Ryūgan Robert D. Savoca began training judo at 12 years old and took up aikido after his judo instructor suggested it to him. After that he learned from many teachers in California until he met Juba Nour, who taught him the “essence of Chiba Sensei.” Shortly afterwards, Savoca became Chiba’s uchi deshi, learning the intensity of aikido from him. In 2001 he founded Brooklyn Aikikai, a school that strives for inclusivity. Today, Savoca took some time to talk with us about his time under Chiba, teaching on his own, and how aikido can relate to the modern world. All images provied by Ryugan Savoca.
Martial Arts of Yesterday, or Today, and Tomorrow: Hello and welcome, Savoca Sensei! Thank you for joining us today!
Ryūgan Savoca: Thank you for having me.
MAYTT: You began training in both judo and aikido at the age of twelve. How did you find aikido at such a young age?
RS: So, that was in Oceanside, California. I grew up in Bonsall, which was a small town, and I went to high school in Fallbrook, and my father took me. I think he looked it up; he found a place that was offering judo in Oceanside. I started to take lessons there. My father wanted me to be stronger. Within about a year of doing judo, my judo instructor, who was an undercover cop, recommended doing aikido, saying it would help my judo.
There was another man there, Gerald Gimmel, who was a marine or a retired marine. He was loosely affiliated with Kazuo Chiba Sensei. He would go down and see Chiba Sensei. That’s who I started taking lessons with.
MAYTT: What was the training like when you first started?
RS: I was a kid, so I was going about once or twice a week at twelve or thirteen, so it was not very intense. The interesting thing was that there were no children’s classes, so I was just thrown in with the adults. Maybe it was a little intimidating to be twelve or thirteen and mostly working with adults.
MAYTT: Over time, you gravitated more towards aikido than judo. How did that happen?
RS: I really liked this professor, Charles Potter– he taught mostly non–competitive judo. He taught judo and we would spar and everything, but then he taught a lot of self-defense as well; he did some classical jiu-jitsu. He had to leave – he was the undercover cop – and a younger guy took over who was more about the competitive aspect of judo. I think that pushed me more towards the aikido. I wasn’t really interested in competing so much in judo.
MAYTT: According to your biography, you began training at UCLA and then West Los Angeles Aikido Institute. How did the training differ between the two establishments?
RS: The first year I did it in college it leaned more towards Ki no Kenkyukai – it was soft aikido. That was my perception of it. The West Los Angeles Aikido Institute with Pablo Vazquez and Gloria Nomura was associated with Chiba Sensei at the time, with Birankai. That was more under the technical guidance of Chiba Sensei. So, it was a lot different. Where I came from with Gerald Gimmel, even though he was loosely affiliated with Chiba Sensei, he was trying to do more or less of what Chiba Sensei was doing.
The first time I heard about Chiba Sensei was when I was twelve, I saw his calligraphy in the small YMCA dojo in Oceanside; Chiba Sensei’s handprint and calligraphy was up on the wall there.
I moved to college in LA, and my freshman year I was just doing the classes on the campus. Then I wanted something a little bit more formal, a little bit more serious.
MAYTT: Just to clarify: you did both the aikido club on campus and the West Los Angeles Aikido Institute?
RS: Probably from sophomore year on. Then I stopped going to the club on campus and was just going off campus to the dojo in West LA.
MAYTT: Like you said before, the aikido you experienced when you were twelve was loosely affiliated with Chiba. Did you see any training differences between Gerald Gimmel and what you experienced at West Los Angeles Aikido institute?
RS: I would say that Mr. Gimmel and Pablo Vazquez and Gloria Nomura, they had already done aikido before they came to Chiba Sensei, I believe, they weren’t his direct students, so it’s a little bit different when somebody’s directly under a teacher and has to take everything from that teacher than when they join them later on in life and become affiliated with the organization – not that either of them were trying not to do what Chiba Sensei was doing, but they had their own way, too, if that make sense.
MAYTT: It does. When you moved to New York, you began training with Juba Nour. What was he like as an instructor?
RS: He was one of Chiba Sensei’s original disciples in the 1980s when Chiba Sensei first came here in 1982/1983. He’s a very intense person. He’s like Chiba Sensei. I would say that he took the essence of what Chiba Sensei had. You could say when I left LA, I had pretty good form, but I didn’t have the essence of what Chiba Sensei had and I feel like I got that from Juba Sensei. But I got it handed to me pretty hard. Sometimes I see people that have pretty good form in aikido, but you can look at it and it looks pretty, it looks nice, but there’s nothing behind it.
