Josh Gold
In the tribute to her father spoken at his memorial gathering on July 25, 2015, Kano Chiba said, “In all of you who practice Aikido, especially for those who practiced with him and learned from him, his Aikido lives on with you. Please pass the torch on my father’s behalf.”
It is my hope that the new course from Aikido Journal: Power and Grace, Portrait of a Master, will inspire both those who trained with Chiba Sensei, and those newly introduced to his art to approach their Aikido with Shoshin – that is, beginner’s mind, or unstained mind — with the spirit of sincerity, and with the physical vigor that was a fundamental element of his practice.
Chiba Sensei’s teaching spanned 50 years, from 1962 until 2012, while he lived and taught in Japan, England, Europe, and the U.S. This portrait of his teaching has been drawn primarily from video and written material produced between 1980 and 2012, most of it from within the U.S.
As his student, I know how much he honored his own teachers, both those inside the world of Aikido and those outside it. I would like to acknowledge some of the people who influenced what you will see and read in Power and Grace, Portrait of a Master. We begin with O Sensei, Morihei Ueshiba, Chiba Sensei’s master. Chiba Sensei spoke of him always with great reverence and appreciation. Kisshomaru Ueshiba Doshu, Koichi Tohei, and Morihiro Saito also powerfully influenced his Aikido. In the breathing exercises and conditioning exercises utilized by Chiba Sensei to develop himself and his students one can see the work of Tempu Nakamura and B.K.S. Iyengar. His Zen teachers, Harada Tangen Roshi and Hogen Zenji and his Iaido teacher, Takeshi Mitsuzuka, warrant acknowledgement. Throughout his career Chiba Sensei collaborated with other senior Japanese teachers who were committed to promoting Aikido internationally. Among them I mention a few: Mitsunari Kanai, Yoshimitsu Yamada, Nobuyoshi Tamura, Ichiro Shibata and Tsuruzo Miyamoto.
It has been a privilege to work with Josh Gold, Roy Dean and their support team at Aikido Journal to create Power and Grace, Portrait of a Master. Our collaboration developed in an atmosphere of mutual respect, and it has ripened into rich friendships. For myself, and for my colleague Rob Schenk, representatives of Birankai North America, which Chiba Sensei founded, this has been a labor of love. In Rob’s case in particular, the labor has been nothing short of Herculean. The production of this beautiful showcase of Chiba Sensei’s Aikido reflects the complex process of inquiry, discovery and dialogue that informed his art’s creation.
Aikido teachers trained by Chiba Sensei can be found actively teaching throughout the world. I hope those of you intrigued by the images and words of Chiba Sensei presented here, will seek out one of his students to practice with directly. This would be the most tangible way to honor Chiba Sensei, his teachers and his colleagues.
In her closing remarks in 2015, Kano Chiba read the final letter her father wrote, which ended with these words from his favorite poet, Walt Whitman.
If you want to see me again
Look under your boots.
As we travel the path of Aiki, may we pause to check our boots, and remember those who have walked it before us.
Darrell Bluhm, Birankai North America
Antonio Aloia
Hi Josh, any chance of this course being made physical? If I understand correctly, it’s streamed so it seems there’s no guarantee of no access interruption. Sorry, not sure if this didn’t go through the first time or what. It seems like it would be a common question.
Hi Andrew! We won’t be making any physical media versions of the course. The vast majority of the Aikido Journal community has reliable internet and most don’t have DVD players anymore. Demand is too low for physical media for us to undertake the logistical overhead to produce and distribute DVDs.
Understandable, thanks for the reply. It happens to be my bday today so I think it’s a good excuse to go for it, besides loving this art of course. ;0)
Awesome. Happy birthday Andrew!!
Thank you, Josh!
It is fitting that the early Aikido Sensei be acknowledged for their contributions to the dissemination of Aikido throughout the world.
However, along with the praise and sometimes even adulation that these men have received, a clear understanding their behavior and honest character analysis must also be done.
Having trained on several occasions with Chiba Sensei and Shibata Sensei, I must honestly report that I found them to be unnecessarily harsh, cruel, and brutal. This is not to paint their entire careers with my individual experience of their “darker” side.
