Aoinagi Karate

About Aoinagi Being The Green Willow Tree

March 8, 1972. Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California, USA.

Eight students began to study a little known means of self-defense called goshin-jitsu. They were crammed into a lecture room on the bottom floor of Gentry Gymnasium/Auditorium.

There was one woman, Nori Khoo. The rest were men; Peter Triolo, Fred Knight, Larry Allen, John Carothers and three others. Most of them were either medical students or dental students.

"I just came here out of curiosity. What does karate mean," asked Fred Knight.

I've been trying to answer that question ever since.

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The beginning of Aoinagi Karate was rather uneventful. By June 1972 the eight beginning students had earned their orange belts. Suddenly, they all quit. I didn't see them again for years. Some of them I have never seen since. I should have taken heed then; people leave karate quickly without warning.

But, I didn't take the hint. I continued to teach. New students came, then left. Hundreds of students passed through the doors, then thousands. Only a few stayed as long as a year. I just kept teaching those who wanted to learn.

And some learned; and some learned very well.

Aoinagi Karate was born, not at a place or at a time, but was born in the hearts of the few who stayed.

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Aoinagi--The Word Itself

Aoinagi is an American pronounciation of the Japanese words

These words, as you can see, are two characters. The first character is AOI. It means green in Japanese. It may be pronounced as aoi, aoy, or, believe or not sei.

The second character is yagi. It means willow tree. It may be pronounced yagi, nagi, or ryu.

Taken together the two words make aoinagi, aoiyagi, aoyagi or seiryu. They all mean the same; the green willow tree.

And, that is the meaning of the word AOINAGI.

Aoinagi--The Meaning

When other martial arts schools call themselves fanciful names like Flying Dragon Society, or Bill's Full Contact Kick-Boxing why would we have selected such a name as the green willow tree? The answer is not obvious, but there is an answer. Let's look.

There are 350 species of willows in the world. They grow in every conceivable biome. They live at the edges of lakes in the highest mountains of the world. They live in dry waterholes in the middle of the great Mojave desert. They grow beyond the last tree at tree line in the tundra of Alaska. These plants are widespread. And yet they really don't push other things around. They just live, taking in nutrients, giving off oxygen that other organisms might live. They just fit into the ecosystems of the world.

Willows are also exceedingly persistant. Their roots often survive a wildfire and grow back the next year with luxuriant foilage. Droughts may kill off the surrounding vegetation but the willow grows at the first drops of rain. If you cut out their roots a few remaining ones regrow to reproduce an entire stand of willows again. This is persistence, an admirable quality.

In view of the willow's non-aggression and yet persistence in the face of overwhelming odds, the name was selected for the organization which we call AOINAGI.

We don't claim to be the biggest organization, nor the best martial art in the world, or even the best in California. We claim only to be. And some of what we are we take from the image of a green willow tree growing wild and free.

Since Our Beginning

We may have begun at a prestigous university but we have not always been there. Loma Linda University held our small school until 1978. A switch in the physical education director caused us to seek another place to train. We were lucky in that the Redlands Community Center offered us a very nice set of rooms to train on two nights of the week. We took them up on their offer.

Our only difficulty was that we had only three students by this time. These three students were Robin Hershey, Diane Hara and myself. We put our heads together and launched a minor marketing campaign based on our limited monetary resources. Soon new students started to flow into the dojo. The dojo grew from three to 12 in one month (June). Then it blossomed to 60 as people began to recognize the value of martial arts training.

By 1980 we decided to rent a 2400 square feet building in Redlands because we had so many students we could not accomodate them at just one site. This new venture became affectionately known as "The Big Dojo." Thousands of students entered this dojo. Some stayed to receive a black-belt. Some became warriors. Some became national champions. Some disappeared.

After four greuling years of training for six night a week the dojo slammed into an impasse. Time, commitment, income clashed with greed, egos and opinions. I closed the "Big Dojo." For one year I trained alone or just in very small groups.

When May 1986 rolled around a new but much smaller dojo reopened. I explained to those who returned that the new dojo would have to handle its own resources, i.e., income, dues, bills, place to train. We were to become a club not an enterprise. The students were willing. So we began again.

Our once-small school has blossomed into four schools as of this writing. (Information about all of our schools is available in the section called, "Our Schools." You can access it in the Main Menu just to the left of this frame and under the heading "Clubhouse.")

It has been 12 years since the Redlands Dojo reopened. What you see here at this website is a reflection of what we now stand for. We are a small group of martial artists living quiet lives for the most part, training regularly with intensity and all the depth we can muster. We hold no desire for violence but we can face it with equanimity. We hold little desire for tournaments but we have gone before and won. We hold the greatest desire for the life Sensei Richard Kim exclaims as "the artist of life's life, martial arts." And that is what we seek.