Juba Sensei’s aikido isn’t, I would say, always pretty. To me, there’s a kind of beauty in it because it’s very effective – it really works. He’s going to make the throw work – just like Chiba Sensei did. But there is a rawness in his aikido, especially when I was training with him then. It was intense being there at that time. I was there for a year and a half. Two to three hours a day. It was rough [laughs].
MAYTT: What was the usual training regimen under him in any given class?
RS: I would say he was somebody that can, like Chiba Sensei, push somebody to the edge of what they could take. The difference between Chiba Sensei and Juba Sensei was, in my opinion, that Chiba Sensei really concentrated on about ten people in the dojo, like the uchi deshi or kenshusei. You had to want to be a teacher. The general students, he didn’t crush as much. Juba Sensei, he had a small dojo, and he was forty-something; the rest of us were all twenty-somethings. It was a young feeling in the dojo, and we were all pushed physically hard. He was very demanding technically, I would say. There was a lot of passion behind his aikido.
My experience is a little bit different from other people’s. My upbringing was intense, meaning my father fought in World War II and grew up in the Great Depression; he was very strict and the teachers that I had were mostly intense and explosive. Sometimes they had a temper. So, it’s interesting when I met other Japanese teachers who were also that intense, I would just think, “Well, that’s the way martial arts are.” I trained a little bit, seven or eight years, with Marcelo Garcia, he’s a famous jiu-jitsu man and the way he teaches is very different. He always has a smile on his face – he’s a killer – and he’s a nice guy. And I thought, “Oh, you can teach like this. I never thought about that.” So being with Juba Sensei was intimidating but off the mat, he wasn’t as intimidating. On the mat, he was. He is not a big guy but he’s really strong internally. I don’t know how else to express it really.
MAYTT: I see. Later, you became an uchi deshi of Kazuo Chiba at his San Diego Aikikai. What led you to become an uchi deshi?
RS: Well, I was walking through Times Square in New York with Juba Sensei. We were talking about his experience with Chiba Sensei. For some reason, we were talking about the explorer Sir Richard Burton and Juba Sensei said, “Yeah, speaking about exploring, it’s time for you to leave. You can go be uchi deshi for Sensei and have your own experience there without listening to my stories about it, or you can go meditate in the mountains for half a year. It’s up to you.” So, then I decided to go see Chiba Sensei. That’s how it went down. It wasn’t like I wasn’t attracted to doing it anyways – I wanted to be a teacher. I always wanted to have a dojo. It was a logical thing for me to do. Juba Sensei was compassionate in that he wanted me to have my own experience with his teacher and not just hearing all these stories about all these people having experiences with Chiba Sensei. So, in a way, it was very generous. At that time, I was working in New York a lot and training a lot. I wrote to Chiba Sensei and asked for permission, and he accepted me. I quit my job and moved to San Diego.
MAYTT: How long did you stay as uchi deshi with Chiba?
RS: I was living there as uchi deshi for a year and then I went back later for a couple of months, living very close to the dojo, not in the dojo. I was there in the actual dojo for a year, then I left, I came back and trained with Juba Sensei. Then Chiba Sensei asked me to teach in Kazakhstan for about half a year or so. It didn’t work out; I had a bit of a falling out with the instructor there after ten days [laughs].
So, I had packed all of my stuff for six months, and my first wife and I had sublet our apartment in New York. So I had nowhere to go. So, I went back to San Diego with Chiba Sensei again. I was back and forth quite a lot because my family is from San Diego.
MAYTT: Before we move on with your time as uchi deshi, tell me about the Kazakhstan experience. How did Chiba Sensei convince you to go out and teach there?
RS: This person from Kazakhstan wrote to Chiba Sensei asking him if there was a teacher that could come and teach. At that point, I was getting ready to leave San Diego and move back to New York, and Chiba Sensei just asked me. I was – I guess I am – the kind of student that if my teacher suggests something, I just say okay. I said I’ll go, and my first wife was from Iran, and we had just gotten married. Actually, we went to Iran, and we were there for a while. From there, we went to Kazakhstan. The teacher had really only seen Chiba Sensei teach seminars in Europe. And when Chiba Sensei is teaching seminars, he can be very charming and gracious, but he really didn’t see the severity of the other part of Chiba Sensei. I was right out of San Diego, and I was just full of fire. So, I was in Kazakhstan teaching pretty strong classes. I think the younger students liked it, but he felt that this was not what he wanted. So, after ten days, he said, “I want you to stay and teach weapons, but your aikido is too severe.” I said, “I’m not staying here to teach you weapons.”
