Author: Christopher Li

Aikido Shihan Hiroshi Tada – Speaking of The Founder
Hiroshi Tada Sensei in 2014
Aikikai 9th Dan Hiroshi Tada (多田宏) is one of the most influential instructors to come out of the post-war Tokyo Hombu dojo. Born in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan December 13th 1929, he began training at Aikikai Hombu Dojo on March 4th 1950.
Tada Sensei has appeared on the Aikido Sangenkai blog, both in “Aikido Shihan Hiroshi Tada: The Day I Entered Ueshiba Dojo“, and in the series of articles below:
“Aikido Shihan Hiroshi Tada: The Budo Body”
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
“Aikido Shihan Hiroshi Tada – the Yachimata Lecture”
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
This is the English translation of a short piece written by Tada Sensei that recounts some of his memories of Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba, it appeared in the Aikikai newspaper “Aikido Shimbun” in March 1998 (Heisei 10).
In October 1964 Tada Sensei was sent to Rome, Italy in order to help establish Aikido in Italy. He had been preceeded there by Professor Salvatore Mergè, who was mentioned by Tada Sensei in the article “Aikido Shihan Hiroshi Tada: The Budo Body, Part 6“.
The grave of Salvatore Mergè
In 1942 Salvatore Mergè, a Japanese linguist and a member of the Italian diplomatic mission, became a student of Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba – perhaps the first occidental to do so. After returning to Italy in 1946 he taught privately and then helped to establish the first Aikido classes in Italy, taught by the sculptor Haru Onoda in 1959.
Haru Onoda in 1968
Here is some of the story of how he met O-Sensei, re-told by Stephen Serpieri, one of his Japanese language students:
“He had heard much of the Master’s deeds and of this new martial art he created, Aikido, but had never had the opportunity to see any of its “embukai” (public demonstrations). Intrigued by the stories that were made of this master and the reputation that had been created around him, he decided to go to his dojo and ask to be admitted as a student of Aikido. The house of Master Ueshiba and the attached dojo were far outside of Tokyo, and to get to the Italian embassy where Professor Mergè worked took over an hour by train. One day, before going to work, he went to the home of the teacher, saying that he was a lover of Japanese tradition and would like to know O-Sensei. He was made to wait in the atrium of the house for a time, but was eventually told to come back because the teacher was busy. He tried again at other times but the answer was always the same. Finally, after several failed attempts, he was brought into the house to get an answer to his request for a meeting with Master Ueshiba. He was made to sit in a room with an elderly gentleman who was reading a book and did not raise his head when he entered. After a short time the person reading stood up and, without a word, he left the room. … When the day came that he was able to speak to the teacher finally arrived he saw that he was the person that had refused to speak to him as he waited in the atrium. He was accepted as a student, which was quite extraordinary, as the Master had not wanted any new Aikido students during the period of the war, let alone a stranger! “
Marco Muccio, a close friend of one of Professor Mergè’s students, adds:
“The interesting thing is that the first Aikido training with Salvatore Mergè was held in Morihei Ueshiba’s home, with particularly exhausting exercises for the development of the Hara, and ukemi on pillows on the floor!”
Here’s a little more about Tada Sensei’s journey to Italy, from his essay “Founders of Aikikai d’Italia” (イタリア合気会を創った人々), published in the Aikikai’s “Aikido Tankyu” magazine:
One hears the words “the foreign expansion of Aikido”, but what I remember most are the bells and steam whistles that I heard at the pier in Yokohama and the farewell parties with O-Sensei at their center that surrounded my Sempai going abroad – Mochizuki, Tohei and Abe.
A postcard of the Tatsuta Maru – 1931
Of course I can’t reach back that far, and those memories may have overlapped with memories of tapes of my father’s trip abroad on the Tatsuta Maru in the beginning of the Showa era, but in spite of that I had vague thoughts at the time that someday I too would be going abroad.
That became a reality in Showa 39 (1964).
