An unofficial tour of Hombu Dojo

By L. Klein

Editor's note: Liese Klein is our reporter from Hombu dojo. She will be providing a picture of what it is like to live in Japan and practice at Aikikai Headquarters. Her column promises to be entertaining and can provide insight for those considering such a pilgrimage.

My first few days in Tokyo I was greatly impressed by the contrasts all around me-especially the contrast between big and small.

After the wide-open spaces of the United States, I was suddenly surrounded by these strange squashed buildings, tiny toy cars and quite petite people.

On the other hand, there were these huge black crows the size of small dogs, frighteningly large crowds and skyscraper-high prices. My first experiences at Hombu Dojo reinforced this impression. After an endless afternoon lost in Tokyo's largest train station and a bus ride stuck in traffic, my first reaction on seeing the dojo was "Is that all?"

Instead of the imposing temple of Aikido I was expecting, it was just a squat brownish building without a single English sign, fronted by the kind of brownish stucco that marks an "old" Tokyo building (circa 1960s).

But my first few classes brought home another contrast-namely, the staggering number of people that seemed be crammed into the dojo for class. How many people can you fit on one tatami mat? It seemed physically impossible to do Aikido in such crowded conditions. My first few weeks I frequently experienced a kind of "mat rage" as I felt people were constantly invading my personal space. Luckily, I didn't know enough Japanese to cuss anyone out.

But now the rhythms and quirks of Hombu Dojo seem natural to me, and frankly, it's sometimes hard for me to imagine training anywhere else.

So what exactly is Hombu Dojo like? Literally, its a five-story building in the Shinjuku Ward of Tokyo, about a 20 minute walk from the Kabukicho entertainment district. (Lots of fun!) There are 500 regular students practicing on three floors of mats.

The first floor has offices and changing rooms for the senseis and the second has the women's changing room, more offices and a smaller mat for beginner's, kids and private classes. The third is where I spend most of my time, with a large mat for general classes and the men's changing room. (I hang out in the dojo.) The fourth has another smaller mat and uchideshi (live-in student) rooms. The fifth is my second favorite floor, a kind of attic full of gis and hakamas that people stash up there between classes. Up there searching around for my gi I always get a real sense of history, and certainly the smell of history.

The large size of the dojo precludes a close-knit larger community for the most part, but there are regular events that bring all kinds of people together. Every three months or so the early risers get together for a session of soji or dojo cleaning, a real fiesta of grime considering the dusty Tokyo air. There are also tests about once a month which is a good time to hear verbal explainations of techniques from the teachers-but only if you can speak Japanese or bug a friend to translate for you. The results of the tests are posted a few days later in the second floor hallway.

My favorite event is Kagami Biraki, or the cleaning of the mirror, which takes place in January. First a group of people get together in the dojo parking area and fire up these huge steamers full of rice. Then they bring out these wooden bucket things made out of tree stumps, put in the rice and pound the heck out of it with mallets. In between poundings, some quick person has to move around the lump of rice mush. It's all very dramatic and noisy. What you end up with is this kind of taffy called mochi, which is really good if you bake it on a grill and put on soy sauce. For the dojo event, they put it in a kind of sweet bean soup that everyone eats in a ceremony on the third floor.

Another fun time is New Year's, where everyone packs into the third floor for midnight practice. If you're lucky like I was last year, you can get your joints crushed by an 8th dan!

Many members of the dojo also celebrate O Sensei's memorial day in April by taking a trip out to Iwama, the location of the Aikido shrine. People meet on the train platform in Tokyo and travel together an hour or so north to Ibaraki Prefecture, which is pretty rural in that area, even today. There is a ceremony at the shrine and then a mellow party under the trees outside the Iwama dojo. After warming up with a few dozen cups of sake, its always enjoyable to then take the (quite arduous) climb up the nearby mountain with a waterfall that is featured in some of those classic O'Sensei films. I hear the top is really nice, but I've always pooped out before getting there.

But don't make the mistake me and a Spanish friend did last year of visiting Iwama on any other day of the year. The shrine is closed and the Iwama dojo people chased us away from the gate like we were selling something or had some kind of disease. Neither of us had ever been literally shooed out of a dojo complex before. Go figure.

Lastly, another unique Tokyo event is the All-Japan Embukai (demonstration), where all kinds of Aikido groups from all over Japan get together to show their stuff in the Budokan (of rock concert fame). It's a day-long event, with thousands of people-even groups of students leading cheers for their Aikido clubs! The Hombu people get to give a group demonstration near the end. We all troop out in sex-segregated groups (boo) and do a few minutes of class led by one of the teachers. The two times I've done it have been truly nerve-racking as I fantasize about tripping on my hakama or forgetting ikkyo in front of the entire Aikido universe.

So that's it in a nutshell, and highly subjective and unofficial tour. For more information on Hombu Dojo schedules and such, see the official web page.

Next month: The international community practicing Aikido in Japan