Since I recently wrote a little about Tohei Sensei, who was the top disciple of Aikido Founder (Ueshiba Sensei), and introduced to Hawaii and elsewhere, and who we got to receive technique from, on occasion….I thought I’d forward an article I recently came across about our primary instructor in the old Pearl City dojo – Kimura Sensei.  In the old photo, he is the second black belt from the right; and I’m sure you can get a feel for the physical power he exuded, just from the pic.  The article is about the four sensei’s in the photo, each of whom was a pioneer of the art in Hawaii.  The other three were long-time experts in Judo or Kendo before they were converted to Aikido after witnessing Tohei Sensei’s ability to dominate each of them.  It should be noted that prior to Aikido, Tohei Sensei was a black belt in Judo, so his expertise went beyond just Aikido.  He himself had been converted after being dominated by Ueshiba Sensei’s techniques…in turn, Ueshiba was an expert in Daito-Ryu Ju-Jutsu before creating Aikido.  Anyways, among the four Hawaii pioneers, Kimura Sensei stood out because of his brute strength, which I certainly could [...]

There are many great martial arts instructors in the world. The best of these have that rare gift of being able to display astonishing technique coupled with great insight. Once in a while, we come across a fascinating and seemingly fresh interpretation of the art, and it can give one’s mind a lot to think about. Below is video of a Shotokan instructor whom I hadn’t really heard about before – Sensei Rick Hotton. If you take a look at him, you’ll note that his karate techniques are very good – yet, his interpretation of movement is distinctly different from what most karate classes teach. He talks about the sine wave, emphasizes (and demonstrates) hip motion and connectivity in far more detail than the basic hip snap/thrust/rotation, and pushes his Shotokan audience to learn to relax. These are concepts I recall from my early years in Aikido. Glancing into Sensei Hotton’s background a little, I found out why – he is also a student of Aikido Sensei Matsugi Saotome. Sensei Saotome was an uchi-deschi of the art’s founder, Ueshiba Sensei. Some 25 years ago, I truly enjoyed reading his book, “Aikido and the Harmony of Nature”. It was so interesting [...]

As you know, we don’t place emphasis on jyu kumite in our group, although, we do share the many jyu kumite kihon combinations that your sensei’s learned as part of the KAH syllabus. From the time we were white belts, we were immersed into the practice of free-style and tournament sparring. To a great degree, our parent organization, the Japan Karate Association was responsible for introducing jyu kumite and tournaments t the world, beginning shortly after the Founder’s passing in 1957. The 5-step, 3-step and 1-step pre-arranged kumite you practice were developed to gradually introduce students to gauging distance, speed and power in coordination with another student, versus the usual “air” training. As brown and black belts, over half of our usual training was devoted to some aspect of jyu kumite in the dojo. When we were young, we received most of our many minor injuries from this type of training. Since this has always been the sports aspect of the art and in order to avoid injury to our students, we have not made this a part of your training. Ironically, this is what most people associate with the art of Karate-Do. Since its introduction some 60 years ago, [...]