Interview with Harvey Konigsberg

by Peter Bernath & Lowell Miller

This interview was conducted February 2nd, 1999, during the weekend seminar conducted by Harvey Konigsberg chief instructor, Aikido of Wodstock, at Florida Aikikai in Fort Lauderdale , Florida.

The interviewers are Peter Bernath, 6th Dan, chief instructor or Florida Aikikai and publisher of Aikido Online and Lowell Miller, 3rd Dan, assistant instructor Aikido of Woodstock.

LM: Harvey, everybody always wants to know how you got started in Aikido.

A friend of mine, Harry McCormick, had started Aikido about six months before I did and he brought me over to the New York Aikikai. When I arrived I saw Yamada Sensei; at that time it was about 34 or 35 years ago almost. Koichi Tohei Sensei from Hombu Dojo was also there for a few months just at that time. I had never seen anything quite like this, so I was entranced and I later came with another friend and I decided to start Aikido.

PB: So when you first came to the dojo, Koichi Tohei was teaching?

Yes.

PB: That must have been exciting to see.

LM: I don't think too many people have had a chance to see Koichi Tohei. What did you see? What did you get from him?

At that time I remember being so impressed with both ... what happened was that when I came in I done some boxing and I was kind of an amateur. I had gone to different boxing gymnasiums since I was 16 or 17. I loved the movement ... I loved the action. Judo was kind of popular then, but I never felt like doing it. I saw it, but I didn't feel like doing it. Then Karate came in and became popular; but I still preferred boxing for myself. But when I saw Aikido, it just took me completely. Just seeing Yamada Sensei and Tohei Sensei ... I was really and totally intrigued. The movement seemed so free and full and beautiful ... very powerful. I would say what I got from Tohei's then was his whole mental attitude that he used to stress. It kind of remains with me to this day, the things that he used to say about relaxing the shoulders, the one-point, the extension. For years afterwards, I just practiced that. Yamada Sensei was like ... his movements were so dynamic, it was total movement. It was so powerful and full. I was hooked.

LM: Did Tohei have any little sayings. Some of the sensei have little sayings.

Yeah, he would go "I AM TOHEI" (laughter). That was his saying. It was like going into a movie every day at that time. New York Aikikai was kind of a free for all, in the sense that it was a small club and training was very intense. When I started I think people thought I had been there awhile. Nobody thought I was a beginner. Not like a first day beginner. I'm sure my techniques weren't technically correct, I wasn't sound in any way, but I think people just thought I had a look like I was one of the bunch. And it was a wild bunch. So nobody taught me how to roll; every day I used to go and hope we didn't do forward rolls. I would land on my head, on my shoulder. But I persisted anyway. I think it was months before someone said, "You don't know how to roll, do you?" And I said, "That's right" (laughter) I think one day when I began, Sensei came over to me and said, "Can you fall?" and I said "Yeah, I can fall ... ". He didn't ask me if I could roll, I thought, he just asked me if I could fall. So, I kept falling because that's what I was doing.

LM: And how often were you practicing back then?

When I started I had a loft right around the corner from the dojo, and I would come in just a few days a week. I didn't take class back then as much as I wanted to. I was busy with shows. In about a year or so, maybe two years, we moved to Montreal. When we got to Montreal, all of the sudden I realized - I panicked, that there was no Aikido. There was ... I started with Massimo up there. Massimo had just moved to Montreal, he opened up an Aikido club. From there I would go as much as I possibly could. And then go down to NY once a month to practice and also sell paintings. PB: What year was that Harvey?

That would be about 1965 or so. I never kept records of anything?

LM: At what point did you kind of crank it up, because I remember my sort of first start of Aikido was about 1973 or 74 and you were already in New York and you were already one of the top people in the dojo. At what point did you really ... pump up the volume?

I moved back ... I lived in Montreal for 2 years. So that would be either 68 or 69 when we moved back to New York and I started going seven days a week pretty much.

LM: Only one class a day?

No. I was walking. I lived on Canal Street. I had one of the first lofts in the Soho district, so I would go take afternoon class ... and then evening classes and paint in the mornings and then paint at night.

LM: Do you think if someone wants to make a lot of progress, like A LOT of progress, they have to go every day or more than once a day?

I think if you go once a day you can make good progress. I think basically it's conscientious, daily training, rather than, you know, if you're young - like maybe a kid, 15, 17, you need a kind of physical activity, but after a certain point, just conscientiously go and train, you make good progress, good improvement. I think it's a matter of doing something once conscientiously instead of 100 times mechanically.

LM: I wanted to ask because there are people who go every day, and they go every day for 20 years, and when you practice with them it feels like they haven't learned a lot, like they're in their first 3 or 4 years. What's going on there?

