This fall marked Kimberly Richardson Sensei's 25th year of training.   In this article she shares with us a few of the memorable moments that stand out when looking back over a quarter-century of Aikido.

              25 YEARS

    AND MORE INTRIGUED THAN EVER

O n a summer afternoon at Naropa Institute in 1978, my life took a new direction.   On my way to dance class I noticed an unfamiliar group of people using the studio space.   They wove in circles about the room, clad in white uniforms with cotton belts secured around their waists. I didn't know what

I was looking at, but I was stirred by the movements of the stately woman dressed in a floor-length black pleated skirt.   She had the look of the Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova.  
   
     I didn't know anything about the martial art of Aikido then or that I was viewing a unique scene.   Few Aikido teachers in America or in the world then were women.   But in a flash I knew that whatever she was doing, I wanted to do.   Whatever aspiration I had to dance for a living shifted in that moment.   I signed up for classes.

Six months later I received a call from a dear dancer friend who had moved from Boulder to Seattle.   We had shared several phone conversations about my newfound obsession.

"You have to see this woman," she said. "I found a job sewing futons.   My boss has a cozy work-space in her basement where she creates these traditional Japanese beds.   She also teaches Aikido.   What a coincidence!   I tried a class with her and you're right: it's a lot like dancing, only different.   You'd love this lady.   Come out for the weekend; you can check her out."  

Something about this lead seemed right.   Following my hunch I packed a bag and flew to Seattle the following week.   As I entered the doorway of Seattle School of Aikido, Mary Heiny Sensei extended her hand towards mine.   Her sparkling eyes radiated delight.   I began training that week, including 6:30am classes.   My Boulder roommate kindly sent me my belongings.   Seattle became my new home.

Mary Heiny

Initially, as a teacher, Mary seemed to be two people.   At first she presented warm and inviting, even giggly.   Then on the mat she pierced the walls with her lines.   It's hard to describe how Mary Heiny demonstrates 'ruthless' energy in training.   Her physical presence initially appears soft.   But her posture is unwavering and she is deeply connected to the ground, like an oak tree.   A tree is a great metaphor.   Unfettered by all climate conditions, a tree's roots link its trunk to the earth and allow its branches to extend to the sky like the arms of Vishnu.    Mary directs her power through a solid vertical line that is infinitely connected up and down.   Students who have taken ukemi from her describe that in the microsecond after they attack, they can't find her; she disappears in front of their eyes as she slips behind them, and reappears when they land on the ground.   Most days in class she told us we were the center of the universe and divinely directed.  

Dealing with fear

Though I was absorbed by training, I was scared, too.   Besides feeling clumsy and remedial about the movements, I couldn't remember the names of any of the techniques.   But the more experienced students were welcoming, most of them.   One black belt said that he had two left feet also, indicating that my lack of right and left discrimination was not criminal.    Another black belt made a point of training with me most every day.   Six months into my practice, I ran into him at the laundromat.   "You really aren't cut out for this, are you?," he snickered.  "What do you mean?" I stammered, my disappointment quickly shifting to ire.   Even if I didn't feel confident on the inside, I thought I was masking quite well.   But what I remember most keenly is the feeling of vowing to prove him wrong.   Looking back on that moment, I sense what a gift he gave me.  

Inspiration from Terry Dobson

Terry Dobson Sensei was a big man with a big heart. I had a rare opportunity to accompany him on a training tour down the west coast in the late 1980s. Although in a fragile state of health, he greeted students with a generous smile and live-blade attention.   When he was teaching, one glance from him and you'd better be running as fast as you could to strike him.   His very presence encouraged students to imagine what it must have been like to train with O'Sensei.

On one afternoon between classes, we sat on a street corner in Ashland, Oregon, watching traffic go by and comparing first and favorite training partners. He told me his first training partner was a tree.   It talked to him.   There was a rapport.   I was struck by his choice of a tree as a worthy partner.   It had simply not occurred to me that I might shomenuchi a tree.

The following year I journeyed to the Northern California coast town of Tomales to study psychotherapy.   There wasn't a dojo nearby.   After 10 years of training in a tight-knit unit at Seattle School, I was at a loss as to how to maintain my training.   I remembered Terry's words.   I put on my hakama, went to the woods, and found a tree.

Two Cranes' beginnings

Just days after we decided to consciously look for a new training space in 1995, Daniel McAbee noticed that the local movie store had gone out of business. The ceiling, for that matter the entire video store, was clad in a dank raspberry-red hue.   How could anyone have imagined this space as a future dojo?  
    From August 1 to October 3, Richard Darby, Dan and myself tore down walls and pasted them back up, and disposed of antiquated lighting.   Fabulous Gene Duarte mudded and spackled.   We thought about leaving the ceiling red...not.   Joey Permutter and others lent a hand as we poured 4,000 pounds of rubber dust into the space.   We hung the shomen calligraphy the afternoon of October 4, 1995, and our first class happened that evening.