I have been abused and injured by many Japanese and American Sensei as well.
And I must acknowledge my own misguided sense of things, slightly masochistic, that conflated their “paying attention” to me with a genuine concern for my growth and development and an their expression of “love and protection for all creation”.
I know that I am not alone in this. But there is a dark side to Japanese Martial Culture, as a subset of the dark side of humanity.
I have had the opportunity and, yes, the privilege to train seriously and for long periods in several arts and under many, many different teachers.
All of my most serious injuries have been either playing organized sports and/or at the hands of Hombu Ryu Aikido teachers while serving as Uke. (And not from Aikijujitsu Sensei, ironically. Never.)
When I enter a competition, I understand and fully accept the premise of risk. But I do not “put my head on the chopping block” voluntarily, as one does as Uke. If you get “the better of me” … it is because you got the better of me; plain and simple. But I did not give it to you, … as we do in Aikido Keiko. I entrust you (and you, me) as Nage to be safe and humane. We can train very hard, AND keep it safe, clean, and appropriate.
“Unnecessary Roughness”, “Reckless Endangerment”, and “Blatant Disregard for Another’s Welfare” … all apply, especially here, and can be leveled at many Aikidoka.
It is not just ironic, but ethically hypocritical to use the Aikido Mat as a place to “work out our aggressions”, to act out our own abusive childhoods on an innocent partner, to “punish our partners for the sins of our fathers”.
Aikido Keiko does require a extraordinary degree of maturity and sophistication to be conducted honestly and powerfully … yet safely.
And although it appeared that Chiba Sensei mellowed a bit in mature older age and became more humane and appreciative of others, he did not embody nor display any of it in my experience of him through his
teaching.
So, I appreciate and respect this retrospective memorial to the life and mission of Mr. Kazuo Chiba Sensei.
His place in the history of the Art was highly influential and deserves recognition.
So, in closing, just one man’s reflections …
A template for powerful waza … absolutely.
A template for O’Sensei’s Ethos … no way.
Sincerely,
DBBrown
Aikido Hombu
Sandan
DBBrown, thanks for putting this out there. If we are going to be the kind of people we claim to be (or aspire to be), this is the kind of stuff we have to engage with. In my view you’ve done a service to the community.
SC:
In Aikido Keiko, your partner is not your ‘enemy’ (Jitsu). He’s not even your opponent (Sports).
He/She is your ‘aite’; your ‘harmonious other hand’.
If we, for whatever ‘reason’ choose to treat them like a true enemy or a true opponent … then we are in the wrong art.
The world abounds with forums for treating other human beings as enemies and/or opponents. Go knock yourself out (pun intended). “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.”
Aikido, as I interpret the Founder, is of a different order all together.
And it is a fine line, requiring maturity, discernment, and self-control. That’s exactly why it is so special.
Special, because it is so rare in this world of ours.
Respectfully,
DBBrown
Sandan
DDBrown, please communicate this with all the dojo’s. Too often still teachers are letting senior students do what they will with new students. Being a senior student and teacher is an immense privilege for being able to positively impact others. Too often they are abusing their roles focusing more on traditions than on the present and what is needed now for the benefit of the person in front of you. Responsibility is a privilege. Don’t abuse it.
Thank you DBBrown for being the few active voices describing – not an ideal but – what the presence on the mat is for. How many more people will be injured due to “teachers” or senior students misusing energy or using new students with no care or protection for the sacredness of life and love? How many more people will justify and glorify avoidable violence because they’re only programmed to react to violent energy? An “art” that uses the imprinted energy on someone of those who are violating and violated someone to harm another further is not an art. Blending for the sake of constantly taking and misusing energy is not an art. Who will be brave enough to stop glorifying rape and assault within the aikido community and stop allowing men to behave, act and speak as if it’s their right to assault women. Blending is not assault (not in the immediate act or with a time delay). Win-win is win-win for all people involved.
Wow. Great subject. As someone who has experienced the abuse of several instructors I can relate to this topic. I spent 30+ years training in the Yoshinkan system in Northern America. In that time I have suffered a broken jaw, several concussions and many hours of verbal assault in the name of “True Budo”.
