Future Goals for Aikido Here

By Tom Huffman

My original goal was to raise the quality level of Aikido throughout the Southeastern United States from North Carolina to Florida to Louisiana to Tennessee over the next 25 years. This will be accomplished by stressing basics within whatever level of techniques are being taught. With the way video ability is expanding on the Internet, I have expanded the goal to show the world about Nishio Sensei's Style. Undoubtedly there will be those who consider this pretty arrogant. I have yet to hear or see anyone who is teaching the way I teach in great detail. I feel that what I am offering is different than the vast majority and that the level of the person watching will not matter. I believe everyone could benefit from the Nishio Sensei videos if they approach them with an open mind looking to receive.

Gainesville-Ocala region will still be our headquarters. I am going to build the largest dojo in the United States by 2015. This is going to be more like a community center while still being similar to the prefectural Budokans throughout Japan. Along with this, I will establish the largest uchideshi program in the United States with 15 Uchideshi in house by October 2015.

Basis of Future Goals

I started in Aikido in January of 1986 at Sunset Cliffs Aikido with Weston Leavons as Sensei, in San Diego, Ca. I had heard of Aikido as being the “Peaceful Martial Art” and wanted to learn a good self defense that was both effective but not brutal. The first time I got on the mat I knew I had found what I was looking for.

The level of Aikido taught in that dojo was of very high quality because the sensei’s there had spent time in Japan learning directly from Morihiro Saito, an 8th degree master at that time, and one of O’Sensei’s closest students. In April of 1986 another sensei came from Japan, Satoshi Takamori, who had been an Uchideshi (live in student) of Saito Sensei and also a student of Nishio Sensei while attending college in the Yokohama area. Bernice Tom was the other sensei who taught weapons class on Sundays while she was studying architecture at UCSD, if I remember right.

I was very excited about what I was learning, attended every class I could and looked for places to practice at when I came home on leave to Florida. Unfortunately there was little Aikido in Florida at that time and what I found was nowhere near the quality of what I was learning in California. I made a decision to get myself sent to Japan, while in the navy, and learn directly from the masters and bring high quality Aikido back to Florida.

In October of 1990 I accomplished this with orders to Atsugi Naval Air Facility about 35 miles south of Tokyo. Satoshi was back in Japan by that time so I called him about the second day after arriving. We made arrangements to meet and have dinner on the top floor of the Yokohama train station on the next Monday night. After dinner we took a walk and arrived at Matsuo Dojo where Nishio Sensei was teaching on Monday nights and Satoshi introduced me to Nishio Sensei. I had met Sensei at one of his Los Angeles seminars about three or four years earlier. I had tried to talk with him at the party, and was very impressed that he had trained with Gichin Funakoshi, the world renowned Karate expert who the Emperor had requested to move to Tokyo to spread Okinawan Karate. My Japanese is rather limited, so what I took for "trained with" may only have been he knew of him. At any rate I don’t think many other people sat down beside him and tried to talk in his language. I don’t know whether he remembered me when we were introduced or not, but I had the introduction and I was in.

Just for history purposes, I was told that the Matsuo Dojo was a very old and famous dojo. I had no doubt there were strong ties to the old samurai there. Many arts were taught there, Judo, Karate, Iaido and Kendo as well as Aikido. In the early 1960’s this was the home of All Japan Champions in Judo, Karate and perhaps Kendo for multiple years. There was a large sign above the main door to the dojo that stated what was taught there. I have a picture of it somewhere. It was a shame when it closed and was torn down to build a new modern hotel. The party room of the old hotel had dark red tree posts and beams that were just gorgeous. It was terrible to think such beautiful wood was going to end up in a dump. I have many pictures which I will post later as the web site expands.

The Wednesday of that first week Satoshi told me to meet him at the Yoyogi Uehara train station a little south of the Shinjuku area of South Tokyo. From there, he introduced me to Hitohiro Saito, Morihiro Saito Sensei’s son, who taught Aikido at the Yoyogi Uehara Middle School on Wednesday nights. So within just over a week of arriving in Japan I was introduced to two top teachers. After about two months I became aware of a monthly paper circulated around the Matsuo Dojo which showed Nishio Sensei’s schedule each month. It took some work, but I deciphered it and found that Sensei taught on a circuit of about four dojos during the week and then gave seminars in different locations on some of the weekends. I located those dojos and became a member of the ones reasonably near Yokohama. Sensei was very surprised as I started showing up regularly wherever he was teaching.

