About the Instructors
Siskiyou Aikikai was founded in 1983 by Chief Instructor Darrell Bluhm.
In Aikido, Bluhm Sensei holds a degree of 7th dan (black belt) and Shihan (master instructor) certification. He is the longest-serving member of the Birankai North America Senior Council, where he focuses on technical standards and maintaining the integrity of the Birankai founder’s legacy. He was assisted for nearly thirty years in teaching and dojo management by his wife, Cindy Eggers, 6th dan, now retired.
Bluhm began his study of Aikido at U.C. Santa Cruz in 1970. In 1981 he became a student of Kazuo Chiba, Shihan, and a founding member of San Diego Aikikai. Bluhm also studied Iai Batto-ho (Iaido) with Chiba Sensei and had several opportunities to study with his teacher’s teacher, T. Mitsuzuka. In addition to teaching in his own dojo, he has taught Aikido seminars nationally and internationally.
In Tai Chi Chuan, Sifu Bluhm holds a teaching certificate from Master Choy Kam Man’s Tai Chi Chuan Academy of San Francisco. He began studying with Master Choy in 1971 and has taught Yang-style forms for over forty years.
In The Feldenkrais Method®, Darrell Bluhm has been a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner (CM) since 1996 when he graduated from a rigorous four-year professional training program. This followed a 25-year career as a body-worker in several modalities, a licensed massage therapist and instructor at massage schools in Ashland and San Diego.
Bluhm worked with the acting company at Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 16 seasons as Teacher of the Feldenkrais Method®.
Chief Instructor Darrell Bluhm, 7th dan, Shihan
Benjamin Root, 3rd dan, Fukushidoin.
Ben began his Aikido journey in Washington State in 1991 and trained for a few years at a Shinto shrine on the banks of a wild mountain creek. Eventually relocating to Southern Oregon, he began training at Siskiyou Aikikai in 1998.
After a break in the late aughts, to learn partner dance, Ben returned to the dojo and received his shodan rank in 2012. Early in his training, he’d decided that his purpose was not to achieve some end-goal or rank, but rather to train for a long time, preferring the process element of training, learning, doing Aikido. Thus, his path to fukushidoin (certified assistant instructor, 2023) has been long and slow, and motivated by a desire to support the dojo as a community.
Ben monitors the dojo email and phone. If you contact us, likely it will be he who responds first.
Assistant Instructor and Dojo Cho, Benjamin Root, 3rd dan, Fukushdoin