Aikido Kobayashi Dojo

Sayonara Cherry Tree!

The cherry tree that stood in front of Kodaira Dojo we received from a neighbor and planted it on the road side of the parking lot when it was just thumb-sized. That was fifty years ago, way before the founding of the dojo. After the opening of the Kodaira dojo, the tree grew like Aikido Kobayashi Dojo, every year a little bigger until it grew quite large.

In the past, the Chuo train line's 3,300 volt high power lines went right over the parking area next to the dojo. They're no longer there, but at that time, an inspector would come around every month checking on their safety. After the cherry tree had grown quite big, it reached these power lines, so it always had to be cut back. When the tree was in full bloom, I said to the inspector "I know it has to be trimmed back, but I wish we could do it after the blossoms fall...." But the inspector replied that he had a lot of places to go and inspect and so he couldn't oblige me on that. So in accordance with the law, every year he cut back the tree.

About twenty years ago, the power lines were no longer needed and were removed. Nonetheless, the tree came to hang over the road between us and the neighbor's house. Falling leaves would clog gutters, on windy days, the branches would hit the roof, causing problems for everyone around when we didn't cut back the tree for three or four years. To bring in a truck with a crane would cost 100,000 yen; it became a big problem.

An even bigger problem was the leaves. In the Fall, if the leaves weren't swept up twice or three times a day, they'd cause the neighbors grief. I'm not sure of the cause, whether it was smog or what, but the leaves began to fall even in the Spring and Summer. It was a big job for the uchideshi (live-in trainees). Christine Dyer, a sixt-year old uchideshi who is an instructor in the U.S., commented that the uchideshi had many tasks, but perhaps the most formidable one was the sweeping up of the leaves of the Kodaira dojo cherry tree.

There's an Japanese saying "Sakura kiru baka, ume kiranu baka (It's foolish to cut branches of a cherry tree, and not to cut branches of a plum tree.)" Kodaira Dojo's cherry tree eventually grew to a circumference of three meters after fifty years. During all these years, it was cut back many times. A fungus had spread around the entire girth of the tree, and I had heard somewhere that if this were so, it could penetrate to the core of the tree. I finally began to think that the tree had become just too burdensome. This past Summer, a powerful typhoon hit with winds up to 80m/sec. I worried that the cherry tree might drop limbs that could damage a neighbor's house of even injure someone, so I decided at long last the cherry tree needed to be cut down.

Although sweeping the cherry tree's leaves was troublesome, in spring, when it was in full bloom, it brought great joy to our neighbors, our family and dojo members. On September 13th, I contacted Mr. Fumiyasu Koma (Hanno dojo instructor), the chief priest of Koma shrine, and he, along with my wife and I, Hiroaki dojocho and his family, uchideshi Recep, and others from the dojo and neighborhood, had a ceremony for the tree.

The next day, the nurseryman came with a crane and removed the top part of the tree. Many people pass by on this street and several stopped to ask if we were cutting the cherry tree down, how sad it was that we had to do that, and how much joy the tree had brought them. Please take a look at the photographs of the various stages in which it was cut. When it was finally cut close to the roots, we could see a large hole and termites swarming around. Seeing that, I thought that it was a good thing that we cut the tree down when we did. Now there is no more shade and I suppose practicing jo and ken outside in summer will be that much more difficult.

My family and I, along with many people throughout the world who were or will be uchideshi are now liberated from the task of sweeping leaves.

Goodbye, sayounara, cherry tree. Thank you for bringing us so much joy.