Yatta! Yokota Shihan from Tokyo visits Himeji

Okay, so I haven't been posting the best entries lately for a couple of reasons. To start, I've been lacking in inspiration and also have forgotten to bring my camera around with me. Hopefully I can come up with some interesting things to mention, but unfortunately I haven't brought my camera with me to anything. So no pictures.

I'll start with the amazing aikido seminar this weekend. Our dojo hosted Yoshiaki Yokota Shihan (7th degree black belt) out of the Tokyo home dojo. I got to the budokan (building dedicated to martial arts) here in Himeji at 11:00 Sunday morning to have lunch and help set up for the seminar. It's a beautiful brand new building, with several enormous rooms for large martial arts demonstrations and seminars. Let's just say it was amazing. Yokota Shihan had this amazing fast, smooth, powerful aikido. At one point he was jumping behind his attacker/partner before tossing him across the room.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We were supposed to be putting out mats, about 250 of them or so, but somehow I got assigned to serving tea to the Shihans with another girl, Miho.

Serving tea.
Somehow this turned into a very sureal experience. At one point I was wandering the corridors that were circling a room filled with 100 people in kendo armor beating each other with sticks, holding a tea kettle and trying to figure out where the shihans were. How did I get to this point in my life? Now, normally things in Japan seem to run extraordinarily smoothly. Probably because stereotypically, they practice for events over and over and over. I'm not kidding. Anyway, after a long hunt for the Shihans, a search for tea cups, another search for Onishi-san, who had the hot water, a tray to carry the tea cups on, and ten minutes spent trying to open the bag containing the tea, we finally got the tea and all served. Note- Miho almost walked in on a room full of male shihans changing clothes before quickly backtracking and muttering "abunai, abunai, abunai" (dangerous!).

No suits!
Another delightful morning occurance was that everyone, not just me, showed up underdressed. Yatta! Normally, JETs and other foreigners all have an experience or two of showing up in jeans or something casual, to be the only person not in suit and tie. At which point they feel mightily embarrassed and the feeling of not fitting in really sinks in. But there was something uniting for me in having about 10 Japanese people all wishing they'd gone more formal. Really, this discussion about what to do lasted all morning. But that's really just a point for other people in Japan.

Practice!/ Keiko!
Anyway, so after serving tea and all we started practice. First there was a kids class, which about 100 people (not kids) participated in. It was great. We had a short break, then the adults class started. ahhh! It was amazing. Yokota Shihan was just tossing his ukes around. A couple of times he came over and tried to give me some pointers. I felt special. A little background for the non-aikidoists reading this... At seminars, here and in the US, there is always some point the teacher is trying to make about a technique. So the teacher speaks and demonstrates, then I quickly try to find the closest black belt to me and bow to them, forcing them to work with me. So I got to work with some really great people and aahhh, they are so good. So after class we picked up mats, sociallized, changed and moved on to drinking.

PARTY!!!!
After cleaning up mats I went to the locker room and changed and hurried off to dinner. I sat down next to Murayama Sensei and two seats down from Jikuhara Sensei and some more people from my dojo. I love these two guys. They are both completely hilarious in totally different ways that they are totally unconcious of. Murayama sensei is a 4th degree black belt and Jikuhara Sensei a 3rd. Murayama sensei will be totally quiet for a bit, then will really really rapidly say or do something. Jikuhara sensei always tries to speak with me in broken English and only now seems a little less nervous in doing so. Like, everyone here can speak a little bit of English (except Yamada shihan), but they all get really nervous and jittery at the prospect of doing so. It's great.

Anyway, I should wrap this up- this has gotten to be an absurdly long entry and I doubt anyone is still reading this. I mean, I wouldn't be. Last thing- the party. Food was uncharateristically scarce, the "viking" food selection ran out pretty quickly. "viking" here means all you can eat/drink. I'm still trying to figure out how they came up with that one. Anyway, at least the beer/sake didn't run out. At Japanese drinking parties everyone sort of makes rounds and socializes/ kisses up to seniors and pours everyone drinks. I got to talk with Yokota Shihan for a bit, he was really enthusiastic about practicing English. Apparently he'll be in Chicago at Midwest Aikido in the fall, so everyone back home should find out where and when that will be.

I also got to talk to this guy, Fujita Sensei, who's running a dojo in Kobe. I talked with him at our last drinking party in November. (Another thing, Japanese people all remember if they've trained with me, talked with me at a party, anything down to just seeing me entering a convenience store. I mean, how many blonde foreigners do they see? I'm memorable. But dammit, how do they expect me to remember every Japanese person I meet?) One of Fujita sensei's favorite activities is grabbing any of the shy Japanese men that are terrified of talking to foreigners forcing them to "practice english" with me. At one point, he was holding a college student down in his chair because the student kept trying to jump up and run away. We have fun.

Oh my God! I almost forgot, the best part. My dojo keeps suggesting I come up with a nickname, but I'm determined to make them pick one for me if I'm to have one. So Sunday they suggested one. Ar-chan. Which is HILARIOUS. Because they all call me Arison, due to some confusion about last/first names and Japanese pronounciation. So Ar-chan would be an abbrieviation of the mis-pronouciation of my first name. I hope it doesn't stick. I think it's worse than Baaksan, which is what my vice principal at school shouts across the staffroom when he wants me. Anyway, this is an incredibly long entry, so I'll cut out now. Did anyone make it this far?