Gozo Shioda Kancho

July 17th marked the 21st year since Gozo Shioda's passing. To pay our respects, the Ando family, Otsuka kaicho, past and present uchideshi and the Aikido College students went to Tokorozawa, Saitama to visit the Shioda Family grave.

A visit like this consists of picking the weeds and garbage from up around the grave site, next cleaning the gravestone with water, brushes, towels and so on, adding some fresh water to the 2 steel vases and replacing the sakaki (type of Japanese pine). After that, each person places some incense and/or flowers, sake, or any other offerings the deceased had liked, then a moment of silence.

On our way back to Urayasu we made a stop at the Tokorozawa Aviation Museum. Flight simulators, gravity simulators, and tonnes of airplanes, helicopters and aviation artifacts. Then a nice lunch before getting back on the road. All in all a nice day spent with the Ryu Aikido family.

Jim Dawes