Shihan Interview: Kristina Varjan

Kristina Varjan, 6th Dan, Shihan, is the technical advisor and Shihan at Aikido of Albuquerque. She was co-founder with her husband, Rikko Varjan, 6th Dan Shidoin, of New Mexico Aikikai and Kohala Aikikai on the island of Hawaii. She spoke with Biran Editor Liese Klein at 2009 Summer Camp in Ann Arbor, Michigan:

You have a pretty unique background for an Aikido teacher in that you were a professional dancer. How did you get started in dance?

I grew up in the Bronx, in New York. My family had a background in the theatre and my grandfather was an actor in Italy. As a young child I had braces on my legs and because of this weakness in my legs and ankles, my mother decided to send me to ballet school. That's where I learned my foundation of movement and developed my desire to move. Dancing became my life and took me away from my home and into the world.

How did you first encounter Aikido?

I first heard of Aikido in 1966 and it took me until 1975 to see for myself. So at the age of 27, I was invited by a friend to go to an Aikido demonstration while visiting home in New York City. At this time in my life I was actually living and dancing in Paris in a company at the Paris Opera. My friend who invited me to the Aikido demonstration had been a student of Chiba Sensei's in England. I went to see the demonstration at a high school auditorium expecting a lot of people to be there, but there was hardly anyone there. The demonstration was done by Koichi Tohei Sensei and three ukes.

I watched the demonstration and I knew at that moment that this was something I wanted to do, something I had to do! Looking back I wonder why that particular style of Aikido touched me but it wasn't so much the style as it was the big picture of Aikido that I saw. Not only the movement but the interaction of the people that really said something profound to me.

It was something about the way Tohei Sensei moved his ukes, and how he moved himself. It was very different from the way we moved in dance. I saw a real different kind of connection and energy between two people. I don't think I was able to interpret this at that time; it was more of a feeling.

What was your impression of Tohei Sensei?

I remember he was doing things like the unbendable arm and also lying across a chair and having ukes sit on him which I now know were ki exercises. But he also was doing very big movements, very big techniques. It was just the four of them on this huge stage, yet I saw something that I'd never seen before. There was a lot of power, a lot of expansiveness to what he did. I knew New York Aikikai had a morning class. So the next morning at 6:30, determined, I got on my bike - in spite of not being a morning person - and got myself to the dojo and pounded on the door. The person who was teaching class was Luqman Hakeem Sensei. That was it, I joined that day and I have not stopped.

What was NYA like at that time?

It was a small group of people. Luqman, Phil and Jane Ozeki, Harvey Konigsberg, Bruce Bookman, Peter Bernath were there, and of course Yamada Sensei. It was a small group of us, maybe 10 or 15 people. I was so used to rehearsing, dancing and not talking while focusing on the movement that I would do Aikido class and not talk to anyone. I was so quiet that people thought I didn't speak English, that I was a foreigner. I was traveling back and forth from Paris and New York dancing and practicing Aikido in both places, it was a very interesting time. Bruce Bookman would throw me around like I weighed about an ounce and half. He was 16 or 17, but he was very powerful even then. I was eager and ready to take any kind of ukemi. I was much more up in the stratosphere than down on the earth.

How did the movement feel, coming from a dance background?

I felt I was in good shape, and that I could handle people's strength and power. I could easily watch movement and interpret it. It took me a long time to figure out that it was not just the movement. I think I got stuck for a long time in a very mechanical situation of going through the motion and not going to a deeper, more central place with my Aikido. I think that's one thing that I would do if I were to do it over again with my dance background: I would look more deeply and profoundly into the larger essential nature of my dance training and career. But I think that comes with time and hindsight. You start at a place and you go through your beginning process and then you go to the next level.

For me, Yamada Sensei was someone who was really able to embrace people coming into his dojo and fully giving of himself demonstrating beautiful precise strong movements. He gave me a solid foundation of basic technique and the love of Aikido.

Did you feel your body had been shaped by dance?

As a beginner, I felt that my body could pretty much adapt to Aikido movement, but then I had my first injury; I broke my collarbone. I was taking all the classes at the dojo, but then one evening the instructor had me do shomenuchi iriminage to him and he reversed the technique on me. He came behind me and grabbed me around my waist and threw me up into the air and I landed on my head, and broke my collarbone.

Yamada Sensei was watching the class. All I remember was seeing Yamada's Sensei's face and waking up in the emergency room. That was my first injury, but it didn't prevent me from going back and getting right back on the mat. I loved ukemi; rolling, falling and taking break falls.

Gina Zarrilli Sensei, my dear friend and fellow aikidoka, started a few months after me, and recently we were trying to add up how many breakfalls we had taken in our lifetime so far. We came up with some astronomical sum! You all know what I mean.

What was the dojo culture like at that time?

It was a very cohesive group. For example, Mrs. Yamada would make us rice balls for our usual travel adventures. We would get in the dojo van and drive up to either Boston to go to Kanai Sensei's dojo or to Montreal, Canada, for seminars. Eight of us could barely fit in this van so we'd just pile in and go. It was a wonderful time of great community and family. I felt immediately accepted as part of this young evolving Aikido group.