At that time, those going abroad specifically to spread Aikido had to do three things:
1. Go alone.
2. Go with a one-way ticket.
3. Go without money, receive no allowance from their family, do no other part time work.
Keeping faithful to to “Haisui no Jin” (Translator’s note: 背水の陣 – the “fighting with one’s back to the river” strategy made famous by General Han Xin in the Battle of Jingxing), with $250 in my breast pocket I left my home in Jiyugaoka just as the Tokyo Olympics were in their final stages. My tentative goal was Italy, and from there I would travel through South America and then return home. It was an incredibly uncertain plan, but those were my expectations at the time.
Motokage Kawamukai in 2011
The first person to make the existance of the thing known as Aikido in Italy was Tadashi Abe (阿部正), who was active in France. Next were the sculptor Haru Onoda (小野田はる) and Mr. Kawamukai (川向), who had traveled to Rome as a tourist.
When I arrived in Rome I was introduced to a club at the Administration of the State Monopoly Autonomy (“Amministrazione Autonoma dei Monopoli di Stato”, the state monopoly on tobacco) which was run by Mr. Chierchini, and started training at that dojo. Six months later we had a demonstration at the National Police Academy, and then held a two month training session hosted by the Ministry of the Interior. This is how my Aikido life in Europe began.
The Italian Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Rome
Professor Mergè, who was a member of the Italian embassy during the war and entered Ueshiba Dojo, was in good health in Rome, and people who had heard him speak of Morihei Ueshiba Sensei at the school of Oriental languages at which he taught were quick to enroll. Through the introduction of one of these people, Mr. Serpieri, in later years we would be able to use one of the of the buildings designated as a national property as a dojo. It was surrounded in four directions by the ancient Roman aqueduct and castle wall, monuments, the military museum and the department of waterworks, and after nightfall it was a place where not a sound could be heard. This is now the Italian Aikikai Hombu dojo. I lived in one room at the bottom of the stairs there. The students called it “Sensei’s Grotto”.
(more…)
March 5, 2016
Aikido and Me – Training with Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba
Eiichi Kuroiwa (黒岩暎一) teaching Aikido at the Rikuryo Aikikai (六稜合氣会)
One of the articles that I have enjoyed reading the most was “Mr. Kimura’s Aikido Memories” (Part 1 | Part 2). Of course, the recollections of training with Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba in 1942 were fascinating, but much of what I appreciated about it was that it presented the perspective of an ordinary person encountering the Founder.
Here is another account along those lines – an account of training with the Founder, this time in the 1960’s, from an ordinary person. This is a brief collection of memories of his time with O-Sensei by Eiichi Kuroiwa, who trained with Morihei Ueshiba in Osaka for five years from 1963 to 1968. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!
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February 6, 2016
Interview with Hiroshi Sagawa and 10th Gen Shihan Tatsuo Kimura – Part 4
Yukiyoshi Sagawa and Kimura Tatsuo
on the cover of Aiki News 117 – the Yukiyoshi Sagawa memorial issue
I also applied techniques to Mr. Pranin when he was collecting materials for a memorial issue on Sagawa Shihan for Aiki News 117. His impression at the time was, “When I tested the small, stubborn 50-year-old Kimura Sensei, I was completely controlled by him. I attempted to grab Sensei’s arm many times while seated, but I couldn’t grab him strongly. My power of resistance was neutralized by the use of Sensei’s stance and internal energy. While I was being thrown backward repeatedly I couldn’t tell when the technique was beginning or ending. The energy released from his center was gushing out of his arms. Kimura Sensei clearly demonstrated to us the world of energy that exceeds the physical dimension. This energy did not affect the state of the body and I thought that it was possible to execute highly effective techniques that went beyond the bounds of simple techniques.”
However, then it seems that Mr. Pranin thought that this was merely some form of energy and, given my level at that time, he was not persuaded. On his third visit, he said for the first time that he was truly convinced of Sagawa Sensei’s Aiki.
– Tatsuo Kimura
Discovering Aiki My 20 Years with Yukiyoshi Sagawa Sensei
Yukiyoshi Sagawa was one of the longest students of Daito-ryu Chuku-no-so Sokaku Takeda, who was also the teacher of Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba. Not only was he was asked to become the Soke of Daito-ryu by the Takeda family (he eventually refused), but at one time, around 1956, an agreement was made for Sagawa to become an instructor at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo (this, also, he refused eventually).
