Reviews of Three Aikido Camps

Santa Cruz Aikido Summer Retreat

Reviews of San Rafael Summer Retreat, Santa Cruz Aikido Summer Retreat and Boulder Aikikai Twentieth Summer Camp in the Rockies
By Yuki Hara*

It was my good fortune to attend three aikido camps this summer. "Aikido is aikido" but the variety of instructors, participants, and locations gives each of the camps a distinct flavor.

The Aiki Summer Retreat in San Rafael California celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. Held at Dominican University's brand new gymnasium from June 18 through June 24, the retreat offered instruction this year by Robert Nadeau Sensei, Frank Doran Sensei, Hiroshi Ikeda Sensei and Francis Takahashi Sensei. Early in the retreat, Doran Sensei asked us each to "pack away everything from the past" and keep ourselves open to the teaching given during the week. And there was plenty of teaching available: four hour-long classes each day and ukemi class taught by senior teachers inundated us with new ideas and fresh approaches to familiar concepts. Takahashi Sensei focused on weapons work, Nadeau Sensei taught energy classes each evening, while Doran Sensei and Ikeda Sensei challenged our open-hand techniques.

Between July 12 and July 16, the seventh annual Santa Cruz Aikido Summer Retreat was held at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Instructors were Motomichi Anno Sensei, Mary Heiny Sensei and Linda Holiday Sensei. Under their guidance, this retreat carried a more spiritual sensibility in our practice. Some days offered meditation or misogi practice as an option before breakfast, other days offered keiko in that time period. Morning practice ran from 9:15 until 11:45 with a fifteen-minute break. While digesting lunch, there was usually some mental stimulation available; one day a discussion of ukemi, another day a question and answer session with Anno Sensei. Afternoon keiko kept us lively, and weapons class after dinner gave us a less vigorous close to the day. Anno Sensei spoke of "peeling away the shell so the inner spark shows."

Boulder Aikikai held its twentieth annual Summer Camp in the Rockies at Colorado Mountain College outside Glenwood Springs, Colorado from July 30 through August 6. Mitsugi Saotome Shihan, Frank Doran Sensei and Hiroshi Ikeda Sensei shared instruction between the large gymnasium and a tent outdoors for weapons work. Senior students ran Focus classes in the small dojo, looking in detail at a stated topic. Ikeda Sensei suggested we train with new people, as traveling to this kind of a camp and training with the partners we see everyday was like traveling to Japan and eating only hamburgers -- it denied us the variety of new experiences that can be found only in such situations. Instead we should sample everything on hand and take home the things that we like. Boulder Camp culminated in the Battle of the Clans where we could watch decades of practicing a non-competitive art dissolve into fierce aggression once we were turned loose.

Three camps in less than two months meant a lot of new information, a lot of new people, and a lot of frustration. It was challenging to look for the similarities among all the styles and try to explore the differences -- but that's what aikido travel is all about.