As I continued training and living in France, Aikido started taking a bigger and bigger part in my life and dance started to take a lesser part of my life. I started realizing that performing was not what I was really interested in. That became clear as I started working in South Dakota with Native Americans on the Rose Bud Reservation. People were dancing for their life, not dancing to perform. This impacted me deeply and I decided to stop performing. I think when I made that decision my Aikido started to develop in a different way. Not that my dancing didn't enrich my Aikido, it did. However, at the same time the performing aspect of dance somehow took away from my reality of dealing with and connecting with other people. I was more able to explore these connections thru the practice and training I was getting in Aikido.

When did you start to think about becoming an Aikido teacher?

In 1986 I moved to New Mexico. Shortly after that Chiba Sensei came to Southwestern Aikikai in Albuquerque, where I had been training. He taught a weekend seminar during which he talked about starting a kenshusei program in San Diego to train advanced teachers. Rikko and I were intrigued. I felt that I was at a plateau with my Aikido practice and teaching. I wasn't progressing much and knew I needed more motivation and encouragement to go further in my training. So I asked Chiba Sensei if he would accept me in the kenshusei program, and he did.

Had you seen Chiba Sensei before?

I had seen him in 1975, the first year I started Aikido. It was about six weeks after I began training that I decided to attend a camp in England. I flew to London and took a train to Birmingham. I remember walking through the woods, and not exactly sure where I was going only having some weapons on my back and my gi bag. I found myself at a summer camp with Chiba Sensei and Yamaguchi Sensei. At one of the first classes we did a thousand cuts with the bokken and I said to myself, "What am I doing here? How did this happen to me?"

Gina Zarilli, Kristina Varjan and Lynn Sonneman at 1982 USAF Summer Camp. Lynn Sonneman recently died of lung cancer.

And then I sprained my ankle the second day of camp and Chiba Sensei taped it up for me. After that, I would see Chiba Sensei at our East Coast summer camps every year. I was afraid of him for years and I found it difficult to talk to him. When I asked to join the kenshusei program years later, I felt I was in a place where I could more comfortably connect with him as my teacher and wanted to try and understand what it was that Chiba Sensei was giving people, or what it was that I needed.

When did you move to San Diego?

In the beginning of 1989, Rikko and I sold our house in New Mexico, took our two young girls and moved to San Diego, and we joined Chiba Sensei's first kenshusei program. We found a house near the dojo on University Avenue and started training. It turned out that our house was right around corner from Chiba Sensei's house. Many nights our girls got the treat of Mrs. Chiba's cooking and their hospitality. Chiba Sensei would go fishing and bring me fish heads and I would make fish stew. It was a wonderful time. It was more than I expected.

How did it differ from New York Aikikai?

It was about intention. We knew that we were there to go further than we'd gone before. We were committed to put ourselves on the line and experience the tension of not knowing. We couldn't always see where we were going or what to expect - it was like when Chiba Sensei would turn off the lights in the dojo during Iaido class or when he would blast Beethoven's music for hours during training or tell us he was leaving the dojo because we were not getting his instruction. All of those moments, we were constantly facing the unknown. Each person's experience of that was at times very different. Sensei was always there, there was always a challenge. There was always a situation occurring when you didn't know what was going to happen.

What was it like being there as a couple?

Sometimes it was hard, because more than a couple, we were a family. Someone would have to figure out who would take care of the girls while we were at class, seminars or sesshin. Rikko is a very understanding person so I always felt supported by him. Chiba Sensei was aware of our situation as a family and dealt with us that way. I was appreciative that he gave us that opportunity to be a family while we were also committed to the program.

When did you decide to leave?

We were in San Diego about four years, and then I think we graduated, or we were thrown out. I don't remember which happened first. By then we had moved to the beautiful Fairmount dojo. We all flourished there and it was our universe of Aikido. Sensei and his family lived in the dojo along with some uchideshi. It was very alive place there! When we felt it was time to leave, we moved back to New Mexico, then to Hawaii, where we founded Kohala Aikikai in 1995. That was my first experience in opening a dojo. In Hawaii, the small rural community that we moved to welcomed us with open arms. We found a Shingon Buddhist temple and made an incredible dojo there in this 100 year old building. Kevin and Leilani McGough are now the chief instructors there, and we still visit once a year to give a seminar and be with our old students and community friends. Rikko and I are now back in New Mexico, and we are senior instructors at Aikido of Albuquerque, which is a dojo co-founded by Chief Instructors Philip and Bernadette Vargas. I am also a Feldenkrais Practitioner and teach classes at the dojo and I have an independent private practice in Feldenkrais Method.

How has being a teacher changed you?

With teaching, like everything, I grew into it. Aikido, as much as it is a silent art, has really given me the voice to speak and communicate to people through dynamic movement and through the life that Aikido gives us all. It's a human connection, a dialogue, the voice of which is movement. Aikido practice and teaching stimulates my curiosity about myself, others and life.

What is your opinion of how has Birankai developed?

We've grown, we've gotten smaller, we're growing again. Dojos disappear and new ones come up. Chiba Sensei's Aikido has gone out into the world and enables people to see the connection between life and the martial art of Aikido. It's about resolving conflict with yourself and resolving conflict with others on and off the mat. I look at the people on the mat today and I am inspired by their commitment, sincerity and integrity that they demonstrate for Chiba Sensei, for the worldwide Birankai community and for themselves. Birankai is in a very unique process that is emerging and evolving with its new generation of teachers and students. It's a never-ending process. Chiba Sensei has always taught me to be open to change and letting go. Birankai is in good hands with its leaders and members, changing and expanding.