Aikido in Sydney

About a month and a half ago I found a new Aikido dojo in Sydney and have been training there. That probably doesn’t sound much like news, but the instructors are awesome and I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to do Aikido again after what turns out to be a long absence.

Through high school and into university I’d been looking for a martial art I would feel comfortable studying. It wasn’t until I was into 3rd year that I discovered Aikido, a somewhat unusual Japanese martial art. It gets a “somewhat unusual” because unlike Karate, Kung Fu, or Tae Kwon Do, it does not accentuate strikes and attacks, but rather emphasizes redirection and using an attacker’s energy against them.

The style that I came across while at university is called Yoshinkan Aikido. It was set up by one of the students of the founder of modern Aikido with the express (and officially sanctioned) purpose of reformulating the art so it would be teachable. The combination of something whose nature represents “minimum force” and that can be systematically taught has made it well thought of by law enforcement agencies. In particular the Tokyo Riot Control police are required to graduate from a grueling year long advanced course taught at the Yoshinkan Hombu {home, head} dojo in Tokyo.

I made slow progress at first — I’m tall, grew quickly as a kid, and was not very coordinated. Between that and a lot of cross-country running [not to mention carrying a heavy rucksack], I am not what you’d call flexible. But studying Aikido was fun, I had a great teacher, it was a friendly environment, and a good diversion from the rigours of Military College. I passed my test for 6th Kyu the day before I graduated.

After I left RMC the army posted me to eastern Canada and I was no longer able to pursue my studies. There was an Aikikai dojo there (the original form of Aikido) and while I tried training there a few times, I couldn’t quite get into it — it sorta felt like driving on the wrong side of the road, and my enthusiasm waned.

Six months later I was sent back to Central Ontario to run a course for recruit soldiers. A friend of mine told me that there was a fellow at the base where I was heading who had just starting to teach people “Aikido”. I figured that even if it was Aikikai maybe I’d get along better with a new instructor. Well, it turned out not only was the Yoshinkan style that I had studied at RMC, but further my new instructor had in turn learned from the same group in Toronto that had taught my previous teacher!

So, snap, I was able to pick up right where I’d left off, and before I knew it I was training 4 times a week, including driving down to Toronto on the weekends. When the snow melted in spring, I was able to add trips to Toronto on Monday and Wednesday nights and was training upwards of 6 times a week. Needless to say the hard work paid off, and I made terrific progress. When my six month posting was up I had progressed to 2nd Kyu (a brown belt!). It felt awesome.

And then I was back to not being able to train. I was only getting to Toronto like once a quarter, and that’s not exactly adequate to keep one’s skills up. A few years later, in New York, I did find a Yoshinkan instructor but I had become somewhat rusty, wasn’t able to train very often, and all he had for a dojo was a church attic with some velcro-together gym mats. I did get to Tokyo for a weekend in summer 2001 and visited the Hombu dojo (where a high school classmate was, quite randomly, now an instructor! — small world), but then Sept 11 happened and cleaning up from that rather dominated our attention.

And I hadn’t trained since.

Two months ago, I took a moment to do a search on “Aikido Sydney”. To my amazement I discovered that a new dojo Aikido Yoshinkan N.S.W. had just opened in Redfern. Darren Friend and his wife Peggy had just moved back to Australia from Japan, he having spent almost 20 years at the Hombu dojo, most recently as senior foreign instructor.

After my experience in New York I was a bit hesitant, but I have to tell you the first day I went to watch a class in their dojo in Redfern the biggest smile lit up my face.

So I’ve been hard at it for about 6 weeks now. Needless to say I was more than just a little bit rusty, but Darren Sensei has been very patient with me, and that has indeed put me past my trepidation. Training in Aikido again after so long has been daunting — so much is half remembered at best and I’m having to recover the balances and skills that I learned long ago, but mentally overcoming such frustration is as much a part of training as the physical challenges are.

If you’re a Sydneysider, and maybe interested in picking up a martial art, I highly recommend you come and watch a class and talk to Darren Sensei or Peggy Sensei. The best endorsement I can make though, is to quote an email I got from my high school friend in Tokyo:

I just got your email address from Peggy and thought I’d write a very quick hello … You are very lucky to be training with Darren and Peggy. Between them they have an unbelievable amount of experience in Yoshinkan Aikido and you’ll be able to grow with them for a long, long time.

Of course, there’s a flipside to having resumed training after years absence: in the words of E.T.: “ouch” :)

AfC