Ancestors, not of blood, but of spirit
Imagine getting a chance to play with your favorite sports star. Hitting a pitch from Roger Clemens, or catching a pass from Joe Namath.
That’s a little bit what it was like for me today, as I got to train with Yoshimitsu Yamada, a legendary figure in aikido. Yamada Sensei was one the students of the founder of aikido. The founder, after training Yamada Sensei to be one of the most proficient aikidoka in the world, sent him to New York City to introduce this unique martial art to the eastern part of the country.
My sensei, Laura Jacobs Pavlick, was in turn, a long-term student of Yamada Sensei. So she organized a visit from our dojo to Yamada Sensei’s dojo, and 10 of us in two vans took off for Manhattan this morning.
Yamada Sensei is 80 years old, but he does not look it on the mat. We worked on a couple of different throws, and at one point, he came over and corrected my partner and I on technique, demonstrating by throwing me himself a couple of times.
There was nothing particularly special about his throw, but it was just the idea of getting thrown by one of aikido’s greats that…well, threw me.
It made me think of my lineage, as well. As a student of Pavlick Sensei, I am the third generation in a direct line of descent from the founder. That’s about as close to the source as you can get these days.
Each of those original students took something different away from O’Sensei, the founder of aikido, depending on the time they trained with him and their own personalities.
As I watched Yamada Sensei this morning, I saw so many similarities between his style and Pavlick Sensei’s style, as makes sense, having been transmitted from master to student. But there are differences as well, as Pavlick Sensei’s own techniques have become interwoven with her own proclivities, her own personality.
And, no doubt, had I a video, I could see some of those same commonalities in me as well, albeit a bit clumsier and considerably less adept. I’m probably not too difficult to spot as a student of Pavlick Sensei, as she has been my teacher since the early 1990s. And, perhaps, as my own skills grow, that style being changed somewhat by my own view of the world.
But it is all of an as-yet unbroken chain, passing down through the generations. When I watch Yamada Sensei, as when I study the techniques of Pavlick Sensei, I see both soft and hard, passionate and compassionate, rapid and slow, the yin and yang of a martial art that is far more rich and subtle than simply a method of self defense. It is a study of the self, and a portrait in which you can see those who came before you.
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Dr. Avery Jenkins is a chiropractic physician also practicing acupuncture and clinical nutrition in Litchfield, CT. He also holds a 2nd-degree black belt in the martial art of aikido. www.averyjenkins.com
