2000 USAF Eastern Region Winter Camp
With Shihan Yamada, Chiba, Kanai, Sugano and Shibata

Contributed by Jim Baker and Darrell Tangman*

*The authors, Jim Baker and Darrell Tangman, are participants on the aikido-l mailing list who had been reading each other's messages on the list for several years but had never met until the 2000 USAF Eastern Region Winter Camp. (For more about aikido-l, visit http://aikido-l.org).

Jim Baker is a large, broken primate who became addicted to Aikido at the New York Aikikai in the early 1970s. He founded the Aikido Society of Memphis, annoying and confusing Southerners with his idiosyncratic babbling. He currently lurks in Washington, DC with his wife, Wendy, who is the Deputy Medical Examiner of DC and a Budobabe. Wendy that is, not Jim; he's a Shidoin. They mythically keep wolves under their window in DC.

Darrell Tangman is a computer programmer who started his Aikido training under professor Taitetsu Unno while a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Urbana; he has since been a member of dojo in Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota and in Atlanta and Augusta (where he now lives and runs a tiny dojo) in Georgia.

DT: I'm not sure how long Peter Bernath Sensei and the Florida Aikikai have been hosting a major autumn seminar; I first attended one when he hosted a United States Aikido Federation annual meeting and Shihankai about twenty years ago, when I was a representative from the Midwest Aikido Federation. This year the Winter Camp was the 20th Anniversary celebration for the Florida Aikikai. The weather was beautiful this year, sunny and warm and not terribly humid (by Florida standards, of course). Attendance was excellent (or excessive, for those who aren't satisfied unless they get to take lots of big falls). Sunday morning Penny Bernath announced that official registration had reached 425.

JB: I got there on Thursday and found half a dozen old friends on line at the hotel check in. Aikidoists had already filled the hotel and there were at least three different languages being spoken in the lobby. The USAF Winter Camp has been attracting a sizable contingent from Latin America and there were people from Spain, France and a couple of places I couldn't identify. In addition to the 425 participants there were also 5 shihan! They were using the occasion to meet and discuss things along with honoring Peter Bernath Sensei and the Florida Aikikai on its 20th Anniversary.

JB: I was also there to watch one of my students test for Shodan so I did miss several of the classes while I was playing "mother hen". There were Thursday evening classes at Little Dink... er.. Bernath Sensei's dojo, which, I understand, were a bit full.

JB: Everyone wanted to attend Yamada Shihan's Friday morning class, which made for a long elevator wait. I wonder what the other guests thought of all these people wearing identical beachcomber pants. We drove or hitched rides over to the large gym which was covered with wrestling and tatami foam mats. Penny Bernath Sensei and the folks at Florida Aikikai made checking in a breeze.

JB: Yamada Shihan, after his usual jovial welcome, taught a very basic class of cross-hand grab attack with Kokyu, Nikyo, Irimi and Shihonage. He wanted to emphasize that you must first get to a position from which you could do the technique safely rather than racing to the finish. You had to be really cautious with so many people on the mat and there were some who tried to take up a lot of room. I found that if you simply take the space back from them, they would grumpily take up less room.

JB: Shibata Shihan also did cross-hand attack with Ikkyo, Nikyo, Sankyo, Yonkyo, Kote-gaeshi, Shihonage and Kaitennage. A number of people already started forming small groups because there was so little room to fall. The forms of the techniques were more idiosyncratic to Shibata Shihan, more West Coast than we are used to in the USAF-East, so you had to pay attention. The Nikyo, for example, looked to us neither Omote nor Ura, but something in-between; sort of a step back and to the side, drawing the uke into Nikyo with the undertow. (Hey, the hotel was right on the beach, so I can use local analogies.)

DT: I was struck by the difference in teaching styles. With Yamada Sensei we nearly always had time to get past the initial "How did he do that?" stage and try to hone each technique a bit; with Shibata Sensei it was essential to get right to work and try it out, because it was sometimes hard for each partner to do a technique four times before he moved on to the next technique.

DT: The afternoon was open, a particular convenience for those of us who ended up in meetings all afternoon. The seminar resumed at 6:00 on Friday evening with a class taught by Kanai Sensei, who focused on posture and precise positioning. The last class Friday was taught by Shibata Sensei, but I passed it up because the people I was riding with were leaving to do laundry and my back was acting up. Instead I ended up having a very pleasant dinner with Jo and Nancy Birdsong (from Aikido of Austin, over in Texas) in the pizza place next door to the laundromat.

JB: There was a long "beach break" until the evening class with Kanai Shihan. My notes don't show what techniques he did, mostly what I would call kokyunage, but he too emphasized clean position along with a full rotation of the hips at the end. Kanai Shihan wants you to finish with your back heel off the ground, fully using the Achilles tendon to push off, much as they do in Kendo. Most people unfamiliar with this just kept doing it the way they do it "at home". Why take a Shihan's class and not do what he is teaching?

JB: This is when I had to go to the airport to pick up a sober and clad Wendy, so I missed Shibata Shihan's second class. There was much drinking, dining and boardwalking that evening. You couldn't go anywhere without running into some Aikidoka. The T-shirts are a dead giveaway.

DT: Saturday morning started at 9:00 with a basics class by Yamada Sensei. Although the class was listed as "Basics/Kyu", there were a lot of yudansha on the mat. I think everyone who had been to a Winter Camp before was thinking the same thing -- it's only going to get warmer and more crowded as the day wears on. Sensei taught the omote and ura of techniques separately, which caused some confusion. We're so used to practicing omote and ura together that many people "saw" the ura demonstrated even though it wasn't and even though Sensei specifically said "ikkyo omote."

