Rediscovering Your Roots: Bruce Bookman, Yoshimitsu Yamada, and the United States Aikido Federation

Bruce Bookman Sensei is the Chief Instructor of Tenzan Aikido in Seattle, Washington and one of the most highly respected aikido instructors in the United States. He became the youngest aikido black belt in America at the age of 15 while studying under Yoshimitsu Yamada Shihan at New York Aikikai in the 1970s, and now runs one of the world’s largest and most successful aikido dojos. Recently, Bruce realigned himself with the United States Aikido Federation. He spoke with Aikido Journal about returning to the USAF and his relationship with the late Yamada Sensei.

Josh Gold: I’d like to congratulate you on your reentry into the United States Aikido Federation. Can you share a bit of your history with the USAF?

Thank you, Josh, for taking this time to interview me at this juncture in my aikido career. I really appreciate that you’re checking in and us having a chance to talk.

I originally became a member of the United States Aikido Federation in 1970 at the age of 12. Really, the USAF, the New York Aikikai, and Yoshimitsu Yamada Sensei were almost synonymous. I attended all the USAF Summer Camps and seminars that Yamada Sensei and Kanai Sensei were running at the time. There was a much smaller and different group back in the 1970s. The Shihan at that time were Yamada Sensei in New York, of course, and Kanai Sensei in Boston. There was also Shuji Maruyama Sensei in Philadelphia.

Maruyama Sensei broke away from the Aikikai along with Koichi Tohei Sensei and then eventually broke away from the Ki Society and started his own Kokikai group. But back in those days, it was those three who ran the United States Aikido Federation and headed up by Yamada Sensei.

I started teaching, in 1974, the Thursday evening class at the New York Aikikai as a new shodan. At that time, Yamada Sensei traveled quite a bit and oftentimes I would cover for him as well as the other senseis at the Dojo. This was before Seiichi Sugano Sensei arrived. There were Senseis Angel Alverez, Kiyoshi Tokunaga, Harvey Konigsberg, Luqman Hakim, Jane Ozeki and Lue Kleinsmith – I’m sure I’m leaving some people out. Later on came Rick Stickles Sensei, Peter Bernath Sensei, and also Sensei Steve Pimsler. Just as I was getting ready to leave for Japan, they were becoming instructors in their own right and teaching classes at the New York Aikikai.

In 1977, I left for Tokyo as a nidan with Yamada Sensei’s permission to study at the Hombu Dojo. I had a particular interest in studying with Kazuo Chiba Sensei, with whom I took private lessons, in addition to studying with all the other teachers in Hombu Dojo. I returned to New York in 1979 and began, once again, teaching at the New York Aikikai assisting Yamada Sensei. In 1981, I moved out to Seattle to start my own dojo, at which point I became a shidoin in the USAF. At that time, it was one big organization.

Chiba Sensei had moved to San Diego about the same time I moved to Seattle. Akira Tohei Sensei arrived from Tokyo in the mid-1970s. The face of the USAF had changed quite a bit, but it was one big organization. Eventually, it became four different subgroups: the Eastern Region with Yamada Sensei, the Midwest Region headed by Akira Tohei Sensei, the Western Region with Chiba Sensei, and then Hawaii was run by Sadao Yoshioka Sensei. Since I was on the West Coast and I had trained with Chiba Sensei a lot in Japan, I remained with the Western Region for a good 12 years.

As much as I loved Chiba Sensei, we parted ways and I went back to the Eastern Region, even though I had a dojo in Seattle, and worked once again with Yamada Sensei until 1996 when I went independent. The reasons for that were pretty much personal. I needed to focus on my family life, running my dojo, and raising my kids. I needed to simplify my life.

I went independent for a good 23 years and recently realigned with all my old friends at the USAF. Yamada Sensei and I managed to be on pretty good terms over the last 10 years and I wanted to speak to him about rejoining the USAF. I’d been going back annually to teach at Aikido Schools of New Jersey at the invitation of Rick Stickles Sensei and more recently by invitation from Hal Lehrman and Jay Tall Senseis. Every time I’d go back, I’d also go to New York, to visit Yamada Sensei, take his class, and get thrown around a bit by him. It was very nostalgic for me. In some ways, it felt like I was visiting my old grade school and entered my kindergarten class. But soon, though, I found myself really engaged in the practice in Yamada Sensei’s class. It was really a nice feeling to come out and take ukemi for him again. Anyway, that’s really the summary of my history with the United States Aikido Federation.

After all these years, what was the motivation to rejoin the USAF? Your dojo’s very successful in Seattle and it seems you’ve been doing just fine independently. What was the impetus for that?

