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Michele Sensei with Nishio Sensei |
She is a co-founder of Manzanita Village Retreat Center and Ordinary Dharma. She has been teaching Vipassana and Zen mediation since 1985.
She is co-founder of Five Changes Foundation, a non profit educational organization working for non-violence education, community building and social justice.
She is a Clinical Hypnotherapist, Artist/Painter and Performance Artist.
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My parents opened the door to my martial arts training. My mother trained in the Japanese spear in high school in Japan. My father trained in Karate and Jujitsu during the Korean War while he was stationed in Japan. I learned the basics of self-defense from my father around the age of 9. In college around 1976 I began formally training in Karate-do with Rod Kobayashi Sensei. The style was Chosen Ryu, which translates as "the challenge system." Its focus was on sparring. I was involved in some tournament fighting and reached the level of second degree blue belt in that system. Then I moved from the San Fernando Valley to Venice and started looking for a teacher in my new neighborhood. |
In 1981 I began training in Aikido. My first teacher was Megan Reisel Sensei. I received black belt ranking from her, and Satome Sensei, through the Aikikai Federation in 1986. Sensei's Fred Newman, Bob Reiner, Terry Dobson, Hiroshi Ikeda, and Frank Doran were other teachers I studied under.
In 1984 I began a two-and-a-half year training in several Chinese arts under Tai Chi and Chi Gung Master Daniel Wang in Santa Monica.
Shortly after my Black belt in Aikido I began training with Masakazu Tazaki Sensei and changed affiliation to Shoji Nishio Sensei, still through the Aikikai Federation, Hombu Dojo Japan. Acquiring the rank from second to fourth degree through Tazaki Sensei and then fifth degree black belt in January 2001 from Shoji Nishio Sensei.
In 1985 I had began training in Iaido sword in the Aiki Toho style, founded by Shoji Nishio Sensei, and I now hold a fourth degree black belt in that style through the Japan Iaido Federation.
I started teaching at my own school Aikido Sho Bi Juku Dojo in 1986, first in Venice, and now in Santa Monica. I also travel internationally, teaching and demonstrating the martial arts.
In 1995 Masakazu Tazaki Sensei founded the Soshoryu Heihodo Iaido Katas and the Shinrembukai Federation a USA based organization. I am Vice-President of this organization. I am currently ranked as a fifth degree black belt in this style. I am a guiding teacher for 3 schools in New York, Minneapolis and Ukiah.
I currently train in many other martial arts systems from hard to soft style and weapons to empty hand, to improve my Aikido and sword skills. In the early 90s I began teaching within the woman's martial arts organizations The National Women's Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF) on the east coast and The Pacific Association of Women Martial Artists (PAWMA) on the west coast, and The Association of Women Martial Arts Instructors (AWMAI), a woman's organization and established to acknowledge black belt ranking for women. I am also a member of Jujitsu America (JA).
My studies in the martial arts have been greatly enhanced by my ongoing practice of meditation. I have studied Vipassana in the Theravada tradition and Zen in the Vietnamese Tradition since 1978. I was a student of Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh for fourteen years. I received lay ordination as a member of the Order of Interbeing in 1989. (this lineage goes back to 2000 years ago in the Liu Qwan School, a Chinese Rinzai tradition), where I received a Lay Ordination in the " Order of Interbeing" in 1989. Refer to the section on Meditation for a more extensive Biography.
I have also worked extensively with youth at risk, in and out of the probation systems, teaching meditation and the non-violence principles of Aikido.