Inteview with Darrell Bluhm Sensei

Darrell Bluhm Shihan was one of the first students to sign up when Chiba Sensei started San Diego Aikikai and has been an inspiration to generations of students and teachers. He is chief instructor of Siskiyou Aikikai and holds the rank of rokudan, shihan. This interview was prepared for the February 2008 Biran.

Where were you born? Describe your childhood.

Biloxi, Mississippi. We moved a lot. In the first ten years of my life, we lived in Mississippi, California, Wisconsin, New York, and Texas before my father retired from the Air Force and we moved to Livermore, CA.

How did your family's military traditions affect you?

I was born in July of 1950, at the beginning of the Korean War. On the day I was born, my parents looked at the list of soldiers killed in action that day and chose my name in honor of one of them. The communities I grew up in, while they weren't free of racial tension, were racially integrated. As the son of a NCO, I was also aware of class distinctions, which affected my political thinking as an adult.

When I was seven, my father spent a year in Viet Nam, a place most Americans had yet to hear of. My older brother also served in Viet Nam in 1967. I have a personal understanding of what it means to have a family member in harm's way and the human toll that war exacts.

When did first hear about martial arts?

Well, movies and friends who did Karate. I was boxing when I was 8 and 9 on base, and I wrestled through high school. In fact, my high school wrestling coach introduced me to yoga, which opened my mind to a more eastern approach to the body. My first day at UC Santa Cruz (as a junior transfer), I saw an Aikido demonstration and signed up the next day for classes.

How did your athletic background affect your practice initially?

I played rugby and practiced Aikido at the same time and made a decision at some point that Aikido would be the life-long pursuit… this was after breaking my ribs, damaging my knee, having my nose broken playing rugby

How did your body type affect your practice?

I was really stiff. I think it's more difficult to appreciate the subtleties of Aikido when you can just muscle through techniques. It takes a conscious effort to drop one's strength. On the positive side, I was comfortable falling from the start. I dove competitively in high school and did gymnastics as a kid, and also had thrown my body around with abandon in playing football and rugby. I don't think my ukemi was ever too good, but I managed to survive.

What was your first dojo like?

All of the students were in college, and my teachers were Frank Doran, Stan Pranin and Bob Frager. They each offered a distinctive approach to Aikido, so I didn't have a fixed notion of what Aikido could or should be. That was further reinforced when I went to Japan in 1973 and trained at Hombu Dojo, Iwama and Shingu.

When did you first encounter Chiba Sensei? What were your impressions?

I was living in San Diego and training/co-teaching Aikido at a judo dojo with another nidan who was a student of Yamada Sensei. Joel had been asked to pick up Yamada Sensei and Chiba Sensei when they came to look at San Diego as a possible location for Chiba Sensei to establish a dojo. Since he couldn't do it, I volunteered. It was October of 1980 when I (and two other Aikido students, Chris McPherson and Matt Yamamoto) picked them up at the Los Angeles airport and drove them down to San Diego. We stopped at a MacDonald's on the way south, and Chiba Sensei didn't eat a thing, which I took note of. It wasn't until we got to Victor Murashige's restaurant that Sensei ate with enthusiasm.

Chiba Sensei said virtually nothing to me while we drove around to look at possible dojo sites. Yamada Sensei did all of the talking until they invited me to have a drink with them at the hotel bar, and Chiba Sensei began to tell me about Mark and Victor's father. He talked with me at length about what an important martial artist the senior Murashige Sensei was and his relationship to O-Sensei. He also asked me lots of questions about the people who were teaching Aikido in San Diego and my impressions of life in San Diego. He was very warm and engaging, which is not what I had been led to expect from stories told about him and video clips I had seen of him teaching in England.

Several weeks after his visit, I received a letter from Sensei thanking me and asking me to arrange to rent a dojo space we had looked at in Ocean Beach in preparation for his arrival in March 1981. I can remember the first class we had at that dojo. It was primarily a yoga studio and we had to lay the mats out before class. Chiba Sensei called me out for ukemi and I grabbed onto his wrist – the impression I had was of grabbing onto a live anaconda. Some of my fondest memories were morning classes at that dojo when we just practiced on the hardwood floor, often with just Sensei, myself and one or two other students, and mostly suwari waza.

Describe your years in San Diego. What were your highs and lows? Who were your most influential sempai?

I was there for two years, training as much as I could, given my family and work obligations, probably 10-15 hours per week, and I assisted with instruction. During the time I was there, we practiced in two temporary dojos before moving into the "pressure cooker" on 4th Avenue. By then, many of the people who are still active in Birankai were training. There was no ventilation and by the end of classes my gi would weigh about ten pounds from sweat.

During this time, I often ate dinner at the Chiba home and spent hours in conversation with Sensei, hearing stories from his years of training with O-Sensei and the other senior Aikido teachers and being able to ask questions related to training and life in general.

How did you balance Aikido, work and family in the early years? How has that changed over time?

I don't know that I ever did balance it. It became much more difficult when I had to run a dojo, in terms of meeting the responsibilities to my family. I have been lucky in that my first wife was supportive of my training, and for the past 20 years Cindy and I have shared our practice and the running of the dojo.

