How did you begin teaching in your own dojo?
Well, I thought about that at some point,
whether I would open a Dojo or stick to my path as a Budoka,
and if it would become popular that way.
But I thought about it on my own, as I always do,
and I opened a dojo here to offer a place for practice.
to those students who were having a lockout at their school
So I invited those students
and there were 10 to 20 people eating and living around here.
And as there was a need for financing,
some people joined to take charge of that and that was the beginning of Kobayashi Dojo.
Since then we've had more people, and we just do what we do.
I don't give lectures and I don't explain at all how to do techniques,
but interestingly it still spreads. Right?
It's a bit like that abroad too.
But it still spreads so I guess what we do is not wrong.
How did things grow from there?
Me and Hiroaki started and some students started to come.
And what I'm grateful for is
that some people built a dojo and offered to let us use it
or they had some land and allowed us to build a dojo on it.
There were five or six of such people.
I guess it was because I was training hard at aikido and they liked me.
Yeah so there were five to six people and from there, it spread like this.
And the two of us, we were teaching at Kodaira and Tokorozawa,
Wednesdays and Fridays here and Tuesdays and Thursdays there, like that.
But because of those people, we had uchideshis like Igarashi coming.
So it has worked out fine and spread thanks to those people who made offerings, and others.
as well as those people who stopped working to become sort of uchideshi.
I always try new things in Aikido.
You know about Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers right?
Koyabashi dojo was the first to do it.
Members of the Kobayashi Dojo are the only ones to take exams at Hombu Dojo.
Yeah we do a lot of new things like that.
In how many countries are there Kobayashi Dojos?
I guess it's around 40 or more?
It's not written there, I haven't written it down lately.
I think around 40 came to my 80th birthday.
I guess it's more than 50 countries in total.
How do you conduct gradings in such a large organization?
There was a dan system when I opened my dojos
and each dojo was doing it on its own.
Like we did what we did here, Tokorozawa was doing its thing, and so was Hachioji.
So there were not many people right?
We taught them ourselves day to day so we were like you can't do it today but you usually can so it's okay.
But then there were more instructors and things became different by region.
When there were few people, we let all of them pass because we felt bad about failing them.
And there were differences between Igarashi Dojo's shodan and Horikoshi Dojo's Shodan
and people started to compare them.
So I called all of them to Hombu Dojo one day.
I asked them to perform in front of me and I failed half, 50 percent of them.
So a lot of them failed right?
Those who taught at regional dojos complained and blamed me for hurting their reputation
and said they would leave Kobayashi Dojo.
And I said alright, alright.
Then next occasion, I failed half of them again.
But that was actually a good call.
People thought we were serious and didn't compromise.
We had more people coming and it just kept increasing.
It's good that we failed them rather than passing them.
Those who leave will leave anyway.
I thought we could always start again, my son Hiroaki and I, like we did before.
But I guess people were actually impressed with it.
And the second time, everyone actually disagreed with failing half of them
but I told them that these people can't pass and they are not even close.
But then no one ended up leaving.
The world is interesting.
Well if you fail, you can just start over.
How do you manage to spread Aikido so much?
I don't just talk about its ideals, I promote it through hard work.
We also established musubukikin.
Isn't it in that newspaper?
We invite those who are facing financial challenges to Kobayashi Dojo.
What do you think about the aging of the Aikido population?
It might not be attractive for young people.
There are no competitions.
They want matches where the strong win, like win or lose.
But after a time, people won't care about things like that and start to do Aikido.
Well in my time, aikido was rare.
But now is the era of information technology and there are a lot of things.
Jujutsu is pretty popular in America and Europe right?
Aikido is also one of the waves.
Those who like this kind of thing gather naturally so I don't think we have to worry too much.
Well it's true, young people are not really interested, population is declining too.
In America and Europe, it's usually older people, you see old people at seminars too.
Well I think that's fine too though.
Young people are doing some other things like working out
but I think they will be interested and start joining us.
Worrying about it is not going to help.
What s your long term hope for Kobayashi Dojo?
In the future, I want more and more people to get along and enjoy practice,
and also talk about whatever we want like today.
Well there are different levels;
there are people who have been doing this for 30 to 40 years and complete beginners.
So I tell them a little bit personally but I don't demonstrate in front of them.
They can do it by themselves and senpais can also teach them.
It's like that abroad too, a similar teaching style.
I don't explain it.
Some people ask me if I'm going to explain it but I'm like it's self-explanatory.
So I don't need an interpreter.
And everyone enjoys it and that's what matters I guess.
So yeah I think it'll be even more popular.
And now it's about communication.
It's no longer like Senseis go there and teach.
If you want to come, you come and learn from each other.
There is a plenty of Senseis with 7 or 8 Dan abroad too.
And we, especially young ones, go back and forth, enjoying it.
Like Ueshiba Sensei said: "Aikido is fun".
Well even if you hold here instead of here, kotegaeshi is kotehaeshi anyway.
We would have a problem if you started calling it shihonage though.
Anyway, I guess it's okay the way it is.
That's like my ideology.
Some people might criticize it but since it's becoming more popular, I don't think it's the wrong way.
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