I miss all my old friends and I miss working with them. I longed to have a working relationship with a group of instructors that I have respect for. That’s certainly the case in the USAF. I was going to talk with Yamada Sensei about realigning, and was all set to go out to a seminar that he was teaching in San Francisco. He and Senseis Peter and Penny Bernath were also teaching at the San Francisco seminar. Then I came down with Covid and couldn’t make it out there, but I figured, “Well, it’ll have to wait till next year.” Unfortunately, Yamada Sensei passed away, so we never got a chance to talk about that. But we’d been moving closer and closer over the last decade. This was an inevitable thing to happen for us.

I also wanted to give my students exposure to a broader group of people doing aikido, and an international family so that they could see how many different people practice. The USAF is an interesting organization in that it’s not so much curriculum based. They have a baseline of quality that they expect when testing and giving out rank, but really, they leave a lot up to the individual instructors in terms of what to emphasize and where people go with the aikido. It’s really a loose-knit group of aikido instructors who care deeply about each other. For me, it’s a chance to introduce my own take on classical aikido as well as some work that I do in practical application and weapons work.

To sum it up, it’s a greater need for connection with a broader group of people. Over the years, I’ve come to value, more than ever, history and friendship. We all shine in certain ways and have our shortcomings. I’ve come to not only tolerate differences but genuinely appreciate how different teachers’ approach aikido.

How have your students reacted to this? Are they excited about it?

Well, that’s an interesting question. Most of them have never known anything else but what we do at Tenzan Aikido as an independent organization. They’ve always been welcomed everywhere they go. When I first mentioned to them that I was strongly considering USAF membership, I checked in with all my senior students and they were indifferent to it. They like to practice the way that it is, and they basically trust me to make good decisions for the dojo. They know that I’m dedicated to their practice and that I only look for ways to improve their training. They basically trust me to make the right decision.

Looking forward, how do you think you’ll contribute to the USAF as you come back into the fold? 

First of all, the affiliation of Tenzan Aikido will give the USAF and Aikikai a major presence in the Seattle and Northwest Region of the U.S. Together, we can gather more momentum and appeal to more people, increasing aikido membership in general. At the very least, the USAF and Aikikai will receive the support of a vibrant aikido dojo and community by having Tenzan Aikido as a member.

Over the years, I’ve crossed geographical and organizational/political boundaries to teach seminars and connect with teachers from various organizations including the USAF, Birankai, ASU, the Canadian Aikido Federation, Aikido of Northern California, and outstanding independent teachers. For several years, I participated in Jimmy Friedman Sensei’s Aikido Project in San Francisco. It was great to teach side-by-side with Friedman Sensei and Christian Tissier Sensei, year after year. I was delighted to hear that Osawa Sensei is the liaison between the USAF and Aikikai in Japan. I remember Osawa Sensei from my time at Hombu Dojo, 45 years ago. I remembered him as a decent person who practiced hard and was always fair with people. So, it was nice to reconnect with him at the recent USAF Summer Camp in New Jersey.

I feel that I may be instrumental in bringing people together to share their perspectives on aikido for the benefit of everybody. Each organization, each high-ranking aikido master, has a scenario for their aikido – certain things that they feel are very important and they look at things with a certain light. Oftentimes, one scenario is not any better than the other, but it can be very helpful to understand the various ways of doing aikido so that you give practitioners an opportunity to choose things that are helpful to them and to their practice. Aikido should be the type of thing that unites people – that brings them together. And I feel that my connections and longtime  friendships will be mutually beneficial to the United States Aikido Federation as well as other groups.

You first met Yamada Sensei when you were 12 years old. He passed away very recently. When you reflect on your relationship with him, how do you think about him? How does he fit into your life? What kind of person was he to you?

Well, if I had started aikido with any of the other instructors first, who were so influential on me, I probably would not have stuck with aikido. Yamada Sensei was just right for me. I was a very troubled 12-year-old. I was flunking out in school. I was getting bullied and beaten up at school a lot. I had just a terrible perception of myself. I felt that I wasn’t smart, and I felt that I wasn’t tough. To be not smart and not tough, and 12 years old, it was a heartbreaking time, and I just was having real trouble. I didn’t have a father who was around much. My mother did her best, but she was really at the end of having answers for me. As fate would have it, I walked up those steps of the New York Aikikai, that narrow staircase, and walked into the dojo, and right away I could smell the grass straw tatami mats that they were still importing from Japan at that time for training. I sat down to watch a class that Yamada Sensei was teaching, and I just felt so much at home. When my eyes met Yamada Sensei’s, I immediately felt his warmth and acceptance.

Looking back, I felt that he was letting me in on how there was even a place for a 12 year old, Bruce Bookman from the streets of lower Manhattan in O-Sensei’s vision of aikido. I got on the mat and started practicing and I really fell in love with aikido. Yamada Sensei was loose enough with the structure and was accommodating enough. I felt that I was genuinely seen, and he slowly drew me into the fold. He had some kind of a magnet, and I just loved it, and I loved him.

