Sennin Foundation Teaches The Art of Staying Calm During Daily Stress

Serenity dominates the Sennin Foundation Center on San Pablo Avenue on Thursday nights. Deshi, or apprentices, practice Japanese yoga by taking the zazen meditation pose while their teacher rings a bell to signal the beginning of formal practice. Time seems to melt away. A clock ticking is the only sound. 

According to its founder, H.E. Davey Sensei, the Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese Cultural Arts is one of few dojos, or studios, in the United States where students can learn Aiki-Jujutsu, a traditional Japanese martial art. Davey said most dojos focus on kata, or form. Davey offers Aiki-Jujutsu lessons, which incorporate Japanese yoga.

The dojo also offers other traditional culture classes such as Japanese healing arts and calligraphy.

"Practicing Japanese yoga and traditional Japanese martial arts isn't about learning how to fight. It's about learning how to remain calm in motion or how to remain calm under pressure," said Davey. "If people catch you by surprise, you will die."

Whether through martial arts or yoga, healing or calligraphy, Davey teaches his students how to unify the mind and body. Rather than sharing his age, Davey simply said he is a member of the Baby Boomer generation, adding that he's lost his sense of aging by practicing Japanese yoga.

"Budo (Japanese martial arts) and Shin-shin-toitsu-do (Japanese yoga) were used by samurai as a vehicle to find where their fear came from. We are not samurai but we still have fear and challenges in our lives," said Davey, who lives in Green Valley and has authored several books about Japanese yoga, calligraphy and martial arts.

Shin-shin-toitsu-do was founded by Tempu Nakamura in the early 1900s. Davey said people often call him wondering about what Japanese yoga entails.

He tells them it involves stretching, breathing techniques, sitting and moving meditation and massage-like healing. One central concept is that commonplace activities such as school and work are a time to practice these skills, rather than only during formal meditation. 

Originally from Northern California, Davey's interest in studying Japanese martial arts started when he was 5.

"I was watching wrestling on TV and I tried to get my father to wrestle with me. He did, but he started teaching me more than wrestling," said Davey, whose father, Victor Davey, was one of the first Americans, in 1926, to get involved in jujutsu, a traditional Japanese martial art. He studied secretly in Japan as an Army officer when the practice was banned by the occupying forces after World War II.

Davey said Shin-shin-toitsu-do helped him take his martial arts practice to a deeper level.

"I was a very shy, awkward, sickly kid. Japanese martial arts helped me with all of these things, but I still wasn't very good at them. It wasn't until I started studying Japanese yoga, in middle school, that I started to achieve skill," said Davey, now a U.S. regional director for the International Martial Arts Federation.

Breathing exercises associated with Japanese yoga helped him eliminate a lifelong asthma condition, he said. In 1981, he started the Sennin Foundation to share what he had learned. The purpose of practicing Shin-shin-toitsu-do, Davey said, is to find truth in life and unity through meditation.

Students said Shin-shin-toitsu-do helps them concentrate.

"I was looking for something more focused on internal harmony, not sports budo which only focuses on conflict, such as punching and kicking," said Troy Swenson, 41, who has been coming to Davey's dojo for five years. "This helps to maintain composure and find solutions."

Other students say Davey's dojo changed the way they look at life.

"I don't get irritated by little things anymore. I also came to think more positively," said Jun Ohsaki, a 62-year old car mechanic who started practicing Japanese martial arts before coming to the United States 38 years ago. Ohsaki has been with Davey's dojo for more than 20 years.

Others said it was the non-competitiveness that attracted them. The idea, Davey said, is that you lose when you initiate attack. The secret is to overpower the opponent at a glance and win without fighting. Aiki means to pull when you are pushed, and push when you are pulled. It is the spirit of harmonizing your movement with your opponent's ki, or energy.

Parents whose children attend Davey's dojo said they like this quality of the training.

"Other martial arts we looked at were very adversarial. But Davey-sensei really teaches students to be more agreeable and of course defend themselves," said Adriane Scheele, whose 9-year-old son, Patrick, has been Davey's student for more than two years.

Children said they like the advantage the training gives them when roughhousing with others kids.

"It's fun," said Martha Gayton, who, after three years of practice, can throw down a boy who is taller and heavier than she is. "And I can defend myself when my friends try to attack me."