Anyway, I called San Diego to apologize to Chiba Sensei to say that I failed. Mrs. Chiba, his wife, answered the phone and said, “He’s in Greece and teaching a seminar.” I had nowhere to go, so I flew to Greece to apologize to him in person and he said, “Oh, I knew if you went there, it would be a problem.” [Laughs.] He was laughing about it. Then I said, “Sensei, I have nowhere to go. Can I come back to San Diego?” He accepted me and that’s how it worked out.
MAYTT: It is unfortunate that only after ten days everything fell apart even though you planned for six months.
RS: Well, it was part of who I was at the time – I was a little bit difficult to deal with, I’m sure. It’s alright. [Laughs]
MAYTT: Returning to your time as an uchi deshi, how did Chiba compare with all the instructors you had before?
RS: Well, they have this similarity. Chiba Sensei was the kind of person that really – depending on what you gave him, he would take it. Meaning, if you really wanted to be pushed and you let him into your life, he would take it pretty far. So, if you really wanted the essence of aikido – that’s one way to say it – he would give it to you and really try to work with you.
He was good at finding your spots that needed to be pushed, or what you didn’t want pushed, and he would push them. Sometimes he would set people against each other to do that. So, it was intense in the dojo – two or three people living there. There was always a special class on Friday night that was his class, which could be anything. It was a two-hour class; it could be sitting zazen for two hours; it could be doing irimi nage for two hours sometimes. It was like his laboratory; it was really interesting. So, I think he was also a teacher that was interested in the psychology of people, the growth of people, not just in aikido, but in Zen. I think he felt Zen was a way for people to open up their aikido. He used it like that. We had to go sit for a Rohatsu session, which was an eight-day meditation retreat, all day. It was really rough for some people; they never sat before or they couldn’t sit very well, but that was part of the program. So, there were things like that that he did, that he pushed people to do. I don’t know if other teachers do that. Some of the other teachers do, but not a lot, I think.
MAYTT: How did Chiba approach training? How would you describe the training you experienced while learning from Chiba?
RS: I think the way to describe him, in some ways, was uncompromising. He wasn’t interested in diluting the aikido for me or for anybody. At the same time, he was very compassionate, in the sense that if people didn’t necessarily want that level, he didn’t push it. But to the people that wanted that, to those of us trying to be a teacher or really interested in that kind of training, he was uncompromising. I felt that he had a very high standard. Many times, I would be very upset. I remember one time in Vermont as his otomo and we were doing weapons together. I was covering my head and he would strike my leg, but it was random (sometimes to the leg, sometimes to the head). He wanted me to cover, and he was screaming at me when I didn’t do it the way he wanted, and it was going fast. It was scary and dangerous and all of the above. I remember I was in his office after; I was so upset I was starting to cry. He said, “I’m sorry, but you wanted to be a teacher.” It was like that.
I think he had, much like my father, an older idea of pushing people to the edge to have a breakthrough, so something else can come out. This is also a strategy in Zen, where people are sitting for many hours to have a breakthrough. Or the concept of shugyo, ascetic training, where you’re pushing yourself to your limits so something else can come out. In contrast to people practicing aikido for enjoyment, moving their body, and learning this thing, and nobody’s yelling at them and nobody’s pushing them in a way that’s uncomfortable, and they come out of class, and they like themselves. [Laughs.] There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s another way to push yourself – like a runner. After they’ve given everything, there’s still something more in there and what is that?
I think he was focused on that method – that method of shugyo, of stripping a person down until they could really affirm what they really were.
MAYTT: Did that approach to training change and evolve over time?
RS: My relationship with Chiba Sensei was rather old-fashioned, meaning I have probably said more to you in this interview than in fifteen or seventeen years with him. I did talk with him, but it was minimal.