Then, over the years, I got more and more involved at the dojo. I used to go to a middle school that was two blocks away from the New York Aikikai. After school, I’d walk over and Yamada Sensei usually would be hanging around early, so I would be there. On one occasion, he had me get out on the mat in our gi pants without gi tops on. We tied our belts around, and he would do sumo with me. Other days, it might be judo. He had a judo book that he liked and if I came in early, he would flip through the pages and then get me out on the mat and practice judo techniques. Then he’d have a little match with me. Sometimes, he’d let me throw him a little bit, and other times he’d come in with a throw or a foot sweep.

Other days when I showed up early, he was much more serious. Sometimes, he had a katana that he used to practice his suburi on some afternoons. I used to watch him practicing and I wanted to be just like him. I would get a bokken and I would practice my suburi out on the mat as well. Other days, I’d come in and he’d throw me a buck and send me down the street to pick him up a pack of Kents, a copy of the New York Post, and a cup of coffee, light, no sugar.

There were days, as I got older and became more and more of a smart ass, he would call me upstairs to his office for an attitude adjustment. On one such adjustment, I must have been strutting around too much at the dojo or something. He called me upstairs and he sat me down. He says, “Bruce. Tell me, do you think you’re tough?” I was caught off guard by his question. He said, “Because if you’re trying to prove that you’re tough with the people downstairs in the dojo, you can’t do it here. They’re not fighters and they don’t want to fight. If you think you’re tough, go to a boxing gym or go into a bar somewhere and start running your mouth and see how you do. But don’t come in here to the dojo to aikido people and try to be a tough guy.”

That hit me like a two by four right between the eyes. Those words have come back to me from time to time at different eras in my training. When I’d go to Hombu Dojo, I’d see teachers who were very humble and very expert. I’d also see teachers who I thought were full of themselves and trying to prove that they were tough guys. I could feel that stuff coming up in myself. From year to year, decade to decade, I can’t tell you how many times the attitude adjustments that I received from Yamada Sensei up in his office have come back to me.

He was, at times, a difficult person to be around, and not a good person to be around. Most of us who were Yamada Sensei’s students would say that was his human side. That’s really not what I choose to focus on right now. There’s always baggage with any teacher, hopefully less with some than with others. What I like to look at is the net result of my time with Yamada Sensei, which was a resounding positive experience. Even to this day, looking back at the New York Aikikai, and Yamada Sensei’s classes, I would say that his primary gift was that he could hold the energetic matrix of a dojo and let all kinds of different energy come in. In his person to person teaching style, he never seemed to get angry with people who were struggling to keep up with the class and with what he was teaching. Or some people after the most detailed instruction remained clueless. I sensed that it was okay with him. To me, it didn’t seem to bother him at all. It didn’t even look like he was trying to control himself. If it wasn’t the time for a student to get the lesson, it wasn’t the time. I think that his attitude toward teaching had a way of putting people at ease. He seemed naturally non-judgmental. When I teach class in Seattle, I often catch myself when I’m trying to be too tight, or a little too strict. If I’m trying to impose my perspective on people, I remember Yamada Sensei, and I say to myself, “Let my students breathe. Let them have a good time. Allow them to feel comfortable in the dojo and let them make out of it what they will, and they’ll come up with things. And the dojo will be a better place because of it.”

I had a few run-ins with Yamada Sensei, and we had our ups and downs, and I blamed him for lots of things back in the old days. Some of it really didn’t fit him and there was stuff that I needed to look closer at myself rather than to blame him. I wrote to him and apologized a good 15 years ago or so. I think it took him a while to hear it and that’s understandable. If I really am honest with myself, I feel it was a deep-rooted need, in myself, to individuate as an aikido teacher and as a person from Yamada Sensei. It was nothing negative about Yamada Sensei, it’s just as a child has to individuate from his dad – same for me. I didn’t realize that I was individuating, but looking back, I believe that’s what I was doing.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with the aikido community?

We’re all getting older, especially us senior aikido teachers. I’m now 65 years old. I feel that I’m approaching the culmination of 53 years of aikido practice. I have been very fortunate in having exposure to so many great teachers. I think that the mark of a good teacher is that they give their students a more direct path which will allow them to accomplish the same and more in a shorter time. That is my goal as a teacher. As a student, I never know from where the next pearl of wisdom will come. Often I learn things from my juniors on days that I have the humility to look.

I look forward to this juncture for Tenzan Aikido with its new membership in the USAF. I will strive to make it something that will greatly benefit us all.

Congratulations again, Bruce. The aikido community, and I believe the USAF, are very fortunate to have you involved as a teacher and leader in the art of aikido. 

Thank you very much, Josh. Thanks again for giving me this opportunity to talk.

If you’re interested in training with Bookman Sensei, he will be leading a seminar in Irvine, CA on October 14th. Register here.