Grab My Wrist

My Aikido Timeline

I keep forgetting and remembering important events on my Aikido path, and our organization doesn’t use kyu books. So before I misplace any entirely I thought I should get them all written down in one place. What a chore! So here they are - or the ones I could think of this evening, at least, plus a few I’m planning on in the near future.

I will update this post regularly, and keep a permanent link to it in the sidebar, eventually. This has a sister post now, too: My Aikido Teachers.

—- Someday —-

Aikido Randori and Weapons 4-Day Intensive w/ George Ledyard Sensei
Aikido Eastside, Bellevue, WA 
[I am tentatively planning a 2-week train trip around this.] 

—- 2012 —-

Fall, 2012 
Aikido of San Diego Fall Retreat
Local mountains (?)  

September 14-16, 2012
Weekend Intensive with George Ledyard Sensei
Facebook Event page for the Weekend Intensive with George Ledyard
Two Rivers Budo, Sacramento, CA

August 4-5, 2012
Daitoryu Aikijujitsu Ginjukai Seminar with Howard Popkin
Facebook Event page for the seminar with Howard Popkin
Jiai Aikido, San Diego, CA

June, 2012 Unfortunately, the Retreat is not happening in 2012.
CAA Aiki Summer Retreat (Nadeau, Doran, Ikeda, Heiny, & others)
Aiki Retreat Fan Page
Bay Area, CA  

May, 2012
CAA Division 3 Retreat, Robert Nadeau Shihan & Others
Sonoma, CA

March 30-April 1, 2012
Evolutionary Aikido Seminar, Patrick Cassidy Sensei & Dave Goldberg Sensei
Register for Evolutionary Aikido Seminar
Aikido of San Diego 

March 2-4, 2012
Dan Messisco Sensei
Facebook Event page for the seminar
Two Rivers Budo, Sacramento, CA (Geoff Yudien’s and Adam Fong’s new dojo!)

January 21, 2012
My 2nd Kyu Exam
Video of my 2nd kyu exam, on YouTube
Aikido of San Diego, Dave Goldberg Sensei   

January 12-16, 2012
Aikido Bridge Friendship Seminar
Instructors: Hiroshi Ikeda, Frank Doran and Christian Tissier Shihan
Register for Aikido Bridge Seminar 
Jiai Aikido, in San Diego  

—- 2011 —-

October 7-9, 2011
Mary Heiny Sensei
Aikido of San Diego  

September, 2011
Mitsugu Saotome Shihan
Redlands Aikikai 

September 11, 2011
Aikido In Focus: Aikido, Fear, and Freedom, Dave Goldberg Sensei
Aikido of San Diego  

Summer, 2011
Jo (Staff) Seminar, Chetan Prakash Sensei
Redlands Aikikai  

July 15-17, 2011
Robert Nadeau Shihan
Aikido of San Diego  

July 9, 2011
My 3rd Kyu Exam
Video of my 3rd kyu exam, on YouTube
Aikido of San Diego, Dave Goldberg Sensei  

June 12-18, 2011
CAA Aiki Summer Retreat (Nadeau, Doran, Ikeda, Heiny, & others)
Aiki Retreat Fan SiteMenlo College, Atherton, CA  

 Feb 18-21, 2011
Gasshuku, Patrick Cassidy Sensei
Aikido of San Diego 

January 13-17, 2011
Aikido Bridge Friendship Seminar
Instructors: Hiroshi Ikeda, Frank Doran and Christian Tissier Shihan
Jiai Aikido, in San Diego  

January 3, 2011
Special New Year Training with Dave Goldberg Sensei,
and instructors Mike Coit, Megan Palm, and Lloyd McClellan 
Aikido of San Diego 

January 2011
Dojo Projects
Aikido of San Diego
Post: Service and Community 

—- 2010 —-

November 13, 2010
My 4th Kyu Exam
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuGsMi4MhOQ 
Post: To 4th Kyu & Beyond

October 24, 2010
Aikido In Focus workshop, Dave Goldberg Sensei 
Subject: “How am I limiting myself / getting in my own way?”
[My focus: Over extending.]
Aikido of San Diego
Post: How am I Limiting Myself?  