Yukiyoshi Sagawa’s younger brother and favorite sibling, Hiroshi Sagawa (佐川廣), was born in Shimo-yubetsu Hokkaido in 1909 (Meiji Year 42) into a family in which both his father and his elder brother trained extensively with Sokaku Takeda.
Tatsuo Kimura (木村達雄) is one of three of Yukiyoshi Sagawa Sohan’s students to have completed the 10th Gen level of techniques (the techniques in Sagawa Dojo that Sagawa Sensei learned from Sokaku Takeda were organized into ten levels, or “Gen” / 元).
Born in Tokyo Japan in 1947, Kimura Sensei is a well known mathematician and professor at Tsukuba University. He published two books about Sagawa Sohan (宗範) that have been translated into English (the latter one only partially) – “Transparent Power (透明な力)” and “Discovering Aiki My 20 Years with Yukiyoshi Sagawa Sensei (合気修得への道―佐川幸義先生に就いた二十年)”. He also holds a third-dan in kendo and a fifth-dan in Aikido, which he studied under Seigo Yamaguchi (山口清吾).
This is the fourth and final section of the English translation of an interview conducted in Japanese by Kuni Azumi (安積邦) with Hiroshi Sagawa and Tatsuo Kimura that previously appeared in the popular martial arts magazine Gekkan Hiden (月刊秘伝 / “Secret Teachings Monthly”) in 2001. You may wish to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 before reading this section.
You may also be interested in another interview with Kimura Sensei that appeared on the Aikido Sangenkai blog previously – “Yukiyoshi Sagawa’s Aiki, a true portrait of Transparent Power – Interview with Tatsuo Kimura, Part 1 and Part 2.
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January 9, 2016
Interview with Hiroshi Sagawa and 10th Gen Shihan Tatsuo Kimura – Part 3
Tatsuo Kimura and Seigo Yamaguchi in Karuizawa, 1968
“That was how I entered the University of Tokyo and became a formal student of Seigo Yamaguchi Sensei beginning Aikido practice at Ikenoue located next to the Komaba-Todai-mae train station. During that time, I was often with Yamaguchi Sensei all day. He would many times say that his dream was to find some method to deal with any power no matter how strong without using strength. He said he was searching to find this method. At some point, this became my own dream. However, it was like the blue bird in the story of M. Maeterlinck, but it seemed that this was not something that could be realized in this world. Later, I will mention that such a method that answered Yamaguchi Sensei’s dream does indeed exist in this world.”

– Tatsuo Kimura
Discovering Aiki My 20 Years with Yukiyoshi Sagawa Sensei
Yukiyoshi Sagawa often traveled as an attendant to his teacher, Daito-ryu Chuku-no-so Sokaku Takeda, who was also the teacher of Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba. At one time, around 1956, an agreement was made for Sagawa to become an instructor at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo, but he took exception to some remarks about Sokaku Takeda made by Morihei Ueshiba in an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun around that time and changed his mind.
Yukiyoshi Sagawa’s younger brother and favorite sibling, Hiroshi Sagawa (佐川廣), was born in Shimo-yubetsu Hokkaido in 1909 (Meiji Year 42) into a family in which both his father and his elder brother trained extensively with Sokaku Takeda.
Tatsuo Kimura (木村達雄) is one of three of Yukiyoshi Sagawa Sohan’s students to have completed the 10th Gen level of techniques (the techniques in Sagawa Dojo that Sagawa Sensei learned from Sokaku Takeda were organized into ten levels, or “Gen” / 元).
Born in Tokyo Japan in 1947, Kimura Sensei is a well known mathematician and professor at Tsukuba University. He published two books about Sagawa Sohan (宗範) that have been translated into English (the latter one only partially) – “Transparent Power (透明な力)” and “Discovering Aiki My 20 Years with Yukiyoshi Sagawa Sensei (合気修得への道―佐川幸義先生に就いた二十年)”. He also holds a third-dan in kendo and a fifth-dan in Aikido, which he studied under Seigo Yamaguchi (山口清吾).
This is part 3 of the English translation of an interview conducted in Japanese by Kuni Azumi (安積邦) with Hiroshi Sagawa and Tatsuo Kimura that previously appeared in the popular martial arts magazine Gekkan Hiden (月刊秘伝 / “Secret Teachings Monthly”) in 2001. You may wish to read Part 1 and Part 2 before reading this section.