I am ranked with the IYAF and have opened one Dojo and several clubs in this time.
The interesting thing in your comment is that while everything you say is true, the fact is these men held/hold top positions of authority and were above reproach from anyone.
In 1985 I was present at a Dojo opening when Chiba injured a young Aikidoka out of retaliation for poor etiquette.
From that time on (I was 18 at the time) I heard the same thing from abusive instructors and their following. “ It’s the real way to train”. Make it as real as possible and pretend to reference past abusive history and personality flaws as an “ideal”.
While I appreciate your comment I have to wonder why we have to speak out after the fact. Why not address this now and in the present. There are more like them. They pass on their genetic material through their training and it is labeled the same way. Another generation buys into the same thing. Why are associated professional entities not self correcting and removing them from their ranks.
I get it it’s not like a licensed professional degree where you can lose the privilege to practice. If removed them they start their own association and call it the “true way” “old way” or whatever.
Are we not guilty of allowing abuse if we don’t try to stop it?
From Chiba Sensei’s autobiography:
“My grandmother was out walking one day when she heard a huge commotion nearby. Much to her surprise, she found me in the middle of the fray, fighting off about half a dozen kids by myself. She rushed to intervene and rescued me from the melee. She took me back to her home and sat me down next to the futon where my mother was resting. My mother raised her head from the pillow and watch me as my grandmother recounted the whole shocking story. I still vaguely remember her pale, sorrowful face, but I can’t recall what she said to me that day. After that incident, my mother was routinely called to the principal’s office of my junior school to hear about other episodes of my violent behavior. Every time she came back home from one of those meetings, she would sit me down by the fireplace and lecture me while tears streamed from her eyes. Despite her suffering and efforts to civilize me, I never changed my behavior. I saw everything around me – home, school, community, and all people – as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and I could not make sense of it. To me, there was nothing else I could do but resist and revolt against them all. I know in my heart that martial arts saved my life; otherwise and without a doubt, I probably would have ended up as a gangster or a terrorist.”
https://aikidodidierboyet.com/en/2019/11/22/2eme-partie-en-route-vers-le-royaume-uni-n-1/
Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
During the time I trained at Ryushinkan under Minoru Kanetsuka, I often went down to Tenpukan, near Earls Court, which was run by K Chiba’s students in London. I had trained under Chiba previously, at Chiswick (run by Chiba’s Aikikai of Great Britain), but at that time I was a student at Sussex University and Chiswick was too far away for regular training there.
After I came to Japan, I used to visit Chiba at his house in Hatake, near Kannami. This town is in Shizuoka Pref. and also a long way from Hiroshima, so I used to stay for a few days. He took me to meet his teacher, as he called him. This person turned out to be a Jesuit priest living nearby. Since I had spent a few years in the Jesuits, we found an immediate rapport, and spent much time discussing various spiritual topics. Chiba Sensei (CS) sometimes joined in, but usually listened and took notes. I visited CS quite a few times and each time he took me to see Fr Oshida and he told me that these visits were a means of his own spiritual study. CS talked to me sometimes in a similar way and I saw his in interest in western mysticism and the connection with zen.
I was never an uchideshi, for the simple reason that I never lived in CS’s house. However, I was ordered to be the otomo (close student-cum-assistant) to his father-in-law Masatake Sekiya when he spent a year in the UK with his wife. Was I a deshi to CS, in the sense of being a close student of one single teacher? Again, I think the answer has to be No, for I lived too far away for a sensei-deshi relationship to flourish. There was, however, a friendship, which blossomed when CS lived in Japan and continued after he moved to the USA.
I am very glad to have had the privilege of studying aikido under Chiba Sensei and also of knowing him as a man, with a wife and family.
@Peter “as a man with wife family” is completely misleading and insensitive to all the women followers who read the comments as well as the multiple women who he taught, misled and used for his sexual benefit. The term also justifies that a “man with wife and family” can do anything that pleases him. If aikido is really what it is then people independent of rank can openly and transparently discuss this topics without fear of retaliation. Either people’s eyes are full open for the benefit of everyone or they’re keeping the horse blinders on for their own benefit. There is no middle ground on this subject.