The last weekend in February, Stefan had the opportunity to take a weekend trip to Budapest for a seminar with 6th Dan Aikikai Shirakawa Ryuji Sensei. It was the only chance to meet him this year in Europe. Shirakawa Sensei is well known from social media. All his other "Beautiful Aikido (美しい合気道)" seminars in Europe have been cancelled for 2025.
The event was organised by the Shizen Juku Dojo from Kecskemét, a dojo about 100 km southeast of Budapest. In addition to Aikido they practise also Ninjutsu. The dojo is run by Hajagos Zoltán, 15th Dan Dai Shihan Ninjutsu. The relationships seem to have been established a long time ago. There are videos showing the two Shihan training together on YouTube.
Shirakawa Sensei has published numerous videos on YouTube, including many interesting videos in which he exchanges ideas with martial artists of other martial arts.
For Stefan and his wife, who accompanied him, it was their first time in Budapest.
So, Friday evening was dedicated to exploring the city. While the outside temperature in Germany was already
15 °C, in Budapest it was still cold with 4 °C and there was an icy wind. However this did not detract from the beauty of the panorama. Especially the beautifully lit government buildings and bridges are very worth seeing.
Of course we had Lángos for dinner. They were much bigger than the ones you get in Germany.
Sportcenter Kimba
On Saturday morning, Stefan took a taxi to Kozma István* Magyar Birkózó Akadémia, a sports center situated between the river Danube and the Danube Canal. Arriving at the building, there was no indication of a seminar with a YouTube star: no signs, no queues of people, no press presence. It seems that, despite of 0.5 million subscribers of Shirakawa Sensei's YouTube channel Shinburenseijuku, Aikido has not turned into a mass phenomenon. Climbing the stairs to the entrance, there was finally a hint that it was not the wrong address. A small A3 poster announced an Aikido seminar taking place here.
In the foyer of the hall, there was a relatively short queue of around 20-30 Aikidoka who dutifully showed their registrations. The changing rooms were small; there were only four of them, three for men and one for women.
In the meantime, Shirakawa Sensei had arrived with a small entourage of his students. The hall itself was already quite full of people. Apparently many aikidoka had arrived very early. They were waiting on the tatami that covered the entire hall. The number of participants in the morning was about 120. In the afternoon class there were even more aikidoka present.
*Kozma István (1939-1970) was a Hungarian wrestler in the heavyweight class. He was a multiple Olympic, world and European champion.
Saturday morning
At 10:00 a.m. exactly, Zoltán Hajagos welcomed all participants and quickly handed over to Shirakawa Sensei. As Sensei gave his explanations entirely in Japanese, he was translated by Mihály Dobroka. He is an aikidoka well-known from YouTube. He currently trains mainly in Japan in the Honbu Dojo.
The translations into English and Hungarian were generally very short and difficult to understand in the large hall. This made it all the more important to get a good view at the Sensei in order to find out which techniques he wanted to teach.
The first technique that Sensei showed was Katatedori Koteoroshi in various variations. It quickly became clear that Shirakawa Sensei was not interested in the subtleties of the techniques but in the possibilities of doing variations of breakfalls (Tobi Ukemi). Why breakfalls?
According to Shirakawa Sensei, the break falls are important, because in this way the opponent can be controlled until the end. This shows a fundamental difference compared to other Aikido styles, in which this type of controlling the opponent is not the main issue. With break fall, control by Nage is particularly important. When Uke is falling, he must be able to rely on Nage's holding until he has landed safely. A "free" break fall not be controlled by Nage. And a premature release by Nage is not appropriate, because a gentle escape roll without "slapping" the floor would be possible. Naturally a gentle roll would be far less likely to cause injuries and would offer a better chance to get back on your feet quickly again.
Lunch break
The majority of the aikidoka in Budapest were very familiar with breakfalls. So, right from the start, they threw as much as they could endure, and as much as their arms and legs could withstand. The techniques of this morning were Katatedori Koteoroshi, Ikkyo, Iriminage and Ryotemochi Shihonage. The latter was practised in interesting variations and of course always with Tobi Ukemi. So, we got quite exhausted .
At the beginning of the lunch break, there was a long queue of aikidoka who wanted to take a photo together with Shirakawa Sensei.
Many aikidoka spent the break walking along the nearby Danube Canal.
It was not possible to find out where Sensei was at lunch.
Saturday afternoon
In the afternoon, Shirakawa Sensei began, like before in the morning class, with simple and only a few warm-up exercises. The concept behind was not very clear and in no way comparable to the Kenko- and Aikitaiso of Ki-Aikido.
When explaining the techniques, Shirakawa Sensei now showed even more athleticism with his personal Uke. There was an interesting variation from Kaitennage to Sumi Otoshi, followed by Shikko Shomenuchi Ikkyo Irimi to Zenponage. The show aspect was obviously in the foreground.
The afternoon class ended with Jodori and Jonage with various throwing variations. Surprisingly, the subtle movements seemed to be extremely unfamiliar to most participants.
Most Aikidoka came either directly from Budapest or from nearby dojos. However, Stefan could meet also two aikidoka from Munich and two from Hamburg, as well as guests from Austria, Slovenia, France, England and even Lithuania.
Sunday morning
On Sunday morning there was another two-hour class. There was more stretching than the day before, followed by combinations of throwing techniques from Shomenuchi and Tsuki. The Jo, which were kindly available for the guests from abroad were not very stable. Unfortunately one of them broke during the exercises.
Embukai
From 12 a.m. to 2 p.m. there was an Embukai, which Stefan could not attend. He had to catch his early flight back to Germany. Perhaps this Embukai will be available on YouTube soon.
Conclusion
All in all, it was a very interesting experience.
It was particularly valuable due to the occasion to practise with many different aikidoka with various backgrounds.
Group photo
(c) Stefan N. - Aikido Hechingen
ダイナミック合気道
A small excerpt from the numerous videos on YouTube in which Shirakawa Sensei shows his "Dynamic Aikido" (ダイナミック合気道). The channel has more than half a million followers. This video has been viewed 4680 times so far (March 5, 2025).
The recordings are from 2018 and were made in the Shizen Juku Dojo in Kecskemét. Link to the original on YouTube.