You may also be interested in another interview with Kimura Sensei that appeared on the Aikido Sangenkai blog previously – “Yukiyoshi Sagawa’s Aiki, a true portrait of Transparent Power – Interview with Tatsuo Kimura, Part 1 and Part 2.
Aiki News issues 140 and 141 – Tatsuo Kimura and Yukiyoshi Sagawa
Interview with Hiroshi Sagawa and 10th Gen Shihan Tatsuo Kimura, Part 3
The Unknown Side Benefits of Aiki
Azumi: Clearly and unmistakably, the one who experienced Sagawa Sohan’s Aiki the most times must be Kimura Sensei, who is sitting right here. However Kimura Sensei speaks about Aiki, I think that it is of great interest even to those who are not training in Aiki, is that so?
Kimura: Once one experiences Aiki it sparks an incredibly strong interest. One becomes unable to be thrown by techniques without Aiki. In Sagawa Dojo there was a very large person who Sensei left completely untouched for about five years. Through that time, no matter how much he struggled I was able to throw him. Then Sensei said that he wanted to forge him into a strong member of the dojo. Sagawa Sensei began to throw him, and within two weeks most of the people in the dojo became unable to apply techniques to him. (laughing)
Azumi: Do things like that…really happen?
Kimura: Therefore, the meaning of those people who have been thrown by Sagawa Sensei becoming unthrowable becomes extremely important. However, Sensei would select people, so it’s not as if everybody in the dojo was thrown.
Azumi: Does that mean that something would happen inside their bodies?
Yukiyoshi Sagawa Demonstrates Aiki-age
Kimura: Hmm…what could it be? (laughing) But I can say this. In other words, it is that when one experiences Aiki one feels that it is a truly great way of being handled. When that happens it is that everything else becomes uncomfortable – that conveys a feeling of being forced, and the body becomes unwilling to accept it. As I said before, normally it is difficult to imagine that the techniques of people who can throw you with one finger, like the sempai in the Sagawa Dojo, become ineffective. Just the same, no matter how good a person’s techniques are, they are manifestly different from Sagawa Sensei’s. One doesn’t understand at the beginning. As one’s abilities gradually increase, the difference becomes clear. In time, the body completely refuses to receive other’s techniques – “that’s not going to work”. However, saying that one cannot be thrown and saying that one can throw another person are two separate issues. Just because one’s body has become strong doesn’t mean that one can throw a strong person.
Azumi: Yes, I suppose so.
Kimura: Further, in the magnificence of Sagawa Sensei’s bujutsu, there is one more thing that is not well known.
Azumi: Oh? What’s that?
Kimura: The body becomes energetic and invigorated.
Azumi: It becomes energetic?
Kimura: Yes. The effects are similar to the those things recently being called “healing”. (Translator’s Note: there was a “healing boom” in Japan starting in the 1980’s that spurred many products and services aimed at enhancing general psychological well-being.)
Azumi. Ah. Yes.
Kimura: Actually, when one received Sagawa Sensei’s technique it felt really wonderful. Even now, I think that must have really been healing. When one was thrown it penetrated right through into your core. It felt as if something was being purified. Strength would well up and one would become incredibly energized. In fact, a number of times during training after being thrown by Sagawa Sensei my head would start to start to work oddly well, and on the way home I would be able to solve mathematical equations (Note: Kimura Sensei is a professor of mathematics at Tsukuba University. Additionally, he is the mathematics department head!). This happened to me many times. (laughing)
Azumi: It seems as if there is an injection of energy…
Kimura: Yes! It feels as if a fire has passed through the inside of your body. Aiki passes through the body. It’s not external, it enters into one’s body so one becomes extremely energized. It’s natural, so one feels good. There is absolutely nothing that feels forced! However severely one is thrown. It feels like a technique that happens while one is still thinking “What!?!” (and they are already thrown).
Azumi: Do you think that Sokaku’s Aiki had the same kind of “side benefits”?
Kimura: Whether or not Takeda Sensei got to that point or not…I can’t say. Of course, the throwing the opponent instantly with Aiki that forms the foundation must be absolutely the same.
