“Night at the Nisei Lounge” (2013)

(reposted from the blog of Chicago Aikido Club)

Erik Matsunaga, head instructor of Ravenswood Shorin-ryu Karate Dojo and who profiled Chicago Aikido Club (CAC) senior instructor Joe Takehara Sensei in Discover Nikkei recently shared this memorable photo and memory from 2013 with members of the two dojo getting together at a Japanese American community fundraiser at the Nisei Lounge bar in Wrigleyville.

Left to Right: Ryan Yokota, Dean Yamada, Dwight Sora, Joe Takehara

Thursday, October 10, 2013

“Night at the Nisei Lounge” was a benefit fundraiser for the Japanese American Service Committee. Nisei Lounge is among the final vestiges of what used to be a sizeable Japanese American community that once resided in the shadows of Wrigley Field.

At one time, Takehara sensei lived on Newport Avenue, a half block east of the Nisei Lounge. He opened his dental practice one block south on Clark, across the street from Tony Muranaka’s home, whose matless, marble-floored basement served as the original gathering place for the Illinois Aikido Club. Incidentally, Detective Muranaka was the first Nisei on the Chicago Police Department.

After moving out of Muranaka's 3-flat basement, the IAC opened its first dedicated, storefront dojo with makeshift mats across the street from John Omori’s (co-founder of IAC) optometry practice.

And the Japanese American Service Committee, whose Uptown facility a mile-and-a-half up Clark Street currently hosts Takehara sensei and the Chicago Aikido Club, once triangulated these positions at its old location two blocks south of Nisei Lounge, on the corner of Sheffield and School.

I’d venture to guess Takehara sensei was the first Nisei his generation’s namesake tavern had seen in a long time, and quite possibly the only one since. For more information as to why that would be, peruse & listen to WBEZ’s recent Curious City feature: "What Happened to Chicago's Japanese Neighborhood?"

Aikido Instructor Relives the Past

This is a repost from the blog page of Chicago Aikido Club, the dojo where I have been teaching and practicing the Japanese martial art of aikido for the past four years. 

A member of the crew adjusts Joe Takehara's wardrobe

On Thursday, April 28, Chicago Aikido Club senior instructor Joe Takehara stepped back through time into his own past. Although the actual place was the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois, it had been dressed up with props and other items to recreate the moment when Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes and board trains, eventually bound for "internment camps" set up in rural areas around the U.S. following the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that kicked off the Pacific War and full-scale American involved in World War II. As a result of public wartime hysteria and racial intolerance, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, nearly all who lived on the West Coast and including many American citizens, lost the homes and businesses they had spent lives building up, and would largely remain in the camps until 1944.

This was the set for The Orange Story, a short film in which Takehara plays a West Coast grocery store owner named Koji Oshima saying goodbye to his store before heading to the camps. The film is the first of four planned productions, and is being made in conjunction with an educational website for inclusion in curriculums at all levels of education.

The film is being produced by Chicago filmmaker Eugene Sun Park and his company Full Spectrum Features, in collaboration with fellow filmmaker Jason Matsumoto (a member of the Japanese drumming group Ho Etsu Taiko and is providing the soundtrack).

A shot is lined up on set

In real life, Takehara grew up in San Diego, California, and was relocated with his family to Poston War Relocation Center in southwestern Arizona. When the internment ended in 1945, his family migrated east, following a wave of some 20,000 Japanese American resettlers from various camps to Chicago (he was fourteen at the time).

The Orange Story is also being shot in California, and is slated to be released this year. It has been partially made possible by a nearly $160,000 grant from the National Park Service, which allocates funding for projects commemorating and preserving Japanese American confinement sites.

If you are interested in more information about The Orange Story project, please contact Jason at jason@fullspectrumfeatures.com or 773.504.4107.

UPDATE

An official fundraising campaign has been launched for The Orange Story. If you are interested in contributing, please visit the campaign website at http://tinyurl.com/zqujy3s.

Please include any of these links to your family and friends if they'd like to learn more:
Project Website: theorangestory.wordpress.com/
Facebook: facebook.com/theorangestory/

Group photo from the railroad shoot

"I get knocked down, but I get up again . . . "

Celebrating my 42nd by getting down (and up and down, and then down again) during a momentous week for the U.S.A.

Getting tossed around by my teacher, Joe Takehara

After an incredible week of events that saw the upholding of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the legalization of same-sex marriage and reflection on the notorious legacy of the Confederate flag, I thought I'd kick off my 42nd celebrations early (actual date: June 30) with a round of birthday breakfalls at the end of class with the Chicago Aikido Club on Friday the 26th. 

My fellow aikidoka in attendance that night (Marlon Fadragas, Cyril Oseledets, Joe Takehara, Hai Tran, Nguyen Tran and Andrew Vitale) kindly obliged to toss me about the mat.

Reposted from the blog of Chicago Aikido Club (CAC)

Happy 84th Takehara Sensei

Posted on April 8, 2015by ChicagoAikidoClub

Dr. Joe Takehara (竹原譲), senior instructor of Chicago Aikido Club (CAC) and a founding member of the original Illinois Aikido Club celebrated his 84th birthday on Saturday, April 4 at a party organized by his daughter Susanne. The lively gathering was attended by members from the CAC, as well as members of theMilwaukee Aikido Club, Chicago Aikikai and Ravenswood Shorin-ryu Karate Dojo.  Happy Birthday Takehara Sensei!!

