The Northwestern Aikido Club, or Zanshinkan dojo, is a club dedicated to practicing the martial art of aikido. The club is open to all Northwestern undergraduates, graduate students, staff members, and faculty and no experience is necessary to join. The club holds aikido classes three times weekly at Blomquist Gym (visit the Calendar section for more details on the times). In addition to the classes the club hosts open mat times when students can train on their own. The club also helps organize other training related events for its members such as attending aikido seminars. Every fall and spring quarter the club publishes a journal, Zan Shin, with reflections on aikdio written by its members and instructors.

All Northwestern undergraduates, graduate students, staff members, and faculty are welcome to join the club. No experience is necessary and students may join during any time of the year. Interested in aikido? Come out a try a few classes for free, no obligations. Come to any class wearing free moving athletic clothing that covers your knees and we will get you started. You will be given basic instruction on falling and practicing safely during your first class.

The aikido club holds classes in the Blomquist Gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:45 PM to 8:00 PM. We set up the mats from 5:45 to 6:00, there is a class from 6:00 to 7:00, a short break, and then another class until 8:00. Please feel free to stop by for just one or both classes. Occasionally there are days when Blomquist is closed and we do not have class, so please double check our Calendar before stopping by.

For students interested in joining the club dues are only $25 per quarter. Members may attend as few or as many classes per week as fits their schedule. The club can help new members purchase a dogi (training uniform).

As we celebrate 30 years of aikido training at Northwestern, we pause to take a quick look back at some of our history.

Upon arriving in Chicago and setting up his headquarters, the first branch Dojo founded by Shihan Fumio Toyoda was the Northwestern University Aikido Club. Founded in 1974, our first Chief Instructor was Shihan Toyoda himself.

Later in the 1970s, Mr. Masa Hajihara became our Chief Instructor, followed by Mr. Hideto Arimizu, but Toyoda Sensei continued to visit the Club often. During this period, Shihan Toyoda’s Dojo, in downtown Chicago, was the headquarters of the Chicago Ki-Aikido Society. Training at the NU Aikido Club took place in Patten Gymnasium.

The club poses for a picture with Toyoda Shihan.

Arimizu Sensei continued as Chief Instructor into the early 1980s, when he was succeeded by Bruce Holmes, with the position passing to John Mazza late in 1987. Shihan Toyoda’s Dojo grew more distant from the Ki Society as he expanded his organization into the Aikido Association of America. At NU, this period was marked by a large number of demonstrations at dormitories and residential colleges. While most of these were successful and well-attended, there was one unhappy demonstration at a fraternity in which a drunken student charged onto the mat, and attacked Arimizu Sensei, who quietly pinned him until some classmates came to lead him away.

With Mazza Sensei’s departure at the end of 1994, the 1990s saw a series of Chief Instructors, from Shihan Toyoda’s Dojo. During this period, Shihan Toyoda's organization was recognized by the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Tokyo, completing a circle that had begun with the original outgrowth of the Ki Society from the Aikikai decades ago.

With the approval of Shihan Toyoda, the NU Aikido Club also adopted the formal name of Zanshinkan Dojo in 1990. During this period, the club sponsored fireside lectures and demonstrations at residential colleges, where discussions of martial arts and the physics of movement were popular with students of self-defense, dance, and theatrical mock combat. Another memorable event from this period was a mysterious mass beheading of snowmen throughout Evanston one night, as a senior student practiced his bokken technique.

In the early 2000s, the Chief Instructorship passed to Mr. Glenn Patterson, then to Mr. Keith Moore, and finally back to Mazza Sensei in 2003. Upon Shihan Toyoda’s untimely passing away in 2001, his senior students began to move in their own directions, as so often happens at such critical junctures, and in 2002 the NU Aikido Club chose to affiliate with Moore Sensei’s Aikido Shinjinkai. Changes at NU resulted in the club's training being relocated to Blomquist Gym. It was at this time that Moore Sensei also began a Zen training organization on the NU campus.

As 2005 draws to a close, what will the future hold?

By Craig Bina
November 2005

Our parent dojo is Shinjinkai. During the school year all club members are welcome to train at Shinjinkai free of charge. During the summer club members may train at Shinjinkai at a discounted student rate. Here is a description of Shinjinkai taken from the Shinjinkai Website:

"Shinjinkai, The Japanese Martial Arts Society, is a community united by a common purpose: intensive training in classical and modern martial arts arising from Japan's warrior tradition. Our mission: to make the benefits of this practice - for mind, body, and spirit - available to all.

Our headquarters is the Shinjinkan, founded in the mid 1980's and now a beautiful traditional dojo on Chicago's north side. The facility is also home to Daiyuzenji, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist temple, which offers training in meditation and traditional fine arts such as tea ceremony (chanoyu) and calligraphy (shodo). In addition, we oversee programs at other locations in the Chicago area, including Mt. Prospect, Chicago Public Schools, Northwestern University in Evanston, and the Chicago Police Academy. We conduct training seminars internationally.

The chief instructor of Shinjinkai Aikido training is our Director, Meido Moore Sensei. Mr. Moore is recognized as the foremost student of the late Aikido and Zen master Tenzan (Fumio) Toyoda Sensei, under whom he lived for six years as uchideshi (personal apprentice), and served as primary Shihandai (master's assistant). Moore Sensei holds the rank of godan (fifth degree black belt) issued by Aikido World H.Q., and is a certified Aikido teacher (shidoin). He is assisted by the two other Shinjinkai Directors: David Miller Sensei (godan) and John Mazza Sensei (godan).

Shinjinkai in Chicago is affiliated with Aikido World Headquarters (The Aikikai Foundation) through Birankai, under the guidance of T.K. Chiba Sensei. Among the most renowned of the living master-level Aikido teachers, Chiba Sensei lived as uchideshi at Aikido World H.Q. and studied as a personal student of the Aikido Founder. His intensely martial style and highly developed teaching methodology, combined with the teachings inherited from Toyoda Sensei, allow Shinjinkai to provide access to Aikido training with an enormous depth, breadth and richness."

Through our affliation with Shinjinkai, our dojo is affiliated with the Birankai aikido organization through which we are affliated with Aikikai.

Briankai is led by T.K. Chiba Shihan. Here is a brief biography of Chiba Shihan taken from the website of his current dojo, San Diego Aikikai.

"T.K. Chiba was born February 5, 1940 in Tokyo. At 14 years of age, he began serious Judo training at the International Judo Academy. He began the study of Sho To Kan karate at age 16. Dissatisfied with the martial arts he had studied, he began searching for the art which would satisfy his yearning.

In 1958 he found Aikido and began seven intensive years of live-in study as an uchideshi, or O-Sensei's private student, at Hombu Dojo. By 1960, Chiba Sensei earned the rank of San Dan, 3rd degree black belt, and was assigned to Nagoya City to establish a branch school and serve as its full-time instructor. In 1962, he earned 4th Dan and began teaching at Hombu Dojo. Within three years, during which he taught at many local universities, Chiba Sensei completed his training as uchideshi, earning promotion to 5th Dan.

In 1981, he accepted an invitation from the United States Aikido Federation (directly affiliated with Hombu Dojo, Aikido World Headquarters, and currently headed by Moriteru Ueshiba Doshu) and moved to San Diego, California. There he formed San Diego Aikikai. Currently he is Chairman of the Teaching Committee of Birankai International. He holds the rank of 8th Dan."