TAYORI
Selected articles from Issue 1
August 2000
HILO SEISHIKAN
AIKIDO KICKS OFF!
As
the ancient saying goes, “even a journey of a thousand miles begins with the
first step.” We have started our
journey and taken that first step! Our
club will officially be in operation as of Monday, August 14, 2000. We are all very excited and looking forward
to developing the finest martial arts club anywhere!
Our
club’s name was chosen in consultation with the Reverend Daien Soga of Puna
Hongwanji. The “Sei” means “makoto”
which is righteousness, truth, sincerity.
The “Shi” means “kokorozashi” which means will, intention,
ambition. “Kan” means place or
building. Hilo Seishikan Aikido then,
is the place to come to develop the will to be honest, sincere, and righteous
through our training in aikido. We have
also named our aikido “O-shima-ryu Aikido,” which means simply, “Big Island
Style Aikido.” Aikido itself, is a
relatively new and modern budo. The
founder of aikido, Morihei Uyeshiba-sensei, began its development in the
1920’s. The word “aikido” may be
translated to mean “the way of harmony with
ki.”
The
focus of our aikido will be on “self-defense.”
The self-defense we will focus on is a “total self-defense,” including
mental, emotional, psychological, in addition to physical self-defense. Our practice sessions will be primarily
based on defending yourself in the case of a physical attack, but we will use
this to also instill other important aspects of self-defense in life. By learning to fall without getting injured,
one learns to protect himself against injury in many different real life
situations. Training hard and getting
in physical shape helps defend oneself against injury and illness. Extending ki, focusing and gaining awareness,
makes it possible for one to defend himself in many lifetime
situations—driving, playing, eating, fighting, studying, working—just about
everything! Discipline, learning to do
that which you “should” do and not
necessarily that which you
“want” to do, helps to defend oneself against making wrong decisions.
We
are an independent school of aikido, and as such we can include in our practice
any art or exercise that we feel will be beneficial to our students regardless
of its source. All of our focus is on
our students. It is our goal to instill
self-confidence by teaching our students to “defend” themselves in all aspects
of life. To this end, we will teach and
practice whatever we deem to be beneficial to our students.
There
will be no competition in our aikido.
We do not believe that competition spurs the kind of results we plan to
see in our students. There are winners
and losers in competition. In Hilo
Seishikan Aikido everyone is a winner!
