State of Aikido in the United States‘, held by Josh Gold, of Aikido Journal (Josh took over after Stanley Pranin’s passing).

The statistics that Josh shared during the discussion are sobering. Since 2004, interest in Aikido has dropped 90%. This interest continues to decline 9% PER YEAR at a consistent rate. 82% of Aikido practitioners are over 40 years of age. Less than 16% of United States Aikido practitioners are women (clearly Chiba Sensei was ahead of his time: Birankai has more women Shihan than men!)

It is clear that if we keep doing things as we have been doing them, our art will die a slow death and fade away.

Bold steps, open minded leadership, getting outside of our comfort zones, and new ways of engagement are needed NOW. We in the Northern California Region propose a way to slow down this trend and ultimately reverse it, is to refocus on and expand our Youth Programs.

To do our part to create some new energy, the NorCAL Region held its 1st Annual Kid’s Seminar on August 31, 2019.

Members from Aikido Institute of San Francisco, Alameda Aikikai, Grass Valley Aikikai, and Gassaku Aikido participated in an energetic afternoon of conditioning games, learning about Aikido principles, and practicing ukemi basics. A potluck followed with camaraderie, community building, and good food.

It was wonderful to see a large turnout with students open to receiving positive and engaged instruction from Marci Martinez from Grass Valley, Bernard Dalay from Alameda Aikikai, and Gerard Enriquez from Aikido Institute of SF.

For Aikido to thrive into the future, it really comes back to the kids. If we can engage and inspire kids with the positive messages of Aikido, including discipline, focus, character development, respect and martial awareness, we will carry on O’Sensei and Chiba Sensei’s legacies. We look forward to developing and extending our shared lineage through continued, dedicated practice, one child at a time.

-Rob Schenk, Aikido Institute of San Francisco

I completely agree with Rob and think that these children are the future of Aikido. This regional seminar was needed to bring us all together and see the future and potential of our region. The way the kids seemed to get along and the support and camaraderie that we just witnessed this weekend was inspiring.

Mitsu Nobusada Flynn, Alameda Aikikai

The First Annual Northern California Regional Youth Seminar had a great turn out of students and teachers.  It was fantastic to see how the youth from different dojos were comfortable playing and training with each other using Aikido as their common bond.  Our students had not seen youth in hakama before. Those with hakama helped the younger students with how to engage at a seminar and that it was safe to try new things. Not only did they train together, but it feels like they inspired one another.  One of the youth from Grass Valley had a fire lit within him, and for most of the way home, he was talking about how he couldn’t wait to show the other kids how he practiced Ikkyo.  This seminar has created a more intense hunger in our students that they will share with their other dojo mates. This will help drive them to train at a different level than before and to feel comfortable training with students from other dojos.

-Marci Martinez, Grass Valley Aikikai

The 3 Most Important Words in Birankai

Phil Mansour, September 2019

For years I stated a passionate opinion.  Eight years ago, I was encouraged to capture this opinion in writing since my “journey has been different than many”.  I struggled with the notion that somehow, there was anything unique about my Aikido experience.  Isn’t everyone’s path in Aikido unique?  In recent years as I travel, hearing others’ journeys, learning as much as I can and passing on as much as I can from those lessons, I finally found the inspiration to put my views into text.

I will provide a bit of background:  I first saw Aikido in 1983 at Michigan State University.  To me, it was the best example of applied physics among human interactions I could imagine.  All I wanted was to be able to do “it”, even if it took a lifetime.   I was an extremely uncoordinated computer geek; much later in life, I discovered I fell just outside the Autism Spectrum.  My best friend’s father introduced me to “it”.  I hung around the dojo, learning the philosophy from the Sensei and participants long before I ever stepped on the mat.  Right out of high school in 1985, I joined the club dojo – a Yoshinkai dojo, which had beautiful Aikido and still exists today.  I trained for about 18 months, passed a number of early tests, and then was banished because of some dojo politics with senior students.  Though not in the dojo, I still practiced bokken (with very poor form) and read and dreamed about aikido.  

