A brief history of New York Budokai page 1 | page 2 | page 3 By Deborah Klens-Bigman, Manager [This outline of New York Budokai's history is based on conversations with founder Yoshiteru Otani, Phil Ortiz, and my own remembered experience. Any errors of fact are entirely mine.] As strange as it seems, no one seems to know when the New York Budokai dojo (originally New York Iaikai) was founded. We do know that Yoshiteru Otani, dojo founder, came to the United States from Japan, settling in the New York area, in either the late 1950's or early 1960's and that he originally taught judo, an art form for which he was well qualified at sixth degree black belt. Though he studied swordsmanship with his father from childhood, Mr. Otani felt that Americans would not understand an art form that involved the use of the Japanese sword, so he did not teach iaido right away after his arrival in United States. Phil Ortiz, New York Budokai's chief instructor, suggests that New York Iaikai began sometime in the late 1960s (Mr. Ortiz began studying with Mr. Otani around 1972). Even though the exact date of origin is not known, it is evident that New York Budokai, at over 30 years of age, is one of the oldest sword dojo in the United States. Mr. Otani's dojo was located all over Manhattan: the dojo rented space wherever it could gain a toehold in the shifting real estate scene of New York. During the early 1970s Mr. Otani owned a building in the Columbia University area on the upper West side. Tom Dreitlein, author of the dojo's manual, which is copyrighted 1978, began training with Mr. Otani around this time. Eventually Mr. Dreitlein moved to Japan, studied Muso Shinden ryu iaido, Tenshoshin Jigen ryu iaido, and Yagyu Shinkage ryu. Some of his ongoing martial arts career can be discerned from reading portions of Mike and Diane Skoss' recent book, Sword and Spirit.
In the 1970s, swordsmanship was still virtually unknown as a living art form in United States. Mr. Otani's students were in demand to give demonstrations all over the New York City area. At one point Mr. Otani even had a publicity agent, who coordinated appearances on the Mike Douglas Show and other venues. In the photo gallery on this Web site, you can see photos of a large demonstration given by Mr. Otani's students at West Point military academy in 1978. Individual students of Mr. Otani's would enter kata competition at various martial arts tournaments, and walk away winners simply because no one had ever seen live sword technique performed before.