First Kyu!!!

I realized I forgot to put this into the post of "Our Spring," along with a couple of other stuff.

As the few readers of this place know, I am very much into aikido and practice it as often as I can. Leaving the US and my dojo,AOM so abruptly left a big hole in me and I floundered aimlessly about, looking for a replacement dojo. I had just recently healed up from having a very broken right forearm (see: Found It!!!, And So It Calls), and was ready to start training in the birth place of aikido. So, I tried out the two aikido dojos here on base hoping that at least one of them also did training off base too.


Nearly two months with two good senseis' and many training days later, I got my first taste of long term training away from my original senseis. One dojo was aikikai while the other was doumukai. The styles are remarkably similar and I was hard pressed to tell the difference in the two till iriminage came around; doumukai is a bit abrupt--straight to the point, as oppose to the original way I learned it. I stuck with doumukai dojo keeping in mind the advice of Sensei Mustache to one day train with a different style for a while; also I really liked the group of folks who made up the dojo, I learn a lot with them but, boy do they make it fun.

Iida sensei teaches on base and off. I get the weapons work I fell in love with at AOM (the other dojo here didn't touch weapons till it was required for testing) and the option of six days of training, only in the evenings though, but that's alright even though I do miss the classes in the afternoon (Nooners!!!)--it would make life much easier. Anyway; the photos are of my new dojo. Check out the link within the bolded doumukai I have made it in a few of the photos there.

This past May, I was advanced to 1st kyu (Yea Me!!!) and now am on my way to obtaining my hakama and black belt. I am excited, proud yet paranoid all in one. I finally learned to just relax and take training and techniques as they come; that was a hard lesson I was going through before coming to Japan. So I just laugh at the paranoid side of me and keep on training when I can and when I feel like it.

To celebrate my advancement, we went out to eat at Mike's and then the girls and I went shopping looking for a gift. Since the dojo I currently train at has no actual place to call home I just gave a money gift to Sensei and decided to spoil my "home" dojo with a gift of new noren to hang in the doorways of the men's and women's dressing rooms--for the men's room: a samurai. For the women's room; two ladies in kimonos. Both noren are prints done the in the Meji period style. If AOM no longer has need of noren to separate the dressing rooms, (we hoped that is not the case) I guess it is then a gift for them to do what they will; we just had fun in shopping for something we all thought would be beautiful and useful. Now I really need to get myself another gi, I am tired of washing my only one.


Newly appointed san-dan NavSpouse standing proud with Iida sensei.