I lived in Japan for almost two years courtesy of Uncle Sam. I was stationed at Camp Zama in the sticks outside of Tokyo. If you’ve never been to Japan then one thing you need to know about it is that Tokyo is very dense. You could literally be right on top of something great and never even know about it. While I was there, I was so stoked about learning aikido that it was killing me, but the only class I could find was once a week at the nearby naval air base. Not the intense training I had in mind. Hombu dojo was too far away.
Well consider this:
This is Sugawara Sensei doing his aikido-taiji blended form. As you can tell, he thinks outside of the box — something a bit rare in Japan from my experience. So I’m looking around the net, stumble across him and decide to see where he’s teaching — Machida on the Yamanote line about 15 minutes from where I lived when I was in Japan.
Good grief! Two years wasted. Ugh!
Now you see why I found living in Japan one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I felt there was so much potential there but simply no way to access it.
Oh if I had only known. 
7 responses so far ↓
1 Ed // May 16, 2008 at 11:02 am
There are lots of other good teachers in Japan as well
So, what DID you study (in terms of martial arts) while you were in Japan, anyway?
2 Dave Chesser // May 16, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Not much. I circle walked and did the bagua and xingyi I already knew. I sparred with anyone i could find.
I did take some iaido classes on the army base in Sagamihara. The guy was very good and left a strong impression with me, but he was extremely intense and I didn’t stay in the class.
If only the I-net was as developed then as now. Oh well.
3 Morgan Buchanan // May 16, 2008 at 3:42 pm
my scottish mum has a saying :
“if it’s for you then it won’t go past you”
so maybe not two wasted years
cheers
morgan
4 Ed // May 16, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Ah - well, Zama is sort of in a weird place, after all (even though this taiji-aikido chap seems to have been under your nose while you were there).
But yeah, Internet helps nowadays
5 meow // May 17, 2008 at 4:30 am
did u look into the koryu arts @ all? tonnes of gold there my friend
6 Scott // May 17, 2008 at 11:10 am
Hmm, the key to enjoying Tokyo may be having nothing to do.
7 kabbala // May 23, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I don’t think he’s doing taijichuan form. he doesn’t obey rules, for example knee exceeding footprint. and most of his action is aikido itself.
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