Sagawa: With both Takeda Sensei and my brother, when Aiki was applied one’s strength would be removed.
Kimura: Sagawa Sensei said that Takeda Sensei would throw with a conventional technique after removing their power (with Aiki), but there was even further development (by Sagawa Sensei) from there. He made a great discovery concerning Aiki when he was seventy years old. By the way, I first met Sensei when he was seventy-six years old, from that time – that is, from the beginning, he was incredible. (laughing)
Azumi: (laughing)
True Throws – the Intensity of the Last Practice
Kimura: When I was thrown by Sagawa Sensei, I experienced truly being thrown for the first time. Until that time I did Aikido and it felt as if I was taking ukemi, but with Sagawa Sensei’s throws I couldn’t understand where I would be thrown – at first it was extremely frightening. There was no way to prepare oneself, since one would be thrown flying in an instant it was a real surprise. In any case, it was all that one could do just to avoid hitting one’s head. Even so, at the last practice, just before Sensei passed away, I hit my head three times.
Azumi: In the at least twenty years that he taught you, there wasn’t even a slight decline in Sagawa Sensei’s technique?
Kimura: A decline? Although each time I thought that a superior technique was inconceivable, it was continuously the case that each time I went there was something that was clearly superior to the previous time. Furthermore, I had been building strength over that period of twenty years. In spite of that, the power of his throws never changed.
Azumi: However, you hit your head even up until that last practice shortly before he passed away? Even though you are one of only three 10th Gen shihan?
Kimura: That’s how intense that last practice was. I think that Sagawa Sensei probably staked his life on it for us.
Yukiyoshi Sagawa demonstrating Hiden Ashi no Aiki (秘伝足の合気)
What is the Aiki Body?
Sagawa: Kimura-san probably thinks the same way, but his body was like steel – although one tried to immobilize him he could not be immobilized. If one goes up to here with an untrained person it’s all over, but with someone like Kimura-san it really can’t be applied. There were times that I tried to immobilize my brother, but I couldn’t do it, you know. It felt as if I were pulling on steel, it didn’t feel as if I were immobilizing him at all.
Kimura: One time we paired up like Sumo wrestlers and Sagawa Sensei told me to come at him.
Azumi: Yes…
Kimura: At the moment that we met there was a shock.
Azumi: Ei? What was it like?
Kimura: “Hey, hey, what’s this!?!”. That Sensei’s body was completely different from ours came through in a very real and emphatic manner. It felt as if I had grabbed on to some strange object. (In severe training) the body is really like steel…it felt as if I were touching something of a completely different quality, something with an extremely high density.
Azumi: The quality was completely different? Dense?
Kimura: In other words, how can I put this – his body density was completely different. It was so dense that it seemed as if one became like paper and flipped away when touched. This was when he was well past ninety years old! Anyway, he had an amazing body…it’s difficult to express it in words.
Azumi: I think that there are many readers who are curious about Sagawa Sensei’s body. Relating to that, it must have been in Sagawa Sohan’s later years, but there was a time when he injured his tendons from too much conditioning and was unable to turn off the faucet of a sink….
Kimura: That’s true. Sensei told me that in the end “I couldn’t do anything, all that I could do was throw people“. (laughing)
Azumi: He couldn’t do anything but throw people….. (speechless)
Kimura: He couldn’t even pull the tab on the pop-top of a can of juice. But although he couldn’t open a pop-top, when one was caught by that finger they couldn’t move (smiling)….”What’s going on?”.
Azumi:……
Kimura: Even more mysteriously, in his very last years there were some times when Sensei’s walking was a little unsteady. He’d wobble around, and when others watched they would become a little bit worried. At that time he’d walk towards you with a gait that looked as if he was just about to topple over. After he sat in his wheel chair he’d say “Kimura! Come grab my legs!”. At first I held back, but sure enough (smiling) I was surprised to be thrown flying even further than usual. One more time, and this time I grabbed him strongly – and I was handled even more severely. ….Ahh, that really surprised me (embarrassed grin) – “What happened with Sensei’s legs? They were completely emaciated!”.
