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Aikido Kenkyukai Bondi Beach (Wellington Street Dojo)
The Wellington Street Dojo in Bondi Public School was home to a small number of diehards who traded oh-so-precious hours of sleep to rise in the darkness and attend early morning training every Tuesday from 6am. The dojo closed its doors on 28 November 2006 to make way for the new AKI Sydney City Centre dojo.

These early morning sessions, like those at Sensei's own dojo, are among some of my most enjoyable and rewarding keiko, especially in the middle of winter when we trained in silence by candlelight. The sun would show its face about mid-way through, its warm beams lighting up the room and sending steam rocketing off our bodies as we bowed out and headed for pre-work swims in the bay.

To all of you who attended these sessions over the course of the year, I thank you for your dedication, commitment and friendship. The bed hair, bags under our eyes and office narcolepsy were worth every second!

    - Berin Mackenzie


While even surfers slumber: the opening of Wellington Street

For a not-so-early-morning person like myself, asageiko at Higashi Totsuka Dojo was the hardest class of the week to get to. We would usually train until about 8:45pm on Friday night and then Takeda Sensei or one of the senpai would throw us until 9:30pm or later, meaning we wouldn't get home until about midnight. If you didn't chew your food, you had a good chance of hitting your futon by 1am, giving you a solid three and half hours before you had to get up and head back to the station. To get to the dojo, get changed and clean the mats before Sensei woke up, you had to be on the first train out of the yard which was 5:16am.

The hardest class of the week also happened to be my favourite. It had a different energy to the evening classes and Sensei was especially playful with us. For the first six months I lived in Japan, these classes were quite small. In fact, it was usually just me, Sensei, Takeshi Suzuki Sensei and a very gentle university student whose name I can't recall. He and I would spend the better part of 90 minutes having the absolute stuffing knocked out of us by either the then 7th dan, or his 6th dan apprentice. From time to time, the 6th dan would be summoned for a personal serving of his own, giving the two us some blessed respite, but these moments were invariably fleeting... I will always cherish those classes. We received so much ukemi from Sensei and saw a very special side of him, and it was gold.

Nowdays, asageiko has grown into one of the biggest classes of the week at Higashi Totsuka, attracting a wide range of students. It is still my favourite class and it's with that same sense of joy and gratitude I now approach it in my own dojo.

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We had been searching for a space in which to hold early morning classes on and off for some years now, having tired of sand in the face while training on the beach, the rather uncompromising slabs of concrete at the rear of the pavilion, and the series of freak 6am wind and rainstorms that seemed to last precisely 90 minutes. And so we began to ring around and approach hall owners in the eastern suburbs in the hope of starting some regular early morning classes. Each time, our requests were met with embarrassed yet polite declines or stonecold refusals.

One venue, when approached for space to run these classes in the 'Art of Peace', told me quite simply that "it wouldn't work out". Apparently, they had "tried it in the past" and it "wasn't conducive to the wellbeing of the cleaning staff" (???). My "But..." was met with a dial tone. To this day, I'm still struggling to make sense of their response and can only think they must have misheard 'Ai-ki-do' as 'Al-Qae-da'...

The 30th May 2006 marked the second last day of autumn and the end of our search; we had finally found a warm welcome and a home for our new dojo at Bondi Public School. Given the 6am kickoff and the proximity of the winter solstice, I was fully expecting an empty hall and the sound of crickets as I swung my bokuto at the inaugural keiko. Instead, five dojo diehards, complete with crumpled, smiling faces and enormous bed-hair, had made the effort to be there. The walls of the hall were decorated with brightly coloured drawings by the school's children and there was such a lovely energy from the moment we entered. It was a very energetic and playful class, and was a wonderful way to bless our new space.

The cool air felt so refreshing and invigorating against our warm skin as we left the dojo and headed back out into the world. For most it was straight off to work. For a small few though, it was off to the beach for a dip and then to a cafe for a celebratory breakfast!

I am very grateful to all of you who dragged yourselves out of bed so early on that frosty morning to share your spirit. It was a real blessing... And thank you to those who continue to brave the darkness and head for Wellington Street while even the surfers slumber.

    - Berin Mackenzie


Students' impressions

The new dojo is in the local Bondi Primary School hall. It's an old sandstone building with high ceilings, tall windows and polished wooden floors. With keiko starting at 6am, at this time of year it's still an hour before sunrise and the surrounding neighbourhood is still very quiet and mostly in bed. We did some tests of the noise of breakfalls and kiai escaping from the dojo and realized we would have to roll softly and breathe our kiai for the first hour or so of keiko if we weren't going to disturb the peace.

Training at this time of the day has a softer feeling than the evening, and it's a pleasure to see the light strengthening outside the windows over the time of the class and to emerge into the day feeling good.

    - Peter Baillie


Let me get something straight here: we are the ones who have to thank you! Haven't met many people in my life who have such energy and determination for something that they love. My admiration for how you teach and live your dream.

I thought these words from Lao-Tzu are best to describe the atmosphere and what we are trying to achieve in our new Wellington St Dojo:

Softness triumphs over hardness,
gentleness over strength.
The flexible is superior over the immovable.
This is the principle of controlling things
by going along with them,
of mastery though adaptation.

    - Slav Tabachnik


Fortunately, the Bondi Beach Dojo has recently given us an opportunity to experience souchougeiko (early morning training). It seemed quite outrageous at first, getting to the dojo at such an ungodly hour in the morning - the whole street was surely still asleep. So the keiko started off quietly after laying 25 mats on the wooden floor in a space inside Bondi Public School. After a good asageiko, the 25 mats were packed, the kakemono rolled away and dogi back in backpacks. I realised when I got back to the car the time on the dashboard had just turned 7:57 - plenty of time to get to work, perhaps not so ungodly after all.

    - Akari Kambara


It was a cold, dark morning when we assembled at the new dojo for the first time. However, as soon as we entered I was struck by the warmth and friendliness of the room. It was as if the children's laughter was still echoing. The energy of the room was reflected by the huge boom of the first break-fall and we trained, laughing, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake the neighbours.

    - James Genge


It's cold and dark at 6am. The brownstone building is shut and the normally bustling playground is empty. Sensei arrives in his van loaded with mats, windows fogged. The cleaner comes to let us in. In the hall, the words to the school song and the Australian National Anthem are on the wall. An old piano sits under them in the corner. The children's drawings are stapled to the wall at about 4 ft high - kiddie height. Their Italian language project is on the opposite wall. The room has large sash windows at one end where the sunlight starts to shine in after about an hour, and a wooden floor which booms loud and hollow with each landing break-fall. We lay down the mats and warm up suppressing our break-falls til after 7am so as not to wake the neighbours. Keiko is fun and playful with lots of laughter and smiles. The steam rising off us as we cool down reminds me of sitting in a hot pool on a cold winter morning in Rotorua.

    - Grant Humphries


Once upon a time, there was a young and innocent dojo on Wellington St
The walls were lined with the creations of little hands and the floors worn by the play of little feet. When the people came to train they brought their big feet, early morning eyes and important timetables. What they found were the wierd and wonderful sea creatures of the wall daring them to be mischievous, play like octopi, move like fish and laugh like little kids. And they did, surrendering completely to the moment as time streched to the magic hour of eight where they had to put their big shoes back on and venture out in the world wearing secret sea creature smiles. The end.

    - Lucy Matthews

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