On the weekends when Nishio Sensei didn’t have a seminar or special practice I would run up to Iwama, so I could get some practice with Saito Sensei. Saito Sensei always amazed me. Every time I went up there he would show something I had never seen before. Not many of the sempai knew what I was doing when they didn’t see me at their dojos all the time, but when there was a large overnight seminar and I was introduced with three different groups everything became apparent. In the years when I came home on leave from Japan, I was still looking for places to train and what I found was still far short of the quality I was learning. The long term goal never diminished, but rather was reinforced.

I would arrive early often at whatever dojo for practice and Nishio Sensei was always there ahead of me practicing Iaido. I would try to follow what he did with a boken. It was slow, awkward learning at first. It was about two years before I felt that I might be retaining some knowledge. After some time Sensei showed me an old Iai sword that someone had left at Matsuo Dojo and I started using that there. It wouldn’t stay in the scabbard, but it worked for everything else. After about two years he told me I should get my own Iaito. Soon after that he said he wanted to make me Shodan. I made the mistake of asking about a test. He got mad at me and said I would be a Shodan when he made me a Shodan. I have never questioned anything else. I may have delayed that first promotion by maybe six months.

With all those practices I was progressing rapidly. Even though learning Nishio Sensei’s techniques was like starting over, there are so many things happening at once it’s like night and day difference to other sensei’s techniques. This also forced me to learn to watch EVERYTHING being done VERY closely, since nothing is explained in English. The first test was about six months after arriving. Nishimoto Sensei had me test for Sankyu one night and he was my uke. How often do you hear of anyone having a 7th Degree act as your uke. I hardly knew what I was doing. I didn’t even know I was being tested, but soon after that Nishio Sensei read a promotion certificate after class.

Learning how to watch everything very closely is a two edged sword. Because of all that practice, I am able to watch everyone closely and tell immediately whether a technique will work with the body relationships that it is executed in. Unfortunately many of the sensei’s I have seen in the States are not seriously determining if their techniques are really working or not. The worst part is when they know it doesn’t work themselves and they don’t make any attempt to determine what would be better. Truth and honesty suffer in these conditions. It becomes glaringly evident when the students try to do techniques that aren’t working, and they get promoted doing those same techniques. This is the sorry state of affairs that George Ledyard wrote an article about. Fortunately for me and my students, after the first year in Japan, I got a video camera and Nishio Sensei never had any problem with me taping classes. I now have enough tape of him showing techniques that it will take about five years of classes three times a week before we will ever have to repeat the set.

Students are determined by generations from the founder, who is the first generation. The old masters who were direct students of O’Sensei were or are (for the few who are left) the second generation. Their students are the third generation. My students would be the fourth generation, but I plan to eventually let Nishio Sensei teach the class via a large screen TV and I will merely be the interpreter and guide. When there is someone available who understands Japanese better than I, then we will all learn more. I believe this will make my students a 3.5 generation instead of just fourth generation. I think it is such a shame that we have lost so much of Saito Sensei because there weren’t tapes made of so much of his teaching. Do not take that statement to mean that he didn’t leave knowledge with his students. He did. Hitohiro Saito is VERY capable. However, people who see the few tapes and CD’s of Saito Sensei will only have a smattering of the volume of his knowledge. O’Sensei was not only a genius, he was a generator of geniuses. That is why the few films of O’Sensei are so valuable. Tapes and films are so far beyond notebooks and journals it’s a joke.

I realize that the statement at the top of the page sounds ludicrous. Only time will tell for me to back-it-up. I’m confident that the thoughts in my head and the existence of so much tape of Nishio Sensei executing techniques will bring this about. It will also verify how many great sempai students there are still teaching in Japan. I hope to bring some of those teachers and many great Iwama / Takemusu Aiki teachers to Florida to give seminars at some point in the future. I'm more excited about what I'm teaching and discovering now than when I first started. COME CATCH SOME OF THE EXCITEMENT!!

Practice Times

Weapons..................................................2:00-3:45pm .............Sundays

Empty Hand..............................................4:00-6:00pm .............Sundays

Advanced Empty Hand.............................6:00-7:30pm..............Sundays

Empty Hand..............................................7:30-9:30pm .............Mondays

Aikido for Lunch.......................................11:00am-1:00pm .......Mondays & Fridays

Aikido for Kids.........................................4:00-5:30pm ..............Tuesdays & Thursdays

Empty Hand.............................................7:30-9:30pm ...............Wednesdays.

Weapons Take-aways (Open Advanced)..7:30-9:30pm ...............Thursdays

Iaido (Japanese Sword)............................7:00-8:30am.................Saturdays