Training in Iwama

Greetings,

My name is Bryan Sardoch. I am an American sotodeshi in Iwama studying under Hitohiro Saito Soke. My original teacher in America is Ian 'Noel' Kennedy of Traditional Aikido of Sonoma State University, a branch dojo of Dennis Tatoian Sensei's Traditional Aikido of Sonoma where I trained concurrently (2000-2004).

I received my yudansha certificate from Tatoian Sensei and Bill Witt Shihan almost one year ago (April 2004) just before arriving in Iwama as uchideshi. As uchideshi I was able to find out about a company offering work as an Assistant Language Teacher (similar to JET sans the high pay) near Iwama. A few months after going back to the States, I was contacted by the company and offered a job teaching in a town about one hour away from Iwama.

I currently live in Mito City, about halfway between Naka (my workplace) and Iwama. I will be moving to Iwama itself, with my girlfriend, this month.

For more information, please check out my aikiblog or my regular personal blog at http://ibaraki-bryan.blogspot.com ...

Thank you,
Bryan Sardoch

Hi Bryan,

Nice to have you here. Welcome! I visited Mito several years back for a symphony concert; seemed like a nice town. Hope you'll keep us informed of your experiences at Iwama.

-- Jun

I'll try to keep you updated. I'm looking forward to Spring and Summer and the busy uchideshi season. I'm really lucky to be here right now with great sotodeshi and Hitohiro Soke in such high spirits and training hard. It's great...

Taisai is coming up -- and Golden Week. Should be fun!

Bryan