In 1995, I stumbled onto a new Aikido club in town:  a non-affiliated dojo, with instruction once a week.  I began studying again in earnest.  The group soon grew and joined the U.S. Aikido Federation (USAF) Eastern Region.  Our fledgling group attended summer camps, seminars and traveled to a USAF Western Region dojo in Ann Arbor as often as possible.   I passed my 5th, 4th, and 3rd kyu tests, dropping into dojos and seminars as I traveled.  Five years later, Lansing, Michigan received a great gift from the Universe (at least in terms of Aikido) when Frank Apodaca Sensei moved into town.  He took in our motley crew of dedicated students, beginning a new chapter in our journey.

It was obvious the standardization of the Birankai curriculum, the basics, and the body movement led by such an incredible instructor would be a wonderfully challenging journey.  For years we studied.  For YEARS we tested and retested and retested before anyone was awarded a new rank. 

I continued to train on the road, often in San Diego and in other Birankai-affiliated dojos.  When my only option was another style, I was almost always warmly welcomed and made numerous friends.  This experience taught me there are many systems and ways to learn Aikido:   affiliated and non-affiliated; beginning with the body then developing the mind; beginning with the mind and then developing the body; building strength, then working toward flow and softness; working from softness to then build power; and so on. In each approach to training lies various ways to measure performance and rank.  Clearly, they all produce great Aikidoists, and it’s been my honor to train with many.

For me, progress in Aikido began when I found an extrinsic system I could trust to measure myself against, coupled with a gifted and patient instructor who unwaveringly transmitted the system.  During years of intense training and struggle, blind to all the changes in my body and mind and lacking reference (since my classmates were improving as well), this system removed my concern about level, rank, and progress.  I could simply submit to the process.  Rarely, if ever, did I find someone in the community of a “higher rank” who wasn’t more skilled than I. This was a constant testimony to the measuring stick for which I had signed up and allowed me to relax further into the system.  The system has an integrity which instills a sense of trust.  

At the heart of that integrity are three simple, beautiful and powerful words: “Please Try Again”.   These words are amazingly inspirational to me.  They scream, “Phil, you can do better.  You have more room to grow at this level.  Go find it!”  These words are an external validation of where I am in the system and where I am not.   Absent of politics and external motivations, these words are the only reason the word “PASS” has any value. 

I was honored last fall to participate as an uke in a test for kyu ranks ranging from 5th to 2nd kyu and practice tests for shodan and nidan.  I was reminded how testing is really about looking into a mirror and seeing its clear reflection.  I was thrilled that day to hear these three words.  I saw the integrity of the system upheld by a next-generation instructor.  I was also thrilled for all the students who heard these words.  I spoke with the recipients of these three most important words, explaining how lucky it is to hear them on a 3rd kyu test, and that I too heard them a half dozen times on my 3rd kyu practice tests from Apodaca Sensei more than a decade and a half earlier. 

Those hearing the word “Pass” had a bit more confidence in their ability.  

The students appreciated me relating my experience and are continuing to work hard.

These words, “Please, try again”, administered by a community of instructors, generally of the same mind set, generally on the same curriculum, with generally of the same philosophy, continue to produce students who reaffirm the “trust” so crucial to a standard.  The system is a classic feedback loop:  the measuring stick gets stronger as these words are administered in a true and honest way. The system becomes stronger and avoids erosion.  I may never reach another rank within the system.  This is OK.  What I know, and will never question, is the rank I achieved.

I continue to travel, 250+ days a year now.  I train wherever and whenever I can, regardless of affiliation.  I have visited more than 75 dojos across the world, many for only a single class, others for weeks or months of training.  Thanks to the integrity of the Birankai system (because of those three words), I am confident in where I am and where I am not, and now have evolved to simply allow everyone I train with to be my mirror, my test.

Thirty-six years after seeing Aikido for the first time and wanting to be able to do “it” and twenty-three years after beginning Aikikai training, I still cannot.  On rare occasions I can see in my uke’s eyes I am doing something close to “it”.  I hope I have a number of years left to keep learning and getting closer to my goal.   I never waiver in my confidence that following the Birankai system is the way for me to get further and allow me to always know where I stand.

The journey is well worth it.