50 Years of Aikido in New Zealand

50 Years of Aikido in New Zealand

To mark the 50th anniversary of aikido in New Zealand we have made up a 16-page booklet of photos and news-clippings from our personal albums and scrapbooks. Page One shows Hisae teaching aikido at the YWCA in Auckland in 1965, as featured in the “New Zealand Herald” at the time.

The Introduction to the booklet reads as follows:

Introduction

The following historical photos and clippings were taken from our private albums. Although we opened the first dojo in New Zealand (in 1965) we were absent from the scene for 15 years during our second sojourn in Japan, and there have been many other teachers who have contributed to the development of aikido then and since.They deserve a place in any formal history—which this little booklet does not pretend to be. We have confined ourselves here to the history of our own dojo and do not intend any slight to those persons not mentioned herein. Important persons within our own aikido “family” may also have been omitted due to lack of material, and we apologise for that.

Being the first was an accident of history and not a great personal achievement, and the growth of aikido since we pioneered it in New Zealand has been due to the sincere efforts and enthusiasm of so many fellow instructors and students who have our everlasting respect and appreciation.

Fifty years is nevertheless a significant milestone and we feel that reflecting on the past is important for a better appreciation of the present, and should contribute to a positive outlook for the future. The photos are not of the best quality, due to their age, but we hope they will be of interest.

         David & Hisae Lynch (May, 2015)

Caption: Japan in the 1960s: David in the street outside the Yoshinkan Dojo where he spent 18 months as a live-in student (uchideshi) in the early 60s, and Hisae Kamata featured in a Japanese magazine teaching aikido at a girls’ college in Tokyo. Hisae was already 3rd Dan when David joined the dojo. She was Shioda Kancho Sensei’s secretary. David was the only non-Japanese uchideshi at that time. He often walked around the streets dressed in a dogi and wearing geta (wooden clogs).