Well ... I think that's your perception of it. Like if you look at somebody and kind of judge where they are, what they've done, I've done that myself, but I've always been amazed by the fact that some of them go all this time and they actually do get something special, maybe something that is very personal with them in a sense. You don't know why people come, why they train, what they're getting out of it. I have my reasons. And they're not necessarily somebody else's. I just think in the act of doing it, you get something. Personally I think you get more when you apply yourself, when you do something with more awareness, rather than just going through the motions.

LM: Do you think you have to be kind of an athlete to really get far, clearly there are people who come who are not athletes and they learn to do Aikido, but to get to a high level do you think you have to be an athlete?

No. Some of the best, some of the people who go the furthest, are people who maybe have never really done anything physical in their life, and this intrigues them, because of the balance that we have in what we do. It's pretty much of a mind, body, spirit kind of thing. They don't have preconceived notions, they don't rely on something that's been formulated or has a particular pattern. It's an individual thing. It's amazing what you see people get.

LM: Can you think of some examples?

I can, just picturing people in my mind who have come that, when you basically look, it's not that they don't know their left from their right, but they're so frozen physically, that you wonder if they'll ever learn. If they stick with it, in a few months, or whatever ... it's really quite remarkable.

PB: I've noticed a similar thing. Sometimes with some of the people that I really didn't think would make it, I'd think, 'This person is never gonna get this thing'. Those are the people who work really hard---they have to work really hard to do it. The athletes who catch it in two seconds, they often don't stay with it. But the people who put more effort into it, they're there 20 years later.

There's something apparently behind it, there is a depth to it. Sometimes people learn a movement and in a sense they don't go beyond it. I don't want to contradict what I said before but the fact is that even those people that stay and stay and practice and practice ... the movements themselves are nourishing. They somehow feed the psyche, the body, they feed the whole personality. For myself, when I started Aikido and then I moved away and I didn't have it all of a sudden, I started dreaming of doing some of the movements. It really sinks into the subconscious in a very special kind of a way.

LM: Is that an idea that you've heard other Sensei talk about? That movements are nourishing on a deep level?

I'm sure people have mentioned it. It's a common theme that we have. To me this is like the fact that the movements are so natural, that once you stop them, your body sort of misses it when you don't do it. And also the connections that you make with other people. Life basically is a connection - this is the secret in the sense that you draw your harmony when you connect on some level with whatever you're doing, whether you're an artist or a musician, you connect with your instrument. When you're an artist you connect with your materials and your subject matter, and that is how art is created. It's a very special connection between elements.

LM: As a painter, what would you say to people who say, 'Well, a martial art is not an art, it's a form of exercise.'

It's easy to use music as an analogy I mean, they have exercises, they have scales. If you're an artist, you practice drawing These are exercises. When you transcend this, there is a certain level of spontaneity. Our exercises give us the vocabulary, so all of a sudden, you have this literally at your fingertips. O Sensei said something like "Learn and forget" and he wasn't talking about Alzheimer's. It was a matter of you learn it, and them you let go of it, and it will appear. You learn it to the level that you place it in a different part of yourself, and then you just let it go. It acts for you. That creates your kind of spontaneity and movement. It's natural. I always differentiated as the difference between a craft and an exercise and the art. When it becomes spontaneous. When the spontaneity has a direction and a cohesiveness, otherwise it's chaos. But when it has form and it's spontaneous, then it has art.

LM: I've heard people make that comparison of an art and a craft. "With art, you don't really know what the ending is going to be".

You don't care what ending will be. When I teach sometimes I emphasize that point at certain levels. Basically you have to go every day and learn the techniques. Those are our words, that's our vocabulary. You're simply not doing something to somebody else when you're doing this. You're doing something with somebody else and you don't know in a particular sense what the ending is because there is no ending. It's just a circle. You fall down and you get up, fall down, get up. People say 'What are you practicing for?' and it's like 'What are you living for?' Because we enjoy it. People are used to having a goal with an end in sight. 'I'm doing this so I can then do this.' But in actuality any art that you pursue, you do it for itself. As a painter, you do your work, make your paintings and then let it go. The best is to sell it, but if you can't, you put it away.

LM: But if you do it with the goal in mind of finding a buyer, it's not going to be your good stuff.

You have to separate them. When you do what you do, you do it out of love, out of a certain kind of cycle. Then afterwards, with art for example, you have made a product. Then you have to divorce yourself, basically, because you're on to something else. There are always exceptions. There is no hard and fast rule. I've kept some work just because of the technique, to be replicated or just to see it or to remind myself where it goes.

PB: Doshu has recently passed away. You were practicing Aikido when O Sensei passed away as well. I was wondering what thoughts you had about this and Doshu in general.

