About 11 people from the UK dojo - separately from Max, Emily and Jack - have also come to Japan. So on the 23rd October I travelled with Bruce to meet John in Tokyo and spend the weekend at Sengenkan dojo and train with Narita sensei, the students from the UK dojo, Takashima sensei and all the students and teachers at the Sengenkan Dojo.
We arrived pretty late on the Friday night and were met a Haneda by John. We then travelled to the dojo and were greeted by Leon - Takashima Sensei’s uchideshi. The plan was to sleep on the mats, then get up early, clean the dojo, take part in training , visit another dojo then finally meet the group from the UK when they arrived on Saturday. So we headed out for a drink and food before bed. It was great to spend some time with two students travelling outside of Obihiro. The area where the dojo is located is not quite what I expected. it is very modern and there seems to be a lot to do.
I had never done anything like this before and the dojo was a lot larger than I had expected. It was quite incredible visiting the dojo as it is a very special location for Yoshinkan Aikido as it is the last dojo Gozo Shioda trained at and there was a lovely statue at the entrance and a huge poster in the dojo representing out style’s founder and O-sensei too.
Sleeping on the tatami might not have been so comfortable but Takashima sensei had prepared lots of bedding for the group so it wasn’t so bad. We certainly had plenty of space and were sleeping at least 10 meters away from each other.