September 24-26, 2010
Seminar with Mary Heiny Sensei
Aikido of San Diego
[Helped with seminar logistics. “Tetsudai.”]

July 12, 2010
First day of training at new location (6356 Riverdale St. 92120)

Month of July, 2010
Several Work parties at the new and old locations.

May 22, 2010
Spring picnic at Santee Lakes

May 3, 2010
154 total training days. Just interesting trivia. 

April 9-11, 2010
Seminar with Robert Nadeau Shihan
Aikido of San Diego 
A Flickr slideshow of my seminar photos  

March 21, 2010
Aikido In Focus workshop with Dave Goldberg Sensei 
Subject: “Putting the Free in Freestyle”
Aikido of San Diego
Post: Body, Border Collies, & Beer 

February 6, 2010
My 5th Kyu Exam
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bhlXh91Ksg 
Post: 5th Kyu Test Tomorrow
Post: Thoughts on My 5th Kyu Test
Post: More thoughts - What I Meant 

January 31, 2010
Aikido In Focus workshop with Dave Goldberg Sensei 
Subject: “Ukemi”
Aikido of San Diego

January 23, 2010
Community service project with Aikido of San Diego
Fire clearance work day at the Unity Center Ranch (where our retreats are held)

January, 2010
Aikido Bridge Friendship Seminar
Instructors: Hiroshi Ikeda, Frank Doran and Christian Tissier Shihan 
Plus guest instructors: Wilko Vriesman, Francis Takahashi, Morihiko Murashige Shihan
Jiai Aikido, in San Diego
Post: How To Go To Your First Big Seminar
Post: Great Trip, Happy to be Home  
On AikidoBridge.com: Article, with photos, by Frank Richardson

—- 2009 —-

December 15, 2009
My first column for The Mirror, on AikiWeb.com
“Learning By Feel” 

September 11-13
Annual Fall Retreat, with Kayla Feder & Dave Goldberg Sensei
Unity Center Ranch, Descanso, CA
[Mostly weapons and meditation.] 

September 19, 2009
My 6th Kyu Test
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZR4eKhpRXE
Post: Studying for 6th Kyu Exam
Post: Reflections at the 1st Milestone
Post: Comments After My Exam 

August 30 (?), 2009
Aikido In Focus workshop with Dave Goldberg Sensei 
Subject: “Relax, It’s Aikido”
Aikido of San Diego
Post: Don’t Push So Hard Against the World 

July 24-26, 2009
Seminar with Robert Nadeau Shihan
Aikido of San Diego
Post: Getting to the Nadeau Seminar

July 8, 2009
10th training day 

Mid-May through June, 2009
Of the mat with a shoulder injury (separated AC joint)
Watched classes 1-2x/week 

May 5, 2009
My first day of training
Aikido of San Diego
Post: Introduction 

Questions for My Teacher’s Teacher

My teacher’s teacher is coming to our dojo in April. My teacher, Dave Goldberg Sensei, is a student of Robert Nadeau Shihan. Nadeau Shihan will be leading a seminar at Aikido of San Diego, April 9-11, 2010.

Nadeau Shihan, 7th Dan, trained in Japan with O Sensei in the 1960s. He has been teaching Aikido since 1965. He runs two dojo: Aikido of Mountain View, and City Aikido in San Francisco. His students have included several of my favorite Aikido authors: George Leonard, Wendy Palmer, and Richard Strozzi-Heckler Sensei. He is a founder and division head (Division 3) of the California Aikido Association. It is an honor to have him come to work with us.

I had the privilege of training with Nadeau Shihan last year, before I’d even tested for 6th kyu, and very much enjoy and “get” his approach to teaching. I’m really looking forward to training with him again, now that I have a tiny bit more experience and perspective.

