[Aikido] A message from Charlie in Japan

[chhudson at vassar.edu]

Hey all, this is Charlie. I have been in Japan for a little more than a
week and a half now, and I am really enjoying myself. For those of you who
don`t know, I am living in a dorm in Tokyo and studying aikido with the
Waseda team.
Everyone has been very nice. The first day I showed up too late to move
into my dorm, but one of the Waseda kids was generous enough to let me
stay in his room for the night. At practice they are always quick to help
me when I am confused, which can be often.
I have sort of fallen into a routine here now, sightseeing in the morning
and aikido in the afternoon. Aikido is great, and all of the students are
very good. I would guess that about 1/2 or more of the students are
blackbelts. Unfortunately, I speak virtually no Japanese. However, most of
the kids speak at least a little english. Also, I can understand a little,
as we call most of the techniques by Japanese names in the states. Also, I
make the same mistakes here as I did in the states (arms out of my center,
bad posture, etc) so I can often understand what I did wrong even if they
are speaking Japanese.
Practice here is very similar in some ways and very different in other
ways. I was very confused when everybody started yelling when they were
warming up or sparing. I later found out they were yelling (and I don`t
know the spelling here) fi des! fi being short for fito meaning fight, and
des (desu) being something that they have to insert for reasons of
politeness. It`s supposed to help the mood. I can`t imagine yelling fight!
all the time in the states, but I`ve gotten used to it here. It does seem
to work.
We have mostly been practicing 4 sets of kata, the basic 17, which is
mostly similar, the kazushi waza, which are also mostly similar, with the
exception of the 7th which I have yet to master, the suwati waza, of which
some techniques are similar, and one is compleatly different, and the
tachi waza, which we don`t practice, but I am picking up. One thing that
is strange about the tachi and suwati wazas is that they practice some
techinques only on the right and some only on the left. This seems a
little wierd to me.
The second half or so of class is devoted to various types of sparing.
Everyone is very good. I sparred with the captain yesterday, and I spent a
lot of that time taking falls. Sumi otoshi is a very popular technique
here, as is shomen ate. One thing that surprised me is that in doing these
techniques, tori often falls to the ground as well as uke. The Japanese
seem more willing to commit to a technique, I`m not sure if this is good
or bad. For instance, their shomen ate is generally much better than ours,
but if you can get the right tai sabaki it`s tori that ends up flying
across the room. I guess you can`t have the best of both worlds.
Anyway, that`s all for now, take care everyone, and see you in the fall.
-Charlie