Our Japan Research Journey (2025)

I have been in Japan since January 6, preparing some future projects. Naturally, I am also diligently training in Karate and Okinawa Kobudō.

We spent the first week in Okinawa. This time was originally supposed to be more productive than it turned out. Unfortunately, my wife and I contracted a variant of COVID-19 and had to spend several days in quarantine, unable to leave our hotel room during that time.

Luckily, we recovered just before our flight to Fukuoka and the subsequent train ride to Beppu. There, we had 13 days of Tō’on-ryū training planned. Ikeda Sensei opened his treasure chest and provided us with some previously unknown articles and pictures, which we will use in the upcoming Tō’on-ryū article. During our time in Beppu, we also completed the first draft of the article and submitted it to Ikeda Sensei for review. He gave us some suggestions and improvement ideas.

After 14 days in Beppu, we took the Airport Express Bus to Ōita Airport, then flew to Tōkyō Haneda. From there, we took the train to Ryūgasaki, where we had 5 days of Matayoshi Kobudō training with Hayasaka Sensei. I gained many new insights and had interesting conversations with Hayasaka Sensei during the training-free periods, which led to further insights.

After 6 days in Ryūgasaki, we returned to Tōkyō by train. We had originally planned to attend the „48th Nihon Kobudō Enbu Taikai“ as visitors. However, at very short notice, the BAB publishing house asked if we would be interested in writing an article for Gekkan Hiden magazine — a request we gladly accepted.

On Monday, I visited the Kōdōkan, where I had the opportunity to meet the current curator. On this occasion, I presented the Kōdōkan with my two books on the history of Jiu-Jitsu/Jūdō in Germany.

On Tuesday, we conducted an interview with Koyama Masashi Sensei. This interview will also appear in one of the upcoming issues of Gekkan Hiden and will serve as a source for many future articles. Koyama Sensei is not only a former Kata world champion (Taipei, 1982) but also an excellent researcher who has already published numerous works.

In 1977, he had the opportunity to interview Iraha Chōkō Sensei twice and also learned the Sansērū kata from him. After consulting with Ikeda Sensei, I was able to compare the Beppu Sansērū with the Iraha Sansērū and identified some differences.

Wednesday was a family day at Tokyo DisneySea.

Thursday and Friday were fully dedicated to research. We visited the National Archives and the Yūshūkan Museum at the Yasukuni Shrine, where we gained important insights for a future topic.

Today, Saturday, is dedicated to rest, and tomorrow we will head to the airport in Tōkyō.