MY JOURNEY WITH MASTERS OF AIKI – 8

 Kihon Dosa (Basic Movements)

Sensei Tsutomu Chida , former head of Yoshinkan Hombu dojo

When I left Sri Lanka in 1998, I believed I was travelling to Japan to become a better Aikido practitioner.That belief lasted until my first week at the Yoshinkan Honbu Dojo.

Everything I thought I understood about training began to unravel with remarkable speed. It was not because the techniques were unfamiliar or the physical demands exceeded anything I had experienced before. It was because I had entered an environment where every aspect of daily life was considered part of training. 

Every morning began long before the city had fully awakened. Tokyo moved with extraordinary precision. Trains arrived exactly on time, commuters flowed through stations with quiet efficiency and the city seemed to possess an invisible rhythm that never faltered. Walking through those streets each morning, carrying my dogi neatly folded under my arm, I often felt as though I was travelling between two different worlds. Outside, life moved with the urgency of one of the world’s busiest cities. Inside the dojo, another rhythm existed altogether, a rhythm that had changed little over generations.

The entrance to the Honbu Dojo was unassuming. Nothing about the building announced its significance. 

But Everything mattered. 

The way you entered the dojo.

The way you bowed.

The way you folded your uniform.

The way you stood while listening.

The way you treated your training partner.

Nobody needed to remind students what was expected. Senior students demonstrated them naturally, and juniors learned by observing long before they fully understood their meaning. 

As one of the Sri Lankans undertaking the Senshusei Course ( May be the only one of the two Sri Lankans crazy enough to do it), I often found myself reflecting on how unlikely this journey had been. Only a few years earlier I had been a young student discovering Aikido in a YMCA dojo. Now I stood on the tatami of the Yoshinkan Honbu, training within a tradition established by Gozo Shioda Sensei and preserved by instructors whose lives had been devoted to its transmission. 

Tsutomu Chida Sensei never needed to announce his presence. Chida Sensei had entered the Yoshinkan Honbu as an uchideshi of Gozo Shioda Sensei in 1971, dedicating decades to the founder’s direct instruction. More than simply inheriting techniques, he inherited the responsibility of preserving the spirit, precision and discipline that defined Yoshinkan Aikido. 

Watching Chida Sensei for the first time could be deceptive. There was no dramatic display of strength, no attempt to impress, no unnecessary movement. Sometimes he appeared almost relaxed, as though conserving every ounce of energy. An inexperienced observer could easily fail to recognise the extraordinary level of mastery unfolding before them.

Everything changed the moment I became his uke.

I had the privilege of taking Chida Sensei’s ukemi during my training. Even today, words struggle to capture the experience. His body possessed remarkable solidity, yet I could barely feel his hands. During a technique such as Shihonage, he would take hold of my wrist so naturally that it seemed almost insignificant. There was no crushing grip, no obvious application of force and no warning that anything extraordinary was about to happen.

Then, almost without explanation, my balance disappeared.By the time my mind attempted to understand what had occurred, I had already met the tatami.It happened repeatedly.

Every throw carried the same paradox. His body felt immensely heavy, as though rooted deep within the earth, while his hands seemed almost absent. During the technique it felt as if my entire structure had been compressed beneath an irresistible weight, yet when everything was over there was no pain, no sense of violence and no lingering discomfort. There was only an overwhelming awareness that I had encountered a level of skill unlike anything I had previously experienced.

For months I searched for an explanation.Eventually I stopped searching and simply continued training.

Everything originated from an unwavering centre. His Kamae was never merely a posture. It was a complete state of physical, mental and emotional balance. Every movement emerged from that centre without interruption, allowing his entire body to function as a single integrated unit. There was no conflict between one part of the body and another because everything moved together.

That realisation transformed the way I understood the endless repetition of Kihon Dosa (Foundational basic movements) .

Day after day we practised the same fundamental movements. Sliding. Turning. Entering. Stepping. Pivoting. Again and again they seemed almost too simple to deserve such relentless attention. Like many students, I occasionally wondered when the more advanced training would begin.

I did not realise that I was already doing it.The advanced techniques were never separate from the basics.

Soke Gozo Shioda’s philosophy of "Start from the basics, end with the basics" highlights that true mastery comes from constantly returning to Kihon Dosa (basic movements).