So now it is time - the story has to be told :)
From the 26th. of March to the 8th.. of April we were a small group that went to Japan to meet a lot of other aikido people. But it was not for Aikido practice :) Through our Aikido teacher Yoshigasaki Sensei, a cultural visit was arranged. We where to try 8 different art forms:

1. Pottery (Togei)
2. Calligraphy (Shodo)
3. Seal Carving on wood or stone (Chokoku)
4. Flower Arrangement (Ikebana or Kado)
5. Tea Ceremony (Sado)
6. Art of Perfume (Kodo)
7. Japanese Dance (Odori)
8. Japanese Song (Minyo)



We had several wonderful teachers, master in their own right and many wonderful people to help us getting around, and showing us different sites of Japan in the short breaks between seminars, but more of that later!

The next few weeks I will post diary and pictures from the trip, in completely lose order :)

After the seminars ended on the 1st. of April - 5 of us, Randi, Kimiko (aka Lisa), Peter, Finn and me (Michael) travel for a week more, visiting Kyoto and Tokyo.

It is with the almost end I will begin!

See next entries about our last day, training with Kato Sensei and our 3th. last day visiting the Apple Store in Ginza!

/Michael

We received all our pottery today, together with a very nice gift from our Ikebana teacher, see the pictures here..

Hi
Randi made a fantastic web page with pictures, movies and text from our trip, please click on Japan on her aikido site here
or use direct link here

Wow :) Well this is mostly for Mac-freaks!
This is an incredible building!!

First to find the place you download the "Apple Store Locations for iPod" (works best on a black U2 edition of the iPod)
from Enrique Quintero Design (freeware) - Go to Tokyo Japan, and fire up your iPod! the Apple Store Locations will tell you to get of the subway at Ginza! It takes one minute walk ! Well its seems like Ginza has a lot of Ginza "Something" subway stations, but we got of at one of the one that is four minutes walk away from The Store :)



As you will see even our hardcore Windoze friend Peter surrendered :) By the way: on our second visit to the Apple store he and Kimiko got the most fantastic headset from Bose - fantastic sound!

Enough talk, here are the pictures: http://homepage.mac.com/kiaikido/PhotoAlbum24.html

Oh - before you look at the few pictures, thank you very much to the Assistant Store Manager Fumitoshi Sato-sama for his very nice and helpful way - greeting to him from the Danish mac-people!

/Michael

www.apple.co.jp/retail/ginza

Before we went to Japan, I asked on aikidojournal.com/forum and the aikiweb.com/forums what to see and any dojo could be recommended!
We got many got good advices!
From the aikido journal, Mike Collins suggested that we contacted the dojo of Kato sensei - and so we did!
(here you can see their pictures from our visit)
Already before we left Denmark we had contact with Nori sensei a student of and administrative assistant of Kato sensei, Nori sensei himself have been training with Kato Shihan for more than 40 years!

When we arrived to Tokyo I called Nori sensei, who faxed us location of the dojo where we could train on our last day in Japan 7th. of April.
This was app. 25 minutes from Shinjuku station in Tokyo - but very easy to find, Nori sensei and some aikido-students
meet us at the station, so we could take bus together and then walk trough the beautiful park.
The dojo we trained in was situated in a big sport centre at the end of the park.

What a training - we had planned for 2 hours, but got almost 3 hours keiko ! Empty handed, with jo and bokken.
It was very interesting for us, coming out of a different aikido school. I especially like the way Kato sensei lead "up" all the time - both Finn and me had the pleasure of being uke for Kato sensei and it was a wonderful feeling!!
Thank you to all the people training with us, and having patients with us (many new movements :)

After training we went to park to sit under the Cherry blossoms, have soda, beer and snack !!
Please see the pictures in the link below, to realise how nice it was!
Here Nori sensei gave us all a copy of a Aikido magazine with pictures and interview of Kato sensei.
Unfortunately it was in Japanese, but when we got home I received a translation to english of the interview - with permission to publish it - click here to read it! I scanned the photos from the article, and included them.

The day ended with a very nice dinner in very cosy in a good restaurant - Kato sensei and his students are cheerfully, easy going people, both in the dojo and outside!



If anyone goes to japan and have time for aikido I can only recommend that you go to a training in the dojo of Kato Shihan, he really have some good aikido to pass on to the new generation!

I know that he also travels to US - you can check out the site of Rocky Valley Aikido

/Michael

Photo album 1 , photo album 2 and photo album 3 - interview with Kato sensei - their pictures from our visit