{"id":2891,"date":"2025-04-04T18:35:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T22:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=2891"},"modified":"2025-04-04T18:40:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T22:40:01","slug":"weapons-and-toys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=2891","title":{"rendered":"Weapons and Toys"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Todd Fessenden, Broomfield Aikikai <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tested for nidan at Summer Camp in 1995 at Sonoma State University. I fondly  remember JD Sandoval Sensei testing alongside me… just beautifully destroying his ukes. Alex Peterson Sensei was an uke for me during my test. He wasn’t wearing a hakama because all of the San Diego Aikikai uchideshi and kenshusei had gotten in trouble with Chiba Sensei and had their hakamas taken away. Alex and I watched the video a few years back and he noted the fire in JD’s test. At the time, it felt like I was on a battlefield of sorts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before my earlier Camp test for ikkyu Iseri Sensei told me that teachers bring their best students to test at Camp, to essentially show off their own work. I think Nomura Sensei led the test at that Camp. At this camp Shibata Sensei was leading the testing, and barking out techniques in a way that I could not understand. Chiba Sensei was watching from the side, and my teacher, Iseri Sensei, was on the testing panel. Early on I devised a plan to look to see what JD was doing as each technique was called, as I figured he was most likely to understand Shibata Sensei. It worked pretty well, actually. It was a long test, probably an hour and a half in front of a large and intimidating audience. For better or for worse, I have always been pretty calculating in pacing myself during my tests. It’s not that I don’t want to bring the fire, I just don’t want to burn out! Luckily, I passed my nidan test at Camp. But Iseri Sensei told me I had passed, just barely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following day, I was completely fazed and exhausted. The yudansha had a bokken class out in a grassy area, and Chiba Sensei was the instructor. Somewhere around halfway through the class I was doing kiriotoshi with my partner and as we switched roles I noticed that I had my bokken upside down. I am not sure why, but I looked over my shoulder at that moment and I saw Chiba Sensei glaring at me with eagle eyes from about 20 yards away! How was he looking at me at this exact moment? I shrugged it off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After class we were all walking back to the main training hall and Chiba Sensei was a couple of groups behind me. Suddenly, I heard him yell “Tom!”. I immediately knew he was calling for me but had confused me with Tom Reed because our names were similar and we were both from the same dojo. My 24-year old brain decided that I could ignore it, since it was the wrong name. Then again “Tom!” I knew I was doomed. I heard him ask Pat Belt Sensei “What’s name?” and I heard her say “Todd”. I knew I was screwed. Sensei yelled, even loader, “Todd!” I turned around and walked back to him and Pat. He told me “Your basic body work is sound, but your weapons work is a bit\u2026 cloudy.” He then said “Don’t take your weapons work so seriously, think of them as toys, and you have a teacher that is really good at teaching students how to play with toys.”  I said “Hai, Sensei, thank you.” and he gave me a supportive head nod. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Iseri Sensei, Pat Belt Sensei and Chiba Sensei<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many of the things I heard in my early twenties from teachers who were infinitely wiser than me, I didn’t fully understand. I was perplexed. I think now he was just telling me to relax and not be so tense when working with weapons, think of them as toys. I still work on that. I’m still unravelling the mobius strip of genius we were so lucky to be a part of. Chiba Sensei was a once in a hundred-year teacher, at least. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re all blessed to have lived in that era. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Todd Fessenden, Broomfield Aikikai  I tested for nidan at Summer Camp in 1995 at Sonoma State University. I fondly  remember JD Sandoval Sensei testing alongside me… just beautifully destroying his ukes. Alex Peterson Sensei was an uke for me during my test. He wasn’t wearing a hakama because all of the San Diego Aikikai uchideshi and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Weapons and Toys”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2RSKg-KD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2891"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2896,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891\/revisions\/2896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}