REPORT ON DENVER SEMINAR WITH MORIHIRO SAITO

By Stanley Pranin
9-17-99

I just returned from a wonderful experience in Denver, Colorado, USA. The
event was an aikido seminar conducted by Morihiro Saito Sensei, 9th dan
held from September 10-12. This was the fourth event hosted by the Nippon
Kan dojo under the direction of Gaku Homma Sensei and approximately 300
aikidoka were present. Saito Sensei was accompanied by Shigeru Kawabe
Sensei, director of the Akita Dojo in northern Japan, Namai Sempai from
Iwama, and Mark Larson, also from Iwama, serving as interpreter.

Saito Sensei taught more than 100 techniques during the three-day seminar.
To give you a brief idea of the material covered, Saito Sensei taught
numerous ikkyo, nikyo, sankyo, yonkyo, koshinage, kotegaeshi, kokyunage,
and ushirowaza techniques for the taijutsu portion of the presentation. The
Sunday morning session held at a public park covered jo suburi, kumijo, ken
suburi, kumitachi. As those of you who have attended seminars will know,
Saito Sensei explains each technique in great detail and has organized them
into easily-understood groupings. At age 71, Saito Sensei is one of
aikido's finest technicians and I hope many of you will have an opportunity
to study under him directly.

Aiki News operated at table at the entrance to the gymnasium where we had
on sale all of Saito Sensei's books and videotapes of the founder of
aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, with whom Saito Sensei studied for some 24 years.
Saito Sensei's new volume, "Budo: A Commentary on the 1938 Training Manual
of Morihei Ueshiba," in particular proved popular and was completely sold
out. Any of you who have not yet seen Saito Sensei's latest book, can have
a look at the cover and inside pages at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ajmag/ta05.html. You can order through me by
sending your inquiries to: ajmag@earthlink.net.

I would personally like to thank Gaku Homma Sensei, Emily Busch and the
Nippon Kan staff for their splendid hospitality and organization of this
hugely successful event.

* * * * * *

I'll be off to Tokyo again on September 23 to attend the inauguration party
of the new Doshu Moriteru Ueshiba to be held at the Keio Plaza Hotel in
Shinjuku. That event will no doubt be attended by more than 1,000 people
from all over the world. I'll file a report right after the party to let
you know the highlights of this rare celebration.

After that, it's a quick return to Los Angeles and a departure on September
30 for the big Yoshikan aikido event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
celebrating the 25th anniversary of Yukio Utada Sensei's arrival in the USA
to teach. This seminar will feature Kyoichi Inoue Sensei, Dojo-cho of the
Yoshinkan Aikido headquarters school in Tokyo as well as several other
high-ranked Japanese and foreign instructors. We'll fill you in on the
details of this special event as well. Those wishing to attend this major
seminar can check out http://www.yoshinkar.org/doshinkan for particulars.