As he got older, there was a softening, definitely. So, I would say that there was a softening when he was older, but I wouldn’t say the intensity was not there. Maybe it was less explosive. The last time I took ukemi for Chiba Sensei was in 2012 at the summer camp I was running in New York and then he passed away three years later. It wasn’t much time. I saw him right before he died. He also wanted to see a student of mine’s shodan test in 2013 the next year. Even though he didn’t teach he watched that test. He had that intensity always in him.
MAYTT: In 2001, you established your Brooklyn Aikikai. What influenced you to follow through with this decision?
RS: I think at one point – I’ve been training and training and I wanted to do my own thing. There was some talk about helping Juba Sensei out in Manhattan, but what I really wanted was to try it on my own. I’d always wanted that since I was young. The circumstances got to a point where after I had come back from San Diego and Kazakhstan and I was with Juba Sensei, it was time for me to go. So that led me to the start of the dojo here in Brooklyn.
MAYTT: Additionally, Brooklyn Aikikai has issued an anti-racism statement on its website. Why do you feel such a statement is needed for an aikido dojo? Have you had experiences where racism was prevalent in the dojo or was a statement brought on by something outside the dojo?
RS: Well, racism, or systemic racism, is something that is – I guess you could describe it as it’s in the air, meaning it’s what we breathe. So, it doesn’t matter if I’m in the bank or in the dojo or in the grocery store, there is some kind of culture of white supremacy or racism that we’re breathing all the time. It can take place anywhere so it’s important to be conscious of how I am in the dojo, to be conscious at my work, or wherever I am. So, I don’t feel that the dojo is any different than a workplace or a social club, or anything. You’re going to have the same kind of air. So, until the air is changed, it’s something to be looked at.
When I was in college, I studied something about this, but my path or passion has always been to focus on training in aikido. Even the politics of aikido, I’ve never been interested in or, for lack of a better way to say it, the administrative part, the bureaucracy. Most of my time is spent with many hours on the mat or doing zazen. One day – I have end-of-the-year interviews with all of my students – a student came to me – she’s a great student – and she said, “I love our dojo a lot, but it’s very White.” Being White, maybe it’s something I don’t really think about. So, then I really started to think about it and work with her; “What can we do about it?” Meaning, as you think about it, there’s nothing really wrong here but, when you start to look at the makeup of Brooklyn— it’s very diverse: from Latin(e) to Black, to many different cultures here. And if you have a dojo that’s eighty percent White, why is that? Why, when you go down the street to the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu place, there are more Black people training than in my dojo? Or you go to the boxing gym, there are more Spanish people there than in my dojo. Then you start to think about it. It was interesting because when I was boxing, I didn’t think about it too much.
So that led to the creation of the DEIC (Diversity Equity Inclusion Committee) at the dojo. It’s very interesting. It was difficult for me in the beginning because the chief instructor does everything in the dojo. For a DEIC to really work, the instructor has to give them autonomy. I can’t give my opinion there. To really be anti-racist, as I understand it, it is more of a horizontal axis and structure; it can’t be this vertical hierarchy which is traditional in a traditional Japanese dojo. I don’t go to their meetings; I’m not invited unless they need to address something. And that was a very difficult thing for me, from a dojo that I started twenty years ago to be not included by necessity in these meetings so people of color and others can address these issues. That was a pretty revolutionary concept. I think it’s very valuable, but I had to wrap my mind around it for the first year or two. It was difficult; I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t.
MAYTT: Moreover, in what ways do you feel an aikido dojo can help combat racism or prejudice in the larger society?
RS: People in aikido quite often talk about harmony and coming together and overcoming certain kinds of force and obstacles. So, if you just have a group of people that are all the same, and you’re doing that, and it’s very homogeneous, it might be easy. But if there’s no diversity of culture, language, gender, sexual preference, it seems kind of false to me. I think the more culture or diversity is in the dojo, it’s going to lead to more opinions, more different ways of living one’s life. And then there would be more tension, I would say, and there can be an opportunity for it to be resolved or seen. If a dojo can work towards being more inclusive, being more and more inclusive, that is actually within the line of the mission statement of aikido. If aikido is to be radically open or to be radically inclusive, or to be radically for the world – however you want to say it – then to have a very small group of people all the same seems contrary to that idea. I would hope that more dojos can be more diverse. I think it’s also important to look at the makeup of everyone’s city. Maybe one city is really white, there’s not really much you can do about that. But in New York City, Chicago, LA, if you’re operating a dojo and it only has one group of people, it seems problematic to me. It seems that other people may be feeling unwelcome in the dojo, maybe there’s something I’m putting out there that I’m not aware of… but I’m putting something out there that these people don’t feel welcomed in the dojo. I think it is positive to have a DEIC to ask why is it like this and what can we do about it? Maybe there is something about the culture of traditional Japanese dojos that is not appealing to these groups of people.
