Articles

Guest Teacher Adventure

by Lia Suzuki, Aikido Kenkyukai International, USA Santa Barbara Dojo

As soon as kids' class ended, John packed up all the spare shoto we had in the dojo. Belinda swung her new, used SUV into the parking lot. I grabbed my dogi bag, tossed it in the back of the SUV (on top of the massage table) and off we went! We were on our way to San Diego for the Aikido Bridge Seminar.

This was our first adventure together since the dojo trip to Japan last May. We were overdue for an adventure.

We made good time, but still we arrived just after the seminar dinner had finished. (Darn...) We settled for dinner at Denny's. Then we headed for our hotel.

The next morning I introduced myself to Murashige Shihan, a friend of my teacher, Takeda Shihan in Yokohama. He asked me a bit about how Takeda Sensei was doing and we had time to chat for only a minute or two until it was time to start his class.

The training began. Murashige Shihan was followed by Doran Shihan, and then a lunch break. Then it was back to the dojo. Ikeda Shihan's class was first and then Tissier Shihan's class. Then mine.

?!?!?!

"Me.....?", I thought. I felt very strange and downright intimidated teaching after all these high level teachers. I was impressed with how sincerely people trained in my class at the end of such a day.

The whole day was so valuable of course. As usual, the classes I took and the partners I trained with gave me so much "homework". The class that I taught also gave me "homework". But also, and perhaps most importantly, the day's cross-affiliation or "bridge" theme continued to present itself both on and off the mat: classes taught by teachers of various affiliations, students of various affiliations training together, teachers and students of different schools enjoying their lunch break together, folks coming together at the end of the day for a couple beers and a bite to eat... This was truly an event designed to "bridge" groups together.

At the pub, we snapped some photos, finished our meal and drinks, said our good-bye's and then it was time for us to go.

Darn...

We jumped back into Belinda's SUV and headed north. We alternated between talking about the day and snoozing, leaving it to Belinda to get us home safely. We arrived in Santa Barbara after midnight. Our small adventure had come to a close.

We were very happy to have been a part of the Aikido Bridge Seminar, if only for one day. We look forward to participating in more "bridging" events in the future - some perhaps on a grand scale like the one in San Diego last month and hopefully many on a smaller scale in our own dojo around the world.