I have five kids, all of whom have done Aikido at one time or another, but haven't always appreciated my commitment to practice. My son Robbie (now 29) said to me at age 13, "Dad, you're stupid. You're smart – you could have been a doctor, but instead you teach Aikido and we don't have any money." Over time, my kids' attitudes have changed and they can appreciate that I have modeled doing what I love in my life over choosing material success. Now I take great pleasure in my youngest son's growth in the art and the fact that he continues to train with us.

When did you first begin to teach?

In 1975, shortly after receiving my shodan, I taught children's classes for the city of Santa Cruz recreation department.

How did teaching change your practice?

I began to really appreciate what I didn't know and the value of continuously practicing basics. One of the challenges of teaching is maintaining your own conditioning, especially in terms of doing ukemi on a regular basis. It took me a few years to realize that I had to make more conscious effort to stay in shape.

How have injuries affected your practice?

I've been fortunate to not have many traumatic injuries, but my old rugby and football injuries have come back to haunt me along with arthritic changes in my joints. I've had surgeries on my knee that have resulted in diminished range of motion, making suwari waza difficult on most days. Training with injuries gives one an opportunity to break old habits and pay more attention to what you are doing and how you are doing it. For me, the Feldenkrais Method has been a great resource for coping with injuries and the changes that come with the process of aging.

Why did you move to Ashland?

My brother lived here and I loved the area. I moved here in 1983 and have been teaching in the same rental space, an old Methodist church, for 25 years. Across the street is Ashland's oldest cemetery. One of the first times Chiba Sensei visited, the topic of fate came up. Sensei said, "You know what your fate is, don't you?" He just pointed across the street and said, "It's right there." That and the flowers on the shomen provide us with a constant reminder of the impermanent nature of existence.

What was it like starting a dojo? What good decisions and mistakes did you make?

I had laid some groundwork before coming, when I would visit my brother, so I arrived with some students already available to help. That made a big difference. I could have done a better job of appreciating and acknowledging the role that my students' partners and families played in their ongoing involvement in the dojo.

What advice would you give someone starting a dojo?

The best advice I ever got from Chiba Sensei was to just show up every day – if no one else came, to practice on my own. I've done best when I have appreciated that the dojo has been my way to maintain my own practice, and I suffer the most when I focus on who is not there instead of who is there. I have had to let go of expectations of fame and fortune and just accept that it is enough to get to train.

How do your other practices contribute to your Aikido?

To me, it's all one thing. They are all means for working with the body, which is the vehicle for being in the world and learning, and inseparable from all other aspects of existence. As a martial artist and a body worker, I have spent the past three decades developing a detailed and comprehensive understanding of what constitutes well-organized human movement. These studies have included the work of Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais, Charles Darwin (my personal hero), anatomy, physiology, and anything I can find at our local library.

Tai Chi has been my personal form of meditation as well as helping me deal with the physical consequences of Aikido training. I think of it as an ideal complement. My Tai Chi teacher, Choy Kam Man, was an important model for me as a teacher and human being. I have been fortunate to have many good teachers, including my fencing coaches, Charles Selberg and Michael D'Asaro. Chiba Sensei has been the most significant.

One of my favorite annual events is the Martial Movement and Traditional Life Skills retreat that Margaret Mathewson and I co-teach at her property in the Oregon coastal mountains. I get to weave together all of the above disciplines with Margaret's expertise in primitive technology, anthropology, Aikido and Iaido in a gorgeous environment. (This year's retreat will be August 21-24.)

How has Chiba Sensei's group changed over time? Do you think these changes are good or bad?

Lots of people have come and gone. Some of us have persevered, but I can't make a judgment of good or bad. Our test as martial artists is to adapt to the inevitability of change.

How has your practice changed over time? Your teaching?

I pay more attention to the practice of basic forms and helping students forge their bodies appropriately – as Sensei says, the development of the Aikido body.

Miyamoto Sensei's teaching has impressed me, especially how he works with whatever his uke gives him. We have to work with what is there instead of some idea or construct about what should be there. I think about this in the context of everyday living.

In my 25th year of teaching at my own dojo, I have come to appreciate what my students give to me. Much of what I have come to understand about Aikido practice (particularly Big Aikido) has been through the day-to-day encounters with my students.

In the past six years, I have had the opportunity to work with the actors at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival here, as a teacher of the Feldenkrais Method. It has been especially interesting and rewarding to discover the points of intersection that exist between my experience as a martial artist and the demands that the actors face in their work. For instance, the actors will give over a hundred performances in a given role, and each performance has to remain fresh, just as each Aikido encounter should.

What do you think of the divisions that have developed in the larger Aikido community?

It's a natural consequence of Aikido being a human activity. It is important that each of us maintain relationships with friends and associates in the larger Aikido community, so we don't become too isolated.

How can we best keep the Birankai spirit alive after Chiba Sensei retires?

We have a strong identity based on an approach to Aikido practice imparted to us by Chiba Sensei that is rooted in budo, and in the Founder's vision of Aikido as a way of harmony. We need to keep training together in this spirit.