Yukiyoshi Sagawa and Tatsuo Kimura – Ashi no Aiki, 1996
Azumi: Ahh (surprised). Since, to all appearances, a physical decline equivalent to his age can be observed, normally that would be inconceivable, wouldn’t it?
Kimura: So that means – they are the same legs, but the wobbling walk and the strength to throw a person flying are completely different things. One could say that the level of the principles behind their movements are different.
Kinji Sakuma (佐久間錦二) demonstrates the Shiko exercise
taught directly to him by Yukiyoshi Sagawa.
Sagawa Sohan would do these several thousand times each day.
Legendary Solo training
Azumi: From what I have heard, from the parade of anecdotes, he was overwhelming. However, behind the scenes of that severity, I have been told that there was special conditioning that Sagawa Sohan did alone and did not show to other people.
Sagawa: He was always doing those exercises! But it certainly seemed as if he didn’t want to be seen. And then he would note them in his diary each day.
Azumi: Was kind of things were written in his diary?
Sagawa: Things like the number of times that he had trained. What he did and how many times, how his suburi went, how much bojutsu he did, and things like that. He’d write that he did one thousand push-ups or today he did two thousand push-ups, and so forth.
Kimura: It (Sagawa Sensei’s conditioning) was usually in units of one-thousand. Actually, and it was only twice, I saw it myself.
Azumi: Is that right!?!
Kimura: I don’t know if I can talk about this…..(thinks for a moment).
Azumi: Please, please! (smiling)
Kimura: ….(embarrassed grin) It was a time right after I started when there were still very few students, only three or four. On the grounds of Sagawa Sensei’s home there was a spot basking in the sun that was just perfect. On that day I went a little earlier than usual to practice, and Sensei was doing some kind of exercise there by himself. That was the first time. The other time was when Sensei’s home was undergoing some construction. The gardeners were taking a long time to finish up, so he shook the numbness out of his limbs and started his own training right there. Later on Sensei said “I did my exercises right in front of them!”.
Azumi: What kind of conditioning did Sagawa Sensei do?
Kimura: …………. Actually, there were times that I heard (from Sensei) about his conditioning. But that was when the two of us were alone, and Sensei spoke of it unintentionally.
Azumi: What were the specifics?
Kimura: For example, “The bokken is really used like this…” – things like that.
Azumi: ………….
Kimura: However, his way of thinking was so completely different that I was surprised. Perhaps one could say that it was a completely separate thing from (the way of thinking of) conventional conditioning.
To be continued in Part 4, with a discussion what happened inside of Sagawa Sohan’s body…
Published by: Christopher Li – Honolulu, HI

December 12, 2015
The Ueshiba Legacy – Part 1, by Mark Murray
Kisshomaru Ueshiba – Morihei Ueshiba – Koichi Tohei
What does all of this mean? It means that the common view of the spread of aikido following the war taking place under the direct tutelage of the Founder is fundamentally in error. Tohei and the present Doshu (*Kisshomaru Ueshiba) deserve the lion’s share of the credit, not the Founder. It means further that O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba was not seriously involved in the instruction or administration of aikido in the postwar years. He was already long retired and very focused on his personal training, spiritual development, travel and social activities.
—“Is O-Sensei Really the Father of Modern Aikido?”, by Stanley Pranin
The quote above comes from an article written by Stanley Pranin that was originally published in Aikido Journal #109 in 1996. Long time readers of Stanley Pranin are probably familiar with this line of thought, which has been supported by a cornucopia of material published in both Aikido Journal and the older Aiki News.
What follows is part 1 of an essay by Mark Murray. It is a further summation of some of the important issues surrounding the now clear divergence between the Aikido of Morihei Ueshiba O-Sensei and the Aikido of his son, Ni-Dai Doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba.
Mark is an “IT Specialist by trade and a writer by choice” (check out the Mark Murray Books website, and the Mark Murray author page on Amazon), but when he’s not doing either of those things he is usually training in the martial arts, and that is the context in which most of us are probably familiar with him.
In 2006 he was one of the first Aikido people to post a detailed public review (which originally appeared on AikiWeb) of his meeting with Dan Harden, and this was an important step in the process that eventually brought Dan to teach publicly:
Work sent me to Boston for a few days. Before I left for Boston, I contacted Dan Harden and asked if he’d meet me. I said I’d like to start learning the internal stuff. Once in Boston, I met Dan at my hotel after work one day and we walked over to the Commons.
