Here's an important peice of Aikido history in northern California:

Wendy Palmer sensei speaks about the early days of Aikido of Tamalpais

Interview made on May 2, 2006 with Michelle Keip
Transcribed by Michelle, David and Rory Keip
Photographs by Kat Fitzgerald and Jan Watson (www.Jan-ewatson.com)


I particularly like this part of the interview on the benefit of diversity in the dojo:

"People have often said that training at Tam is like training at a seminar because your training partners feel so different - different styles of ukemi, different ways of attacking, different ways of throwing. I think Tam's history has been tremendously enriched by the influence of all these different teachers coming from different places, and also by the many students who come with different approaches to the art. The feeling at Tam has always been that everyone can train the way they are.


Having a basic criteria for kyu tests was a challenge in the later years at Tam. George, Richard and I weren't attending each other's classes that much any more. We had our own lives and we started evolving differently in our own bodies. So when students took kyu tests, for example, they had to make a decision how to do ikkyo. As teachers, each of us did ikkyo differently. The joke was that they might do iriminage for me, ikkyo for George and shihonage for Richard. Sometimes students would say, "This is the third way I've been shown to do this technique, which is the right way?" and we'd always say, "There is no right way. You need to learn all three."

I think for beginning students it was more challenging to train at Tam because there was no right way to do it. I used to say that in the end this would make them much more flexible, and be better aikido students. It would help them be able to go to a seminar and learn and absorb from any teacher that they wanted to. So we really had a very wide variety of - I'll call it styles, I really don't like the word - different ways of doing Aikido at the dojo. I think it's been a great gift to most of the students that they have more flexibility and can absorb from different teachers."

http://www.bujindesign.com/featured_articles/2006_11_article_1.html