A moment with a mentor

Recently I was complaining to a wise consultant about how I struggle to describe Aikido. This struggle is particularly prevalent when I am engaged in a writing class with a group of dedicated authors who are unfamiliar with Aikido.   In a piece of writing I mentioned in passing about nage protecting his/her opponent. Before I could go on to my real point, I was met with, "Why would you do that?" "Because if you could neutralize her mismanaged aggression in a graceful manner, everybody wins," I offered. "Hmmm?," was the general response.

"I've got one for you," said this mentor.   "How about going to a methadone center and explaining to 12 middle-aged women about the role of suffering in our lives and the First Noble Truth, while reminding them to be grateful for their karma.   After that I told them we were all going to meditate."   He   leaned back in his chair, laughing so hard he just about fell backwards.    "Ten breaths," he said, "ten in and out."   Then he leaned forward and got real quiet. "You know, half of those women are too checked out to hear any of it.   But several may have got a zing.   They could have woken up for a moment.   Tasted it.   It only takes a moment to wake up.   And it only takes one to shift world consciousness."

25 years later

I find great pleasure in being a part of a dynamic community drawn together to practice aikido on and off the mat.   The more I dive in, the deeper the waters flow and the more currents there are to ride.   The more I dive in, the more esoteric, compelling, and mysterious the study becomes.

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Preparing for Black Belt  -- Two Reflections on Sho Dan Ho

One of the best things about getting ready for any test is the amount of ukemi I start trying to take.  

There are two reasons why my favorite part of Aikido is learning ukemi.   First, all the things I need to work on in order to correctly perform an Aikido technique as nage are even more evident when I am uke. I lean over and soon my nose hurts from smacking into other people's hands.   I don't loosen up and Dan MacAbee soon gets that look in his eye that tells me I have taken him to the edge of his patience and kindness yet again, and I am about to get a kick that will loosen a whole array of joints for years to come.   I don't bend my knees and the rolls start hurting,      a lot.  

So, instead of obsessing about all those here-be-dragons-in-my-head details about doing techniques, I can focus on those basic body things Sensei has been telling me to work on for the past eight years.   And it is those basic elements of body alignment and supple-ness that will allow me to do the here-be-dragons-in-my-head details of the techniques.

The other reason ukemi is so wonderful is that I get to fall in love with everyone in the dojo over and over again.   Heck, some days I leave the dojo after a few hours of practice not knowing if I'm straight, gay, bi, transsexual or what!   The practice of giving a clean attack and then staying with the defender's response as long as possible is wonderful.   Richard described a moment years ago when he first started taking ukemi from Kimberly Sensei.   He said in one irimi-nage he could feel himself falling into her heart.   I thought that was exactly what ukemi can feel like.   The more I can give a clean technique and figure out how to be supple enough to receive the technique, the more I fall into nage's heart.   And such moments are sublime.

Of course, many times I forget about the supple part and get consumed with merely attacking on a line.   I equate that with giving an egocentric attack rather than an ego-less attack.   When I open my own heart my attack is cleaner and the ability to connect with my partner expands infinitely.   My body begins to loosen and the combination of an open heart and a supple body opens the possibility for a wonderful heart-to-heart connection.   The connection can be extraordinarily intimate and oddly impersonal in a very clean way.   I keep falling in love with everybody, but I am still very happy to go home to my wife Karen every night, thank you very much.

For shodan, I just kept trying to work on opening my muscles, including the heart, so I could better connect.   Of course, I failed frequently and publicly.   So it goes.   But, I know from taking ukemi from so many wonderful people I have had the chance to fall into many beautiful hearts, and thereby opened up my own a little more.   Thank you.

--Jonathan Miller-Lane

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After my ikkyu test, Jonathan Miller-Lane   gave me a big hug and said, "Julie, do you remember when you first started?"   We both smiled then laughed, recalling a certain deer-in-headlights, shell-shocked beginner who, against all   odds, kept coming back to   the dojo.  

Utterly bewildered is what I was.   I'd watch the teacher demonstrate some hieroglyphic movement, and soon the dreaded moment would come when it was my turn to try it.   I'd stick out my hand (I could manage that part) but then I would freeze up, not having the slightest idea how to begin.   What was the first step?   If I didn't know where to put my first foot (and which one was that?), I was completely lost.   And to make matters worse, I thought I should somehow know how to do this.   Mercifully, my training partners would point me to my first step (and after that to my second and third and so on, because I kept getting stuck, over and over and over).   Finally the claps would ring out to rescue me (until the next time).

