My Aiki Connection.

If you asked the majority of people who know me what martial art I do, they would probably answer karate, some may even be as detailed as saying Goju-ryu. What most of them won’t know is that while I have trained Goju-ryu for over 34 years, I have also trained in other systems of karate, kobudo, judo, jujutsu, aikido and aiki-jujutsu.

My aiki connection like my karate has been multi-folded. My father (Curt Jones) was my first teacher, and we still train together even now. Even though my father is probably best known as a Gojuryu Karate-ka by his peers, anyone who has ever shared the mat with him, can tell you he has some great wrist locks and choke holds.  What most of them won’t know is that even though my father has dedicated his life to karate, he is also a practitioner of Aiki. While stationed in the Army in the 1970’s my father had the opportunity to study Tomiki-ryu Aikido with its founder, Kenji Tomiki Shihan. After his time in the Army, my father continued his Aiki training, in fact those same lessons were added into his karate classes, though most of my fellow dojo mate’s probably had no idea. My father was unique in his approach to budo, after he had taught us to a level he felt appropriate, he would encourage us to go out of the dojo and seek out other teachers to learn from. He would say go out and learn something, then come back and let me see what you learned. Most teachers would shirk at this idea today. He would also bring in guest instructors to teach at the dojo.

One of the guest instructors that he allowed to teach at his dojo was Dan Buchea. Mr. Buchea was a teacher of Jujutsu / Aiki-jujutsu and his idea of training bordered on sadism. I remember he would visit and teach sometimes for several weeks and then he was off learning and we wouldn’t see him for months and then one day he would jus show up and pick up right where he left off. Mr. Buchea was a ruff teacher; you felt everything, in fact more then once he ripped my shoulders out of socket during training. (Maybe that is why I have shoulder problems now, hmmm). For several years he was a guest instructor and I learned a lot about how to use the techniques in actual combat and also how to deal with pain and keep fighting. Mr. Buchea also introduced us to Iaido. I lost track of Mr. Buchea in the mid 1990s but have since found out that he retired from budo.

I also spent a great deal of time training with Mr. Young Park, who has probably the oldest Judo and Jujutsu dojo in Indiana.  I loved training with Mr. Park and eventually even took my children there to train with him. He is an old school teacher, but his manner of teaching was in contrast to Mr. Buchea, while he was a strict task master, he was also very caring for his students. I remember one time I came to the dojo the day after I received my Shodan in karate and he saw the obi in my bag. He said wear new obi, is ok. So I did, we proceeded to the mat and worked out as normal, at the end of class he called me out and asked me to attack him, I did so with a controlled technique which angered him. He said you black belt now, you hit me like black belt. So I did and blasted him in the face with a mawashi geri, he smiled and said again. The next thing I remember was seeing black, as my vision returned I saw Mr. Park standing over me smiling. He said “You attack me like karate man, you forget you jujutsu man also. You must seek to harmonized between your two selves to become oneself.”

In my career as a law enforcement officer, I have also had the opportunity to train in several defensive tactics systems, at the Koga Institute and with the Gracie’s. I have also trained with several other teachers of Judo, jujutsu, aikido, and aiki-jujutsu over the years, but I myself think budo is budo. There are only so many ways to punch and kick or bend a wrist. While I myself teach Goju-ryu and adhere to the teachings of Miyagi Chojun, one must remember even Miyagi himself sought out and trained with different people, his budo was constantly evolving. I am not advocating everyone going crazy and running around like nuts founding there own ryu-ha. I am just saying that there are more similarities then differences between the various factions, styles and ryu-ha. If we could just train to train and everyone could put their ego’s aside, the state of the martial arts would be in better shape. Seek your own Aiki – your own harmony with the universe.