Hello from Tokyo

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[EKoba]

Hi everyone,
I am new here. I started Aikido four and a half years ago. I am now ikkyu. I am going to take the promotion test for shodan in July. I am practicing at one of the Kobayashi Yasuo dojos in Tokyo.
Nice meeting you here.
EKoba

[Jory Boling]

Hello! Is that the Kobayashi Dojo that has the uchideshi program?

good luck on your shodan!

[akiy]

Hi Etsuo,

Thank you for your introduction and welcome to AikiWeb.

-- Jun

[tony cameron]

I especially like the instructors section where it lists each instructors "specialty" below their profile: hilarious!

http://www.cup.com/kobayashi-dojo/english/leader/leader.htm

Are you guys still affiliated with Aikikai?

[EKoba]

Hi Jory,
Yes, we have the uchideshi or sumikomi (live-in) training program, long and short. The shortest is a two-night three-day program. You can live in the dojo and enjoy keiko from morning till night. Four (one from the U.S. and two from Hungary and one from Sweden) were practicing as sumikomi students in April. We invited them to our cherry-blossom-viewing party and had great fun.

Dear Tony,
Yes. All of the instructors are nice people and skillful in teaching. I always feel good after keiko. We practice hard and seriously, but in a relaxed manner and in a friendly atmosphere. The most important thing they keep in mind is that we do not get injured so that we can enjoy keiko for as long a time as we want to. I would like to get at least san-dan, if possible, but I just go to keiko to have that strange satisfaction after it. By the way, I am not strong or skillful. I am a slow learner, learning three techniques or knacks and forgetting two by the end of each keiko. How nice it is to be able to do keiko. I still don't know why I feel so good doing Aikido, but it is good. Strange.
Kobayashi Yasuo Sensei started practicing Aikido in the Honbu Dojo and then became independent, building his own dojo. Now he has more than 20 dojos in Tokyo, Saitama and Kanagawa, but I think the Kobayashi Dojo is still affiliated with Aikikai, because we use the Honbu Dojo for the promotion tests (three times a year) and the certificates given to us are issued by the Ueshiba Doshu (Head Master Moriteru Sensei).

[aikidoc]

I especially like the instructors section where it lists each instructors "specialty" below their profile: hilarious!

http://www.cup.com/kobayashi-dojo/english/leader/leader.htm

Are you guys still affiliated with Aikikai?

I think the specialties were supposed to be hobbies, perhaps not. I loved the one where one of the instructors lived in a "mountain hat".

[EKoba]

Today is the first (some think second) day of the what we call Golden Week in Japan. We have three national holidays in this week which fall before Friday or after Sunday, leaving several holidays in a row until May the fifth (Chidlren's Day). Many workers take the days off in the middle of the week so that they can have a longer vacation. It is a shame, though, that pupils and students have classes to attend. Some may play truancy for their family trips inside and outside Japan.
During the holidays many go out for relaxation, entertainment and family reunions to local onsens(spas, hot springs), mountainous areas, their home towns, or to museums and theaters, enjoying different and a little extravagant lunch and dinner. Well some just stay to relax or go to the center of a big city to see a lot of people. Any popular places are full of people in Japan during this week, as you can imagine.
I will just stay at home and see Superman III with a friend of mine, and then practice Aikido today and Tuesday. Some of the lessons are cancelled because of the holidays, which is good for the instructior and some of us who are keiko addicts.
The dojo where I have keiko (practice) will have a gasshuku (trainig stay) at an inn, to which we go in cars taking about two hours. We will go there on May 23rd and stay there until the next day, Sunday.
Last year after three rounds of keiko in two days, at the very end we had a demonstration session of the results of our training. The brown belts did the 13 and 31 jo (staff) movements and the black belts did jiyu-waza (doing their favorite techniques), sitting and standing. I was fascinated by powerful and elegant movement of them. The sword matching combinations were beautiful and sometimes made me feel chill in the spine and almost made mehave goose pimps imagining real swords engaged.
On the first day, Saturday, at night we had a party, but it was a shame that the dinner one after before that at seven was too good and I ate so much that I could drink little sake . I wish dining and wining could be done at the same time, but it seems to be impossible because the inn staff were not supposed to work for our party. They just take care of our meals and provide us with rooms and a gym nearby. They have a bath, but we drive about five miutes to an onsen to have a relaxed time before dinner. Ah, I will not eat too much of the dinner this time.
Members of the other dojos participate in this gasshuku, and after all, they belong to the Kobayash Dojo and some of them go to Tsumagoi to stay at the log cabin dojo for their gasshuku. Kobayashi Sensei is going to Korea for giving some lessons there and is now asking us if we are joining him. It will be a nice keiko tour, but somehow I won't go this year. If possible I would like to go on this tour next year.
By the way, my name happens to be Kobayashi, but I am not at all related to Kobayashi Sensei except that I am one student of the dojo. There are many Kobayashi families in Japane like Sato and Suzuki. I am from one of local Kobayashi clans. Now I will go to the dojo for the keiko starting at 11:00 a.m. I wish you good enlightenment ( fun and enjoyment) in your keiko.

[scientific]

hello i am kadir from turkey. i started aikido for 3 months...and i need help...paradoxkadir@hotmail.com

[CitoMaramba]

Hello Etsuo,
You are certainly fortunate. I attended Hiroaki Kobayashi Sensei's seminar here in England last September and wrote a review of it in my AikiWeb blog. I learned a lot that day. I'm looking forward to his seminar in June, and the seminar of Yasuo Kobayashi Shihan in October.

All the best,

Cito

[EKoba]

Hello Cito,
Thank you for your message.
They are all great senseis. I like them all.
They are always thinking about us so that we can improve our techniques and as human beings.
By the way I was wrong in writing Superman III. It was Spiderman III to be released three days earlier than in the U.S. Japan is a big market for U.S. movies and computers.
Take care and keep having keiko and teaching.