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Diane Skoss: Budo Chronicler
by Wayne Muromoto
Diane Skoss instructs at a recent seminar in Rockville, Maryland. Greg Linden is the uke. (photo by Eleanor Yano.)
ASK DIANE SKOSS IF SHE HAD ANY IDEA THAT SHE WOULD HAVE ENDED UP AS EDITOR OF AIKIDO JOURNAL AND YOU GET A VERY DEFINITE SHAKE OF HER HEAD--PERHAPS PARTLY IN WONDER AT THE TRAIN OF EVENTS THAT BROUGHT HER TO JAPAN FROM MID-WEST AMERICA.
Growing up in New Jersey, Skoss attended Indiana University and earned a bachelor's degree in English. "I got interested in books; the rare books library, and went into library school. . ." She earned a master's degree in Library Science and English Literature, and worked for several years as a librarian at Indiana U. So far, so normal. But Skoss, in a twist of fate, started "dating a guy doing martial arts. I felt it would be a good idea to do it (too). . ."
Skoss joined an aikido club on campus in 1982 and was introduced to budo. In 1987, Skoss went to Japan as an adventurous fling, "Something to do before you started 'real life,' " she laughs. She fully intended to have a good time, return to the States, study for a Ph.D. and teach at some university somewhere. "I went for two years. But I never came home. . ."
To support herself, Skoss followed the common expatriate pattern of teaching English. Then she used her English and library skills to secure freelance editing jobs, organized exhibits, wrote catalogs, and so on.
"I did this for a while and wasn't very rich. So I trained a lot." Skoss studied Tomiki style aikido, and at an aikido festival in 1989, she met Stan Pranin, the publisher of Aiki News (as it was then titled), perhaps the premiere English-language aikido magazine in the world. After conferring with him, she began freelance rewriting for the magazine, and edited a couple of articles. By her third issue, she was editing the whole magazine, designing and basically doing nearly everything under the sun that needed doing. Together with Pranin, she became an integral part of the editorial process.
"In 1990, I attended--along with folks like Phil Relnick, Meik Skoss, Chip Armstrong and Liam Keeley (none of whom I really knew well at all at the time)--the Second International Seminar of Budo Culture, sponsored by the Mombusho (Ministry of Education) and Nippon Budokan. As part of this seminar, we were given the opportunity to try a one-hour class in a 'new' budo. Since it was the first time jukendo had been offered, lots of people said they were going to do it, so although I initially thought I'd like to give it a try, I changed my mind and did karate instead. But the second day of two, Phil and Meik said that I should really do it. . ."
Skoss was thus introduced to jukendo, a relatively new martial art based on bayonet training. While jukendo was taught by a lot of former Japanese military types, Diane never felt slighted in practice. "They were really sweet guys," she says. Besides, she liked the direct and quick style of jukendo.
"I hate doing yoko-hanmi (a side-facing position) in naginata. I was told I didn't need to do it in jukendo, so I did an introductory course [the one-hour session at the seminar]. . . The teachers were amazed to find a non-Japanese woman interested in it, so I had two eighth dan willing to teach me!"
Skoss and Hagiwara Taro (uke) rehearse for an Aikido demonstration of the koryu dai roku no kata at the Nippon Budokan judo dojo in April 1992.
In May 1990, Skoss began her jukendo training in earnest under Wakimoto Yasuharu and Yasunaga Hiroshi. As luck would have it, Meik Skoss, a longtime aikido and kobudo student whom she previously met while researching a story on naginata, entered the dojo the following week. He was making the rounds, thanking the sensei who participated in the seminar. According to Diane, one of the jukendo instructors asked Meik, "So. . . wouldn't you like to start jukendo?" Diane recalls that "Meik allowed as how he would, had he time, and somehow this got twisted, in a way only the Japanese can pull off, into his starting the next week!"
Meik was a little taken aback to run into her again, according to Diane. "He said something like, 'Oh. What are you here for?' " Diane recalls. "I was also a bit put out at having to share the teachers-it was just the four of us-and a bit intimidated at having one of the top foreign budo guys looking over my shoulder at my training."
Diane also suspected that Meik thought she was one of those "budo bimbos," a term he coined for martial arts groupies who were more interested in the mystique of martial arts than actually practicing it. Still, the gruff and plain-talking Meik Skoss must have seen something in her. The two went out for coffee and talk after a class and Meik literally "--Took apart my budo brain and rearranged it," giving Diane a new perspective on budo training.
The budo friendship eventually blossomed into mutual respect, and then romance, and the two were married in 1992.
"Wakimoto sensei cried when we told him (we were getting married)," Diane recalls. "We went to sensei's house. His family made sansan kudo (a series of drinks to celebrate a marriage)." And they all got merrily drunk to celebrate the announcement.
And since then, Diane and Meik set up house, sharing an apartment together, and continued training. Diane has since augmented her training with Shinto Muso-ryu jo in 1991, and Toda-ha Buko-ryu naginatajutsu in 1993. At times, Meik's own plate is full to capacity (a detailed story of his own background will be in a later issue), but he manages to be a contributing editor for Diane's magazine, and he also teaches at a Tokyo high school, works at the Budokan, and trains every day in various forms of budo.
Diane continues her chores at the helm of Aikido Journal, where she is presently guiding the magazine through a hazardous changeover to new desktop publishing technologies (and pulling her hair out in frustration over all the glitches and problems). The greatest challenge, perhaps, is not so much in the technological end of it, but overseeing with Pranin an eventual transition of the magazine from a nice little journal into what it is capable of becoming-a world magazine of aikido and other budo. In any case, the magazine appears in capable hands with Diane Skoss.
Copyright ©Tengu Press and Wayne Muromoto. All rights reserved.