I ended up learning a lot of things. One is that Dan is a great guy. Working out with him for the short time I had was a pleasure. I went back and forth from, “Okay how did you do that” to laughing. Most of the time I forgot I was even standing in the Boston Commons.
Two is that I just couldn’t push him over. And let me tell — that was a very disconcerting feeling. I tried pushing with both hands on his chest, tried pulling him sideways using one of his arms, and then placing a hand on the side of his head and pushing. He just stood there relaxed. I don’t know how to explain some of what I felt there. Part of it was just like pushing and nothing was budging. Almost like putting your hand on a wall, leaning into it, pushing, and it’s just there not moving, but not nearly as hard or unyielding as a wall’s surface. And parts of it I could feel that I’d lost my own balance as I started to push. In those instances, I was pushing and Dan was moving his center in such a way that he knew where I was losing my balance or what foot held most of my weight.
It was an eye opening display of some of what he can do. I say some because I also got to feel a small portion of the power he can generate. Another example of this relaxed power was that he held out both hands and asked me to throw him in a judo type throw. I grabbed both arms and that was as far as I got. There were no openings. I never got to the tsukuri, or fit, because I couldn’t even get kuzushi. In fact, there was a kuzushi but it was on me. If you’ve ever seen some of these sayings, “keep weight underside”, “extend ki”, “keep one point”, well, I got to experience them first hand. Dan also showed me the “push out exercise” where I had hold of him but couldn’t step forward. Although I didn’t feel like I was overly weighted down, I still couldn’t take a step. My feet just felt rooted to the ground.
The no-inch punch was amazing. And yes, there was no distance but the force was definitely there. I wouldn’t say it felt exactly like a punch, which is more of a percussive feel. No, this was more like a ball of energy/power hitting me and shockwaves vibrating out from where it entered my body. Next thing I know, I’m picking myself up off the ground a few feet away.
All the while, Dan is explaining how all of it is done. He was open and willing to share information on what he was doing and how it was done. He showed me some exercises to do and I tried some of them. Try is a good word. It’ll take some time doing them, especially the hanmi. LOL. But in the short time I was there, I will say that they definitely helped.
The stuff Dan is doing is good stuff. I wish I’d been able to visit his dojo and meet everyone else, but I’m hoping that my next visit, I’ll be able to do that.
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Update (December 1, 2015): I’d like to comment on the relevance of including Mark’s review of his meeting with Dan Harden, since the context seems confusing to some people.
For those who have followed the process, much of the material in this article developed over the course of discussions (and arguments) on AikiWeb and other internet discussion forums. Many of those discussions (and arguments) were centered around Dan Harden’s theories, and his participation contributed greatly to the evolution of the conversation.
As Mark recounts his experience he states “If you’ve ever seen some of these sayings, ‘keep weight underside’, ‘extend ki’, ‘keep one point’, well, I got to experience them first hand.”. To me, this is a telling statement, and symptomatic of the two legacies that Mark goes on to describe in the main body of this article – a student of modern Aikido being astonished when encountering an actual manifestation of skills so often discussed, but so rarely displayed.
Is what Dan Harden doing relevant to Aikido? Well, part of that will depend upon how you’re defining Aikido, but here’s what a direct student of Morihei Ueshiba had to say upon meeting Dan, and some discussion of what that might mean.
Now, some people may think that the point of this article and the reference above is to say that none of Morihei Ueshiba’s students understood anything at all or were able to grasp any part of his transmission, but this is absolutely not the case. I have discussed this issue in previous articles, but I will state again here that every direct student of the Founder that I’ve met (and I’ve met quite a few) seems to have gotten something from the Founder – some a little, and some a lot. The caveat being they also had trouble explaining and transmitting whatever it was that they did get from their time with him – there is a more detailed discussion of this problem in the article “Morihei Ueshiba – Profiles of the Founder“.
— Chris Li
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And now…on to Mark Murray’s essay – “The Ueshiba Legacy”.
(more…)
November 7, 2015