Liz and I drove down to Santa Fe, NM for the weekend to attend a seminar taught by Patricia Hendricks Shihan, hosted at Takemusu Aikido New Mexico. Hendricks Shihan is our Division Head and is a fantastic example of Iwama Style Aikido.
We left Colorado Springs early Friday morning, and stopped for lunch in Taos. The drive from Colorado Springs to Santa Fe was gorgeous. We rolled into Santa Fe around 3 PM and checked into our AirBnB. We’ve been using AirBnB frequently for Aikido events and we’ve had nothing but good experiences so far. The little Cocina we rented was no exception!
Liz and I drove into downtown Santa Fe to look around a bit. We walked around on foot for a few hours and settled in for a drink at the Secreto Lounge. We wandered over to the Friday night pre-seminar gathering around 6:30 or so. It was great to see Hendricks Sensei again. We were also happy to meet Jerome Buenviaje Sensei and his family! It was also great to see Charles and Tyffany from Kinjo Aikido Dojo (Wheat Ridge, CO).
The seminar started at 10 AM on Saturday morning. Hendricks Sensei, after a short warmup, dove right into teaching taijutsu. The mat was yudansha heavy, so she taught some fairly advanced techniques throughout the course of the weekend. We also worked on weapons a bit on Saturday. Sensei Hendricks is introducing terminology to describe the evolution of Morihiro Saito Sensei’s teaching (e.g. “Classic”, “New”, “Contemporary”). We worked a bit on “Contemporary” bukiwaza. Sensei provided some historical context on both the kumitachi and ken-tai-jo.
The traditional Saturday night party was held at Buenviaje Sensei’s home. We had a great time hanging out with both old friends and some new friends that we made during keiko on Saturday.
Keiko started up around 9 AM on Sunday. We jumped right in again. Lots of ki-no-nagare practice. More bukiwaza! Sensei has been working on formulating the 7th and 8th Ken-tai-jo, and we spent some time practicing both. I’d seen both at the Division 1 Weapons Intensive, but hadn’t really completely gotten either committed to memory, so this was a good opportunity. I practiced with Liz for most of the bukiwaza practice so that she and I could bring things home with us. Sunday focused heavily on Ki No Nagare and blending. Strong, solid attacks… Good Iwama Aikido… We had lunch with Sensei and our Division 1 colleagues. Afternoon keiko ran until about 3:00 PM or so. Once again, I asked to hear the “Buzzer story” during Sensei’s Q&A session. I love that story.
After stopping for fuel and a bag of Corn Nuts (a road trip snack that always reminds me of my maternal Grandfather), Liz and I pulled out of Santa Fe around 3:45. The drive home, under a “Hunter’s Moon”, was gorgeous and mostly uneventful.
The weekend was fantastic. We’re really really happy that we were able to make this seminar. The hospitality was fantastic. Thanks to Buenviaje Sensei and his family for hosting! We met some great folks doing some really strong Iwama Style Aikido. Among the folks we met this weekend were our nearby neighbors in Pagosa Springs (Aikido of the San Juans). It was great to both meet and practice with Bill and Lisa. We were also very lucky to meet senior Aikidoka from the Santa Fe and Albuquerque area.
John Wiley
Dojo-cho/Chief Instructor
Traditional Aikido of Colorado Springs
Wiley Sensei (Sandan – Aikikai) started his Aikido career in the mid-1990s. Since early 2000, he’s been exclusively studying Iwama Aikido. He and his wife, Elizabeth, opened Traditional Aikido of Colorado Springs in early May 2018.
