Yamada Seminar

Two Rivers Aikikai

August 12th & 13th (Friday & Saturday) 2005

by Dan Penrod

pictures from the seminar can be found here in the photogallery.

It was 1985 and I was standing in a bookstore, in the martial arts section, which I was prone to doing in those days.  I'd been a student of karate for the last 10 years and was always looking for something new read about the art.  But on this day I was holding something different in my hand.  I was pouring over this old book that had been tucked between the newer books.  It was a hardback book with a slightly tattered a red book sleeve.  The cover and the pictures were all black and white.  The author was practicing what appeared to be some sort of jujutsu and I was utterly fascinated by the pictures inside.  The book was titled Aikido Complete and the author was Yoshimitsu Yamada.

While I stood there, absorbed in the book and my own imagination, the voice said... "Do you practice aikido?"  Startled, I turned around to greet a stranger's face that had been looking over my shoulder while I'd been day dreaming.  "Uh..."  It took me a moment to collect myself.  "um, no.  I don't practice aikido.  I practice karate.  But this is a fascinating book!"  The gentlemen said, "You know, there's an aikido seminar this weekend at the University of Florida in Gainesville."  Gainesville, was a 3 hour drive from St. Petersburg, Florida, where I'd been going to school.  "When does it start?" I asked?  He looked at his watch... "Oh, in about 3 hours."

I thanked the man, purchased the book in hand, got on my motorcycle and drove to Gainesville, then and there.  I spent the entire weekend training with people I'd just met.  Then I spent the next 20 years training in aikido with friends.

In all those years I'd never found the opportunity to see or train with Yamada Sensei, but he was often on my mind.  This weekend Two Rivers Aikikai hosted Yoshimitsu Yamada.  I finally got to train with the man, who in my mind had always been a bit of a legend, an immortalized face in an dusty old book that I'd stared at for countless hours.

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As I arrived at the dojo the matt was already full and warm-ups had begun.  Yamada Sensei leading the warms-ups probably spent 15 minutes in slow movements to warm the body.  The first technique he taught was a cross-hand grab (kosa dori) that moved into a choke (kubi shime) rather than a throw, irimi nage style.  This movement was shown slow as a continuation of the warm-ups.  He proceeded to irmi nages, throwing uke with more vigor.  He showed irimi nage with an entering to the front movement (irimi omote) and then followed up with an entering from behind (irimi ura) movement.  Next he show kosa dori ikkyo and called attention to the similarity in shomen uchi ikkyo.  He commented that just doing ikkyo over and over was not so much fun so he showed a variation with ikkyo followed by taking your partners hand and turning in (omote) to throw your partner in a shihonage type lock.  Next he demonstrated a shomen uchi shihonage that was received by the arms crossing, cross-hand touching first, matching hand completing the movement drawing uke off balance.  The next technique he showed again received a shomen uchi attack by received by crossed-hands, moving to the inside, touching uke's shoulder, and dropping into a neat kokyu nage.  This was Friday night training.

David Halprin taught Saturday morning 9:30am class.  Halprin Sensei is a 6th dan, and long time student of the late Kanai Sensei from Boston. Halprin Sensei demonstrated serveral form of kokyu nage, including a sumiotoshi movement involving entering adjacent to uke, turning hips to face uke directly, and dropping weight as you drop to one knee.  He also demonstrated a katate dori nikyo where he emphasized wringing out the wash cloth... the wash cloth being a metaphor for the wrist.  Class ended with kokyu dosa (kokyu tanden ho).

Yamada took the mat again at 11:15am.  Yamada carried the theme of kokyu nage, showing a technique to raise the partner high through a kokyu movement followed by turning to the inside and dropping.  He also proceded into ikkyo, nikyo, followed by sankyo.  In these movements he talked about keeping extension while turning rather than becoming trapped in the attack by uke.  Sensei ended class with a ryotemochi kokyunage (sayu undo style movement) and finally kokyu dosa.

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After class I produced the tattered old Yamada book from my bag for sensei to see.  I'm sure he's seen the book countless times but I was hoping to get my copy signed by the legend.  I've kept this book for 20 years now and when I'd bought in the bookstore, indeed it had been used and was already 16 years old.  He took the book from me and paged through it.  "Whoa... this book is very old!", he said as he leafed through the book.  "My second book is better", he said as he signed the title page.  Not to me... that one will always be my favorite.