Age is All in the Mind

Getting tossed around by Joe Takehara

I've posted before about Joe Takehara, one of the fine aikido instructors I've gotten to know over the years, and my principal teacher for the last three or four at Chicago Aikido Club.

Takehara Sensei is 84 years old, lived through the wartime internment, boxed and was a competitive gymnast in his youth, married and raised three kids, is a retired dentist and had ankle replacement surgery two years ago.

You'd think after all that he'd just be slowing down, taking things easy and enjoying his retirement years. Instead, here he is tossing me around like a rag doll during a recent demo held at Tohkon Judo Academy as part of their New Year's festivities.

It may be hard to believe, but none of the moves you see above were pre-planned. And the apparent power is very real. My dojo has been performing a demo at Tohkon for New Year's three years in a row now, but this is the first time ever that Takehara Sensei participated.

Although the rest of us mapped out what we were going to do, we left a wide open slot for Takehara Sensei to do whatever he wanted. And if it looks like I'm surprised in the video, it's because I was. I had never seen or experienced him moving so fast or pulling such moves during regular class.

I'm very much a child of my time and generation. And I'm embarrassed to admit that as such I'm prone to easily feeling defeated or disappointed by petty setbacks as are much of my ilk. So, it's inspiring to be reminded of what someone is capable of when they simply do not stop trying, working or doing what they like to do with a full heart and spirit.

Oh, and by the way, Takehara Sensei was also pretty awesome at showing the rest of us up with his form and power when doing mochitsuki, the traditional making of rice cakes (mochi) for the New Year.

Photos from Karate Meets Aikido Night

Erik Matsunaga at Ravenswood Shorin-Ryu Karate Dojo has kindly posted photos on their website from the joint training session on Monday, October 6 with members of Chicago Aikido Club led by Joe Takehara Sensei.

Exchange Training with Joe Takehara and Chicago Aikido Club

Posted on October 7, 2014

Joe Takehara sensei and Chicago Aikido Club at Ravenswood Shorin-ryu Karate Dojo.

On October 6th, we were honored to host Joe Takehara sensei, a charter member of the old Illinois Aikido Club. IAC, founded in 1961 by a small group of Nisei professionals in Chicago Police Detective Tony Muranaka’s basement, was the first aikido dojo in the Midwestern United States. Initially learning from a book by Koichi Tohei, then Chief Instructor of Aikido World Headquarters in Tokyo, the club would go on to host such luminary in-house instructors as Chester Sasaki, Francis Takahashi, Motokage Kawamukai, Isao Takahashi, Yoshihiko Hirata, Akira Tohei, and Shigeru Suzuki.

Takehara sensei demonstrates aiki principles with Ravenswood Dojo member Ryan Yokota.

As a special treat, the Chicago Aikido Club – where Takehara sensei occasionally instructs today – cancelled their scheduled Monday class to attend our dojo in support of this goodwill exchange. We shared a couple warm-ups and basics of karate, then handed the floor over to Takehara, who introduced some advanced concepts of applying technique through kimochi (feeling), relaxation, and proper breathing. A former boxer and gymnast, Takehara took up the practice of aikido shortly after starting a dental practice located across the street from Muranaka’s home. Like his contemporaries, he was not so much interested in the physical aspects of the art as the mental and spiritual side that would help him center and settle his energies for enhanced focus in his career and family life.

Special guest Jason Matsumoto, of Chicago-based Ho Etsu Taiko – “a collective of musicians with a fresh take on the art of Japanese drumming” – also happened to stop by the dojo for some training. Here he works with Chicago Aikido Club manager Dwight Sora.

At 83-years of age and plenty genki to join us for a post-practice hamburger and beer, Joe Takehara is an exemplar of traditional budo. The fact that his vehicle for expression is aikido and our chosen vessel is karatedo makes no difference. We are grateful for this rich experience and look forward to future such exchanges.

Post-practice pub grub at O’Shaughnessy’s Public House, around the corner. Most importantly, we all had fun.

BTW, Erik had mentioned to me that the original draft of his article at Nikkei Chicago on Takehara Sensei had included far more material than made it to the final version. Recently on the Chicago Aikido Club Facebook page, Erik posted a little snippet of what got cut out, which was about Takehara Sensei's time as a gymnast. I have reposted it below.

Erik Matsunaga

September 28 at 2:58pm

Joe Takehara sensei, the most senior aikidoka in the Midwestern United States, captained the 1951-1952 gymnastics team at the University of Illinois at Navy Pier. While attending Lakeview High School in Chicago, Takehara met Herbert "Herby" Vogel, a member of the Chicago Chapter of the American Turners - a nationwide German American gymnastics club.

Herby encouraged Joe to participate, and Takehara went on to practice gymnastics with the Turners from high school through undergrad, until he entered the University of Illinois Dental School. By that time, Takehara said, he had no more time to practice. His buddy Herby Vogel founded and led the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Women's Gymnastics Team for 23 years, and went on to be regarded as "The Father of Women's Collegiate Gymnastics."

After his first dentistry job doing labs for Andrew Kambara, D.D.S. at 2561 N. Clark, Takehara opened a dental practice at 3355 N. Clark, a mile north (at that time, a mile in city terms was a world away) in a Japanese American neighborhood near Wrigley Field, and became a charter member of the Illinois Aikido Club - founded in Chicago Police detective Tony Muranaka's Clark Street 3-flat basement in 1961.

Little known fact: Joe Takehara, D.D.S. once gave the legendary Koichi Tohei, then Chief Instructor of Aikikai / Aikido World Headquarters, Tokyo, an emergency root canal during one of the latter's visits to Chicago.