Kotsu Kotsu

This past weekend's Kokikai Aikido Winter Camp with Shuji Maruyama Sensei was an incredible experience. I've been practicing Kokikai Aikido since 1994, and even then Sensei's senior students said that he had been incredible since they had begun practicing! And now it's even more true. How can such a small man throw such big, strong people, people who he has trained to become even stronger? He actually trains them in specific ways to resist him! And then he throws them anyway. Sensei's dedication to keep challenging himself is inspiring to me. It's so easy to rest on our laurels. As an instructor, most of the time when I am practicing aikido it's with students whose bodies and style of movement I know, who I have confidence that I can throw. Plus, they're all my students and they're used to looking to me as the expert. Yet I have students who can challenge me if I ask them to. I have students who have street fighting skills, who have big, stron...

At the start of Kokikai Winter Camp some years ago I greeted David Nachman Sensei. I told him I was becoming more dedicated to Buddhist meditation, but I was having difficulty with the lack of a sangha . "This is your sangha!" he answered, gesturing to the 200+ people beginning to fill the gym. This reminded me of a time I was asked to deliver a copy of a group photo to Maruyama Sensei . The photo had been taken at the previous winter's Kokikai Aikido camp. There were about 230 people in the photo, all sitting formally in lines, arranged with Sensei in the center. He zeroed in on their faces, all smiling, relaxed, happy. "If you didn't know," he said, "what kind of group would you say this is?" I wasn't expecting the question and had no idea how to reply. "What kind of group?" he persisted, "College reunion?"  We both agreed, no. "Family?" "No." "Religion?" Even religion, no. It was i...