San Diego aikikai

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[titova]

Bonjour from sunny France,

I few months ago I posted a query on these boards, asking about goods places to train in the USA for a few months. I got a fantastic response and one place that was mentioned by several people was San Diego aikikai.

When I tried to e-mail them, however, the message was returned as "undeliverable". I therefore tried to call them last night but the telephone number given on their website (619 280-0082) appears not to be working.

Does anybody know what's going on? Has the club closed?

Thanks in advance,

Ingrid

[crbateman]

That's Chiba Sensei's dojo... I don't think they have gone anyplace. The contact info I have for them is:


San Diego Aikikai
3844 Adams Avenue
San Diego, CA 92116

Phone: (619) 280-0082
Fax: (619) 280-7059
Email: sdaikikai@aol.com

(I do know that Chiba Sensei recently split from the USAF and started his own organization, so perhaps there is new contact data, and someone here might have some new info, but it's a big group, so they should not be hard to find.)

[crbateman]

Some additional info: Chiba Sensei's group is now under the Birankai organization, which is not a new group. The contact information seems to be the same as above.

[titova]

OK, thanks. I'll try to call them again tonight.

[Dennis Hooker]

Check this out. San Diego Seminar 07 website

www.aikidobridge.com

[cguzik]

Hooker Sensei, thank you for posting that link. It looks like it will be a fantastic seminar. It might be time for a trip to the west coast.

The URL for Chiba Sensei's dojo appears to be http://www.usafwr.org/sandiego.

[Jeff Sodeman]

Thanks Dennis for posting our seminar site.

Ingrid, if you're going to be in the San Diego area you're welcome to come by and visit us at our dojo as well, www.JiaiAikido.com

[Robert Cowham]

Was there on business in January this year and was made very welcome at the dojo.

I did 3 classes, a morning class (apologies, teacher's names escapes me), Chiba sensei's Wednesday evening class and the Saturday class with Murashige sensei. All with a slightly different atmosphere/focus, but all recommended.

Robert

[titova]

Hi, Robert

I'm British but living in France.

Did you find Chiba a bit rough???? I've received a private e-mail warning me that he can be a bit, er, violent!

Ingrid

[Robert Cowham]

Well Chiba sensei himself couldn't have been nicer, or indeed solicitous in his class. I was late due to work and had very little warm up and he warned my partner to calm down a bit at one point early on!

I had several very enthusiastic (and it seemed eastern europeans from what I could tell, perhaps over for a period as uchideshi so rather gung ho) partners during that class, and as we did elbow techniques for a bit I had to work hard to protect myself... I think Chiba sensei seems to attract the more robust element to his classes.

The Saturday class was very different atmosphere.