JB: The Saturday Yamada Shihan class is a bit of a blur and I'm so used to him that I can't remember what he did! I have a recollection of Shomen, with a lecture on the proper method of attack. "Accurate but not brutal." Much like what Dennis Hooker described in his letters. The attack should be short, not telegraphed, not wide and with intent.

JB: In the next class Sugano Shihan was more in lecture mode, though the acoustics made it impossible for the folks in the back to hear. Luckily, he was mostly repeating what he taught in Memphis when we had him down. You need centered balance and centered movement while doing techniques. This is important because the physical center moves up and down while you do a technique. He also talked about creating a "moment" with your uke, not waiting until he completes his attack, but joining him as he starts (or even before). Also the importance of "ma ai" (which is a mix of distance and relationship); creating it and breaking it. He also threw people a lot. I am always amazed at how Sugano Shihan can talk so much during class and still give people a strong workout.

DT: Sugano Sensei's class has become a blur in my mind. I think this was the class I bowed to a delightful young woman who turned out to be Dr. Wendy Gunther, who had clearly recovered from Friday night. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to practice with Jim, but we have now at least met. (For readers not familiar with aikido-l, Wendy was a long-time participant until she and Jim moved to Washington, DC, where she no longer has convenient access to e-mail. I had been reading their contributions to the list for several years, but this was the first time I had met either of them off-list.)

DT: The morning was rounded out by Kanai Sensei, who caused much bafflement with movements that weren't nearly as easy as they were simple. In particular, a katate tori kokyu nage that involves swinging the gripped hand up on the outside of uke's wrist and drawing uke forward and then around nage, after which uke ends up falling across the initial line of attack, resulted in an interesting variety of interpretations as we tried to find ways to do it in groups that didn't involve throwing uke into another group.

JB: The Winter Camp 2000 yudansha tests took about as long as the Election Results (from 12:15 to about 3:30). There were over 40 tests, with 28 Shodan tests. Yamada and Kanai Shihan had to sit through over three hours of something they've watched hundreds of times. Kanai Shihan was extremely stoic and barely moved, even though his health has not been the best of late.

JB: The tests were given to 8 candidates at a time, each paired off into four groups, reaching across the mat. Unfortunately the groups at the far end had a very tough time hearing Yamada Shihan call out the techniques. At one point, the spectators on the mat were prompting them by repeating the names loudly for them!

JB: As with all his Dan tests, Yamada Shihan started with Suwari-waza Shomen-uchi Ikkyo, Nikyo, Sankyo and Yonkyo, in that order, both omote and ura. If you had really bad knees, you could do it standing.

JB: The first set of 8 did the test as it appears on the USAF test sheets: 5 Katatori Menuchi, 5 Yokomenuchi, etc. He never called for Koshinage, though. They did knife take-aways and defense against jo and defense with jo. No bokken techniques this time, nor any Henkawaza. At the end, nage and uke switched roles, so the second person could test.

JB: The second set of 8 had to adjust to a switch. Sensei called out each attack and the candidate had to do, for example, Iriminage against it. The acoustics problem led to a lot of confusion until the nages finally figured out what was happening, although they still couldn't hear the names. The same thing happened with the third group, but with different techniques.

JB: After the last test, there were 28 multiple attacks. They were more polite than I remember seeing before, with ukes holding back and not attacking at one time. There was also more variety in the attacks; not just the lumbering Frankenstein with both arms out kind of attack. All in all, there were outstanding tests and some disappointing ones.

JB: I was busy outside the dojo, so I didn't get to see much of the Nidan and Sandan tests. Yamada Shihan really seemed to like the Sandan tests but seemed a little annoyed with the Nidan candidates.

JB: The Nidans took a while to get used to the format of the test, with all of them being uke to one nage. The idea was that the attacks would come sequentially, not all at once, so that nage would have to deal with fast, fresh attacks. Their confusion over the test format didn't allow some of the Nidan candidates to look as sharp as they might have otherwise.

JB: The Sandan tests were short, as time was running out and the candidates were really good. It was more of a showcase for them.

DT: Classes resumed with Shibata Sensei at 4:00. After the number of techniques that we had done in groups in the morning classes, many people were somewhat startled when he announced that there was to be no group practice. This was when he demonstrated kaitennage, which resulted in a lot of the not-falling-down variation of ukemi.

DT: Saturday classes closed with a black-belt class taught by Kanai Sensei, who talked at length about the importance of proper posture and how the body best generates power to drive a throw. We spent a large part of the class practicing ryotetori tenchinage with particular attention to the specific positions Kanai Sensei had demonstrated.

DT: Sunday morning consisted of two classes, one by Yamada Sensei at 9:00, and the last class of the seminar at 10:30, taught by Chiba Sensei. Those who had been bemoaning the lack of suwariwaza in the earlier classes should have gotten their fill with Chiba Sensei, who taught variations on kokyudosa and suwariwaza ryotetori kokyunage, then standing techniques based on the same movements. The highlight of this class, for me, was a henka waza that took us from a ryotetori kokyu/irimi nage (where the front hand is swung up in front of uke, then dropped across uke's opposite shoulder) to kata osae on the opposite arm. It looked pretty brutal the first couple times I saw it, but it eventually started to make sense, and I've been playing with it a bit since.

JB: The weather was glorious, the water was great and there were five shihan. What more could you want?