Composition by Bruce Scott. . July-09
On my trip home to Australia earlier this month, I was very lucky to be in Queensland at the same time as Shimamoto Shihan from Osaka. Shinamoto Shihan was in Australia to teach a three day seminar organized by David Kolb sensei of Bayside Budokai dojo.
David Kolb sensei is always very open to inviting all interested aikido people to any events that he organizes and the members of Chicko sensei’s Noosa Fudoshin dojo always make an effort to attend.
Shimamoto Shihan is a wonderful man whose kindness shows through in all his actions.
In his daily life Shimamoto Shihan is a Buddhist priest. His very deep and clear expression of aikido is a beautiful integration of aikido and Zen principles.
On the day of the seminar I woke early and watched the sunrise over the sea at Noosa beach. It was the beginning of a perfect cool clear Australian winter day. Dolphins swam in the ocean and the morning air was filled with the sounds of bird song, life awakening.
I met up with the other members of the Noosa Fudoshin dojo and we drove the one and a half hours down to Brisbane together.
When we got to the dojo we were greeted by many friendly faces and warmly welcomed. The seminar was held in an old church hall, a beautiful space with high ceilings and lovely stained glass windows that let all the winter sunlight stream through. The hall was full of a lightness, both from the space and the winter sun but also a lightness of spirit.
When stepped on to the tatami and moved to sit in seiza I felt a strong change in the room, a deepening. Even this simple act of walking across the room and sitting down had a great depth to it.
Shimamoto sensei spoke to us a lot through out the day about Zen and aikido. For every waza that we practiced sensei would share some visualization about the movement. When we sat in seiza we weren’t just to sit we were to imagine our selves as a castle, like Himeji, with a base of strong stone walls deep into the earth and as immovable. Around the stone walls there is a pond of clear water. When the surface of the water is calm then you can see clearly the reflection of the sky, the clouds floating and the sun by day and the moon and a million stars by night. But if your mind is to busy you make waves on the water and then you can’t tell if it’s the moon or the sun that you are looking at.
When your mind is calm then the surface of the water is calm and you can relax and enjoy the view, in this state if anyone tries to attack your castle, first they will have to cross this clam water and you will be able to see the ripples long before the attack arrives.
When we did ryote dori nage was to imagine that he was holding a new born baby and to gently put the baby on the tatami. ‘Hard aikido is easy, beautiful aikido is more difficult. Let’s try to do beautiful aikido’.Shimamoto Shihan’s seminar was a lovely day of aikido and sharing. It was fantastic to train with so many people from different dojos around Australia. And it was great to see friends from A.K.I dojos in Canberra, Sydney and Noosa who all made the trip to Brisbane for this special day.
David Kolb sensei is always very open to inviting all interested aikido people to any events that he organizes and the members of Chicko sensei’s Noosa Fudoshin dojo always make an effort to attend.
Shimamoto Shihan is a wonderful man whose kindness shows through in all his actions.
In his daily life Shimamoto Shihan is a Buddhist priest. His very deep and clear expression of aikido is a beautiful integration of aikido and Zen principles.
On the day of the seminar I woke early and watched the sunrise over the sea at Noosa beach. It was the beginning of a perfect cool clear Australian winter day. Dolphins swam in the ocean and the morning air was filled with the sounds of bird song, life awakening.
I met up with the other members of the Noosa Fudoshin dojo and we drove the one and a half hours down to Brisbane together.
When we got to the dojo we were greeted by many friendly faces and warmly welcomed. The seminar was held in an old church hall, a beautiful space with high ceilings and lovely stained glass windows that let all the winter sunlight stream through. The hall was full of a lightness, both from the space and the winter sun but also a lightness of spirit.
When stepped on to the tatami and moved to sit in seiza I felt a strong change in the room, a deepening. Even this simple act of walking across the room and sitting down had a great depth to it.
Shimamoto sensei spoke to us a lot through out the day about Zen and aikido. For every waza that we practiced sensei would share some visualization about the movement. When we sat in seiza we weren’t just to sit we were to imagine our selves as a castle, like Himeji, with a base of strong stone walls deep into the earth and as immovable. Around the stone walls there is a pond of clear water. When the surface of the water is calm then you can see clearly the reflection of the sky, the clouds floating and the sun by day and the moon and a million stars by night. But if your mind is to busy you make waves on the water and then you can’t tell if it’s the moon or the sun that you are looking at.
When your mind is calm then the surface of the water is calm and you can relax and enjoy the view, in this state if anyone tries to attack your castle, first they will have to cross this clam water and you will be able to see the ripples long before the attack arrives.
When we did ryote dori nage was to imagine that he was holding a new born baby and to gently put the baby on the tatami. ‘Hard aikido is easy, beautiful aikido is more difficult. Let’s try to do beautiful aikido’.Shimamoto Shihan’s seminar was a lovely day of aikido and sharing. It was fantastic to train with so many people from different dojos around Australia. And it was great to see friends from A.K.I dojos in Canberra, Sydney and Noosa who all made the trip to Brisbane for this special day.
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Bruce scott is another of our new generation A.K.I. members now living in Japan and studying Aikido at the Dojo of Takeda Yoshinobu Shihan. Bruce is much appreciated by all members of AKI Fudoshin Dojo for his determined committment to further developing his humanity through Aiki practise.
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Chicko.
