On Tuesday, several aikidokas from abroad visited our dojo.  Among them is Matti Joensuu Sensei, 6th dan and chief instructor of Kimusubi Dojo in Austria. 

I trained with him a little that day doing shomen-uchi suwari-waza at the start of class.  At the time, I had no idea he was a sensei and a 6th dan.  I did notice that he run lines similar to those of Takeda Sensei.  It’s very apparent in suwari-waza as I found myself often stretched from tip of my fingers to my toes while on one knee - fun stuff.  I later found out he is a student of Endo Sensei (who is teaching in Seattle this weekend).  Endo Sensei comes from the same lineage as Yamaguchi Sensei who is Takeda Sensei’s teacher.  That would explain the similarity.

Yet, as you would expect, he has his own style.  I found that out the next day when I attended class at Aikido at Willapa Bay.  Joensuu Sensei was the guest instructor.   We worked a bit on ukemi - front and back rolling to standing position, facing nage.  But the fun part was when he had us throwing two ukes at a time.  Of course, we didn’t start out doing that.  We first worked on standard katate-dori kokyu-nage.  The emphasis was on relaxing, then moving into uke’s center to connect - not so much that you push uke but enough to touch his center.  Then you move with your center, the elbows lifting not because you’re consciously lifting them but because it’s a natural result of you moving forward.

Maintaining the connection throughout the technique was something he emphasized over and over again.  This was especially important when I attempted to do ikkyo with two ukes hanging onto my one arm.  There’s the dropping of the elbow of course.  Relaxing is very important.  There has to be weight in your arm, settling slightly.  Then the connection is made by moving into uke’s center - except that with two ukes, the center is somewhere in between the two of them.  Once you’ve broken their balance, you move around to do ikkyo.  If you lose the connection when you move, it won’t work.  You have to keep them off balance the entire time.  Interesting stuff.

Then we moved on to throwing two ukes, one on each arm.  Joensuu Sensei said to imagine our arms like pendulum - like what we do with our arms during warm up as we swing them side to side.  The only difference is that you have an uke on each arm.  The arms are relaxed with weight underneath.  Then the hips move, swinging one arm forward while the other swing in the opposite direction.  Not entirely sure if that’s how he did it.  It’s what I saw.  It worked for me - the few times it did work anyways :)

It was a fun class over all.  The one thing that struck me was his humbleness.  When we all clapped at the end of class, he quickly waved us to stop.  You can tell he was embarassed.  Even more telling was how he kept telling us during class that it’s ok if we want to stop training and just watch, especially if we feel frustrated.  It’s as if he’s telling us that what he’s teaching is not for everyone and that it’s ok if we don’t do it - it won’t upset him.  That was new to me.   He’s not attached at all.  He seems to me to be someone who never intended to be a teacher but became one because of his incredible skill.  Teachers like him are the best I think.  No ego.  Just a desire to share what they know. 

It’s been a real treat to meet Joensuu Sensei and his friends from abroad.  I have to say that prior to Tuesday, I was feeling particularly uninspired in my aikido practice.   Sometimes you need a kick in the pants to get things started up again.  These visitors were especially inspiring.  It’s as if my body woke up.  For the first time in awhile, I realize how much fun ukemi can be, especially when thrown by people as skilled as they are.  They will all be at Endo’s seminar this weekend.  I can’t wait to train with them again. 

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