This year, Friday evening will be a question and answer session. We’ve been invited to submit questions. I thought it might be interesting to share my questions here. If you want the answers, come to the seminar. Not that all, or any, of these will be asked, of course. Lots of people will be asking questions. This is just my unfiltered list - the things I wonder about.*

Your Experience of Aikido

Q: What brought you to Aikido?

Q: Is there something in your background that made you particularly receptive to, or inquisitive about, what has been available for you in Aikido?

Q: Did you find support and validation in Aikido for who you were already, or did Aikido change you?

Q: Is there something you wish you’d discovered or realized earlier in your Aikido training that would’ve helped you grow or learn? Or something you actually did discover or realize, that fundamentally changed your approach or understanding?

Or perhaps is there something you hope your students can grasp (or let go of), that would help them? Is there something you see your students struggling with, that you wish they could just *get* more easily?

Q: Are there activities you find to be complementary to your Aikido practice? (Meditation, gardening, …) Would you recommend them to others, or does everyone have to find their own way?

Q: In your experience of the larger “I” knowing who you are (such as why you love “junk,” or love movement), were those sudden realizations, that you immediately saw (“Aha!) to be true? Or did you go through a lot of seeking and questioning before you discovered what was so for you?

Q: Do you continue to make discoveries about yourself through your practice of Aikido? How has that changed over time?

Aiki

Q: What kind of change of consciousness, or development of consciousness, is possible through Aikido? What might that look like, in people’s lives? In a community? In the world?

Q: How does Aikido work? How much is mechanics, psychology, emotion, spiritual, energetic? Or do those characterizations even make sense in the context of Aikido?

The Art of Aikido

Q: If Aikido is a way of helping to bring peace and happiness to the world, what is the process by which you see that happening?

Q: How has Aikido changed since you first came to it? Has it expanded and strengthened? Or lost focus, gone off the tracks, or become diluted?

Q: What are your hopes for the future of Aikido, and how might that future come about?

Teaching, Sensei, and Students

Q: Do you see a correlation between the reasons people come to Aikido, and their likelihood to stay with the practice? Or maybe, does it matter why people walk through the door of the dojo, or just that they do?

Q: What do you see as the best way to teach Aikido? Does the teacher convey knowledge directly, simply demonstrate, or support the student somehow in making discoveries on their own?

Q: What do you see as a Sensei’s place in a student’s life? Instructor of practical skills? Role model? Spiritual guide? Counselor? Parental figure? Friend?

Q: What do you hope your students (or students of Aikido in general) will get from practicing Aikido?

Q: What do you hope your students (or students of Aikido in general) might contribute to Aikido?

Your Experience of O Sensei

Q: How would you characterize your relationship with O Sensei?

Q: Did O Sensei make requests of you (and of others, if you know), like “Go back to the U.S. and teach this”? Was he teaching his students to teach, necessarily?

Q: You have said that O Sensei had a process by which he could quickly jump into a bigger / higher level of himself. Could you tell us about the nature of that process? (Was it a physical practice? Meditation or prayer?)

Q: Do you think that Aikido today is (or is becoming) what O Sensei envisioned for it? Is it growing and spreading as he’d hoped? Affecting humanity as he’d intended? Better / worse / different?

Q: If you could spend an evening talking with O Sensei now, what would ask him? Or tell him?

In thinking about these questions, it struck me that the world might be a much different place for many, many people, had a certain young Robert Nadeau not somehow connected with Aikido. Just another example of how one pebble can make waves affecting an entire ocean.

*It occurred to me the day after posting these questions (and sending them off to Sensei) that I’d be interested in hearing others’ answers to them as well. If you teach Aikido, or have just practiced for a long time (however you define that), please feel free to copy some or all of my questions, and answer them on your own blog or Web site. I’d appreciate a mention, and please let me know where I can go to read your answers. Thanks!