I remember when the IAF had just been organized. We went to the second International Federation meeting in Hawaii. I was the general secretary of the USAF at that time. Harry and I went together. They had a big demonstration and Doshu demonstrated. All the Sensei were there Yamaguchi Sensei and Shirata Sensei was there ... it was really impressive. So Harry and I did our demonstration and Yamada Sensei was pleased.

Afterwards we were at the hotel and Doshu came up and shook our hands. It was very warm, very touching very special feeling. It was just out of the blue like that. That was an interesting trip. There was Shirata Sensei, who was the oldest living student of O Sensei at that time. So the older Sensei would teach a class and then a young Sensei would teach a class, like Asai Sensei, much younger than Shirata, they kind of alternated all these different Sensei, these Shihan. It kind of made it really interesting, very exciting.

You'd take a class that was physically demanding, then all of a sudden you'd take a class with somebody like Shirata Sensei whose movements looked simple but you almost couldn't follow what he was doing, and it took an intense kind of concentration to see what, exactly, he was doing, and trying to convey. I remember his demonstration. It was really amazing. He was in his 70s then, and he got up, he was on the stage and started doing it with bokken - like swariwaza with bokken. And he was very slow and methodical, and I'm in the audience and I'm thinking 'Oh, that's nice that an older man can do that.' Then all of a sudden this kiai, this noise emanated from him, and he leaped up from that position, I don't know how high. It was like a demon was let loose and he went into this whole different thing. It was very impressive. It turned my thinking around.

LM: Thinking of your thinking, I wanted to get back to something you were talking about before lunch came. Talking about what O 'Sensei said, learning it and forgetting it. At Woodstock we spend a lot of time on freestyle, and it seems that freestyle is almost the essence of that. Getting away from the same techniques that you learn in class.

I do this because I love to do it. It's a joy to me, and a challenge, this aspect of Aikido training. It's a special balance that we do in attack and movement and technique. That's why basically I made it from 2nd kyu and up. I figured at that point, and that level, people should start getting this other idea of movement and not relying on watching the specific techniques into their mind and holding onto it. But being able to, as the situation dictates, to just move with it or let it go or spontaneously give it up and go into something else. So this is my particular thing. When I train, I always do this, even years ago at New York Aikikai, we would get together and do freestyle after class. There were so many of us who were interested in that aspect of training. I would personally resolve to do at least some every day, no matter how tired I was, I would do 2 minutes after class, just to get a feeling of moving, moving around and letting go.

LM: And it was just your love of it that got you into doing it all the time. Or did you see that it was the end point? Or what?

I think it's a direction that you go towards. There are different kinds of training. You practice differently for specific reasons. Each time you do this, these different practices, you have to have in your mind the purpose of it. You let go and do something else. A certain technique is shown, and your obligation is to apply that technique and learn the mechanism of it, and the working of it. When you do that, at a certain level you know why you're doing that. But then when you do freestyle, you have to, in an instant, even not an instant, you have to let it go as soon as it arises. You have to just when it comes, it's there, and when it's not, its not. That's as simple as it is. It becomes formless in that you're not holding on to a technique.

LM: What could people do to stop using techniques in freestyle?

You have to use techniques. But you don't formulate them in your mind in that sense, you can't dictate a situation, you have to respond to a situation. You can't change what's happening at that point to fit your preconceptions.

PB: Are you saying that in approaching training in that way, more free-form practice, you're saying that you should try to avoid thinking, 'I'm going to do this technique on this person, I'm going to try to do a kotegaishi on the next'?

Yes. That's because we do different training for different purposes. That's why advanced people do freestyle. Up in Woodstock we do it one day a week. We have two classes like this, one for people who can come in the morning and one for people who can come in the late afternoon. The fact that they already know these techniques, they have techniques, to just do it mechanically, mechanically, mechanically and then, in these classes you have a chance to do it differently.

PB: How do you conduct that class?

I just have anybody over 2nd kyu who wants to attend, and I practice myself with everybody. You just take turns. I'll start, usually, with katatetori, so everybody gets into the rhythm, and everybody takes a turn, and four or five people attack, and you just move ... just move and do techniques. People work on what they want. You can have an idea of the technique you want to try, but the point is you have to be able to let go of it, if the situation isn't there, rather than force it. And you learn in that situation that you can't force it, but that you can always move. Free movements are only really possible when your mind is clear, this is something that I work on. It's not even something I teach, because I can't teach it. That's why I practice with everybody, so I can evolve also. Sometimes when it seems like I am teaching, I am more reminding myself.

LM: We might have 10 people in a class, and there'll be a circle of four and a circle of five, and Harvey will pull one out, and practice one on one, so whereas everyone is practicing one on four or five for an hour solid, Harvey is practicing one on one for an hour solid. So, I think he does a lot of remembering. Can people practice the same thing in an ordinary class though?