Jonathan was one of the many who showed me acts of kindness over the years, from tiny to gargantuan, which helped me to trust that Two Cranes was a safe place to "come as you are."   This generous and loving community, along with my stubborn determination and avid curiosity, kept me coming back.   And ever so gradually, over time, things shifted.

A different woman showed up for my black-belt test, on my 46 th birthday in June.   This one was open-hearted and present; she seemed to be in a flow of joy for the whole half-hour.   She was able to connect graciously with her ukes, to respond with a sense of play to whatever was coming at her.   She smiled, genuinely, and she seemed to move freely with grace and ease.   At least that's what it felt like from the inside.   It was immensely enjoyable.   In my test, I experienced how I'd like to live and relate to the world around me all the time.

SHO DAN, first step.   For me, aikido is about learning to love myself and to connect with others with an open heart.   I think I have a first-step level of mastery at this, which is to say I have tasted it and want more.   In many parts of my life, I still go deer-in-headlights sometimes, getting stuck on the first step and trying to get it "right" (even when I have no idea what that is).   But now I have the image of my black-belt test to call on, to see if I can channel even just a small amount of the energy I was running that day.   Can I play with this "stuck" spot, with this relationship, decision, or conflict?   Can I catch myself in judgment and replace it with curiosity?   If I can I bring that energy in more and more and more, perhaps someday, maybe, that'll be what flows through me naturally.

--Julia Field

Mu Yoku:   A Nidan Treatise

by Lenonard Ruiz Rede

"To practice properly the Art of Peace, you must:

Calm the spirit and return to the source.

Cleanse the body and spirit by removing all malice, selfishness, and desire.

Be ever-grateful for the gifts received from the universe, your family, Mother Nature, and your fellow human beings."

--Morihei Ueshiba

I recall when I first started training in Aikido my first instructor asked me, why I was training?   I told him that I was interested in changing my instincts; I wanted to develop new habits, a whole new interactive paradigm.   When time came around to asking me about testing, my response was, "Oh, no. I plan on training for the rest of my life, but I have no interest in testing."   "You don't want a black belt?" he asked me incredulously.    "No," I simply replied, "That's not why I am here."

Ironically, this path that I have chosen has significantly changed my life in ways that I could never have fathomed those many years ago.   Last winter when I went to Santa Cruz to train with Anno Sensei I saw this Kanji hanging in the dojo that read " Mu Yoku ."   I asked Linda Holiday Sensei about this calligraphy and she told me that Michio Hikitsuchi Sensei, chief instructor of the Shingu Dojo, had given it to her.   She said that MU means "not" and YOKU means, "desire."   Desire can mean many things, positive and negative.   Yoku is often used in a negative sense, as in greed, avarice, and attachment.   So MU YOKU can be interpreted as "desirelessness" or "nonattachment."

This calligraphy spoke to me.   It seemed to be putting in words what I was feeling.   Here's my conundrum.   How do I prepare for something I do not want?   Not just the time, pain and physical and psychological effort but something that I do not desire.   And is not wanting to test a bad thing?   And if that's the question, why test at all?

My past is littered with the remains of issues both complex and Napoleonic.   In order for me to take any martial training seriously I must not take it too seriously.   I never want to lose touch with the real reasons I am here.

Real illumination for me came in the preparation for testing.   The testing process itself became a work.   It is the time when I actually feel like I was working like an artist, I am my own canvas, my mind and body the instrument.   I am reminded of choreographer Martha Graham speaking on the work of the artist.   She said it was "...not your business to determine how good your work is."   And, "...You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work."   Then, finally, that "There is no satisfaction whatever at any time."   She said that the artist seems to live with a "...queer, divine dissatisfaction."

This process has ended up being about my fears, my darker self.     I have to let go of my own fears and anxieties and just move "as if" I had no doubt I could move.   Move without malice, without attachment, without fear, without desire.   Desirelessness,    I still am not quite sure what it means.   But, Linda Sensei warned me that Mu Yoku was a Koan.  

During the trying times in my life, the dojo has always been a safe haven for me, a place where I could spark some joy into my day no matter what was going on outside the dojo. So why test?   It is neither my doubts nor my hesitations that push me forward; testing has never been about me.   It is about this dojo, this community.   I feel a debt, to commit to this process for these people around me.   I owe so much to so many people at this dojo for their friendship, instruction and support.   It   is my wish to in some way give something back to this dojo.   More than a gift to the dojo I feel that the testing process has been a gift from this community to me.

Thank you.  

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