MAYTT: The school founded a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (DEIC). Since its formation, how have you seen this committee further Brooklyn Aikikai’s commitment to anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion?
RS: Firstly, just having the literature on our website has attracted a lot of people – the fact that we’re committed to that. We’ve also held diversity training where outside people have come in and talked to the community. We’ve also had an LGBTQI training here. So, we’ve had a couple of different trainings and the dojo members have been really open to it and really appreciative of it. Some people have felt heard and seen when they have not been heard and seen before and I think that builds on it. And more people come and feel, “Oh, this literature is on the website; I feel welcome here. I see this person on the website like myself, so I feel comfortable there.” I think it’s an ongoing discussion. It’s not like I feel that a dojo should have this percentage of Asian people, this percentage of Black people; and therefore we’re doing better. It’s not necessarily that, I think the point is to ask “How am I becoming more open to my own bias and my own prejudice and my own preferences?” and to see how subconsciously maybe I am not including certain people. I think that discussion and other discussions like it in the dojo, whether it’s been in these big groups or among people, it opened up more talking and I think people have become more open. That has changed the feeling of the dojo, too.
MAYTT: Final question; With the emphasis on social awareness in the last ten years, how will aikido adapt and change to these views and perspectives in the years to come?
RS: I think it depends upon what people are looking for in aikido, to be honest. For me, the difference between aikido and judo or jiu-jitsu is that it has that noncompetitive, non-dualistic goal – but ‘goal’ is not the right word. Chiba Sensei would always say that, “Aikido exists as a kind of medicine to this goal-oriented culture,” or this culture that is very dualistic. If you look at aikido like that, you’re trying to transcend, for a lack of a better way to say it, subject and object or duality and you’re trying to have this unity. Then that’s going to point to me not oppressing anybody, or me not preferring this person over that person. That’s going to lead to a radical inclusion of people. I don’t see how it could not lead to that, if that’s my understanding of aikido. I think, and I’m not saying I understand a lot about aikido but, one of the things that seems to be lost in the western interpretation of aikido is that O-Sensei was a deeply spiritual man and Chiba Sensei would talk about him – sometimes he would be in a trance.
For example, if you take yoga and bring it to the West, it’s largely become gymnastics. If you take aikido and you bring it to the West, it’s largely become physical on this and that level. Now, there are big debates on how it’s not going to work in a cage, how it’s not going to work in here, it’s not going to work there. But if you look at aikido –what its actual purpose is, to reconcile duality – to reconcile subject and object – then it has to lead to a radical inclusivity, a radical openness, which means that anybody should be in your dojo, regardless of sexual preference, gender, or race. We should have different kinds of different people there.
So, I’m hoping that, yes, for the future, aikido is a place that endorses that philosophy more and more. It seems like that is already in its philosophy, but whether it’s really understood is a question. As you probably already know from practicing, it doesn’t really matter what you do on the mat, it matters off the mat who you are, just as much. So what? Your irimi nage’s great, but how are you treating this person? [Laughs] And who’s in your dojo? I hope that my dojo grows more and more towards that. It’s a lot of hard work because I have to look at myself all the time; “Am I operating from this point of view that’s maybe not helpful? Am I subtly influencing this so it is unwelcome to other people?” It’s a lot of work but I think if people wake up to it more and more… The student that brought this to my attention four or five years ago, they have been involved in the social justice movement for over twenty years – who knows what would’ve happened if they hadn’t said anything? Maybe I would have kept going with just thinking about Zen and Aikido, and working with the people that were there and having this idea that, “Well, whoever wants to come here is welcome and it’s their fault that they’re not coming.” That’s one view, but maybe it’s also I’m not creating the right environment for everybody to come.
MAYTT: Thank you again for joining us today to talk about Chiba Sensei and how you address social justice!
RS: It was my pleasure.
To learn more about aikido and its history in America, click here.
Martial Arts of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow 