Time for a quick post just to communicate you the honor that I had today at the Hombu Dojo of practising the whooooole lesson with the oldest Uchi Deshi in the dojo, a dutch called Gunter. Really good man, the truth is that today’s lesson was really entertaining. I’m sure I’ll meet him again there as he is a Uchi Deshi, a student of Aikido that lives in the Dojo (literally) and is always there to serve his Master.
I’m really sorry for these last posts talking only about Aikido, I promise that the next one will be about a different topic and I’ll include some pictures as well. I haven’t told you about my trip to Nikko past weekend.
Today it was my first lesson with the Doshu of Aikikai. Doshu is the name of the headmaster of the Dojo. If you remember the article I wrote some days ago about the Hombu Dojo (I think you don’t) or if you love Aikido and you think yourselves as Aikiholics, you’ll know that the current Doshu is Moriteru Ueshiba, this man:
Moriteru Ueshiba
It was an interesting lesson today, because of this man considered as a leyend in Aikido, like his predecessors: Kisshomaru Ueshiba y O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido. Another reason why today’s was an interesting lesson is that the mate I practiced with was an old woman (in her 60’s) whom… I must say, she kicked my ass! Not only followed my rythm but she made me sweat a lot. In my defense I must say she ended completely red of tiredness. However, it surprised me a lot was to see how fit people keep in the Dojo, specially old people that practices every day.
When I went out of the Dojo I saw a lot of people with cameras, which made me thought that there is no problem on taking pictures during the lessons (My japanese speaking skills are not well enought to ask it), so further on I’ll ask a friend to take some pictures during a lesson while I practice. I expect to have a new SLR Reflex Digital Camera as my compact one wouldn’t work well there as there are no good light and flashing people is not a good way of making friends.
Time to finish, I’d like to take this opportunity to say hello to all my Aikido-mates in Galicia even if they don’t read this blog in the English version… Hi guys!
For those of you who doesn’t know it, Hombu Dojo is the headquarters of Aikido in the world. At the Hombu Dojo are held the lessons from the direct descendents of the creator of this martial art, O-Sensei (Great Master) Morihei Ueshiba. Who currently owns the title of Doshu (”Master of the Way”) is Moriteru Ueshiba.
We can see him in action in this next video:
The truth is that this dojo is relatively hard to find as it is not located in a main street but in a residential alley. This is the address:
AIKIKAI FOUNDATION Aikido World Headquarters
17-18 Wakamatsu Cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0056 Japan
I didn’t realized of taking a picture of the street, but this is one of the front:
And this is a picture of the main gate closer:
These pictures have not the best quality as it was late and the camera performs really bad with so weak light. Other day I’ll try to take better ones. This is what I got there:
And this is the schedule for the classes I can take (except the ones for women):
I don’t know, I don’t know… there are so many lessons I don’t know which ones to choose! … That’s true, ALL OF THEM!
This is my super-carnet of super-aikidoka (hahahaha):
This two first days have been really intense. The first one was a true odyssey, going from one subway/train stop to another where no one speaks english and everything is written in Japanese. After arriving at Narita Airport and after passing all the routine controls, we got to get the exit by taking Keisei Line and linking with another one I can’t remember now. There were moments in which I found myself completely lost, I couldn’t differ between the ads or the information panels as everything is mixed and written in Japanese. Even though, with the invaluable support of Esther, we got to our apartments.
Right now I’m writing from my apartment/miniapartment/minimansion of 23 square meters. I have taken no pictures of the apartment yet, but I have some of the city:
The typical Karaoke (カラオケ)
It’s time to finish today as right now is late and tomorrow is another paperwork day. It happened to me a lot of things… I’ve just killed a cat-size cockroach! but that is another story.