Not exactly but in a way you can. For instance, when you're doing a technique and you're at a certain level, you don't have to take a posture, that just presupposes that that's the only thing you're going to do. If you know someone's going to grab your wrist…it's the same situation ... that's all that's going to happen, you know this because you have this agreement. When you practice in a way that's just focused in on that one part, you lose the ability to create a pattern where your attentions are expanding. As nage, each time you practice a technique, and uke also, you have to practice as if you don't really know what's going to come. Again, you're clearing your mind each time, by clearing your mind you clear your perception, you focus your attention and raise your head, you just don't get lazy and go "Oh Ok" and fall into a pattern.

LM: My sense is that even in static techniques, to not quite let them be static. Like even when you're being grabbed, you don't quite let yourself be grabbed. You always are in motion, a little ahead.

This is part of it, in the sense of like where you place your attention. Even what looks static, if your attention is extended, if your attitude is a certain way, then if somebody' is grabbing you, you have to create a mentality different from, "Oh, they got me." Rather you just move, blend with the direction of the attack and lead it into something else.

LM: What about ukemi? A lot of people seem to be doing some stylized form of ukemi today. It seems very technical. What do you think about how you should approach ukemi.

Well, like I said I was never taught anything about ukemi really, not even how to roll. I always just tried to follow the movement as best I could. You should try to be spontaneous in your ukemi. Give a sincere attack and then follow as realistically as possible. I think that if you are mentally trying to do a particular kind of ukemi you can become too controlling. You can get so preoccupied with technique to the point that you are no longer blending with what is actually happening. Instead you're thinking about what you're going to do next. That's not the purpose of our training.

PB: What you're saying about ukemi, not having preconceived ideas of how you want to fall, or being so technically oriented, reminds me of what you were saying about more free-form practice, about just really trying to follow what is actually happening. Do you want to expand on that a little bit?

Everything you say concerning nage applies to uke. It's just one in the same thing, one in the same person, you can't be a spontaneous, free-flowing entity during the day, and at night be this rigid, uptight personality. You're the same person, it's a myth. You don't put on a disguise or a cape, people don't really change like that. You have to bring everything to the middle. If you're not giving as uke, and you're not free as uke, you're not going to be giving and free as nage. You're not one person in one part and another person in another part. One thing is pretty much the same as the other. You will sometimes make more strides in one area at a certain time and you'll find that another area seems to be lagging, but that's just a piece of the puzzle. One side, let's say the left side, is freer than the right side. So the left side has to teach the right side, but it's still the same person, you're the same person. Until both sides are free, it's not a fully liberated organism.

LM: What do think should be the attitude people work toward in terms of providing an attack as uke?

I think that when you defend, just like when you are nage, you have to just let go of what's going to happen, and just attack. Just complete it. And then you let, as much as you can, you let your body follow the movement and what's actually happening. If you disassociate from it at any point it's no longer an attack. This is not an attack if you're saying "I'm going to strike Lowell but how am I going to fall from this," I have a plan to do a spectacular fall, or a certain kind of fall. Then my intent is not striking or attacking or giving you anything, already it's like starting to give and taking away.

LM: Is there a certain point at which you're saying well, "I'm going to provide an attack here and if nage doesn't execute, nage's going to get hit?"

I myself don't believe that. A sincere attack is something you're giving in Aikido now to each other so that we can work on certain things, but there's a certain element of protection. It's hard to describe but you can have a certain amount of control where, at the same time, you are giving everything. Let's say you attack a beginner. You're giving them all your intent, but you're not going to injure them at all. You're going to protect somebody who is less experienced than you build up the practice gradually. There's a building up. It's like lifting weights with a partner. You wouldn't put 500 pounds on them so they can't do anything, because it's counter-productive. There's a kind of sensitivity involved where you add 5 pounds, a little bit more each time, so that the person can handle it. We build up with each other.

PB: If there's one thing people should keep in mind when they're doing ukemi, what would you say that was? One thing to make it most effective.

Complete attention. When your energy or attention pulls in, you tend to get hurt. If you find yourself pulling in, I think you have to slow down and extend your attention out. The only times, I know, I've gotten injured when my mind has wandered, those are the only times I've gotten injured. Technically, I couldn't give people advice on ukemi, on one particular point or anything. I would say the same thing you saw when you teach Tai No Henko. Everything in front and everything centered, everything aligned. When you get in that habit, the body has a tendency to protect itself. To move where it has to be. When you learn your techniques, these are tools for alignment. That's one of the purposes. It's hard to say this is my idea at a particular point. We're doing something with the techniques. Ultimately it has to have a martial effect on the person you are applying it to. It ultimately has to change the person who is applying it. Otherwise, what are you doing something for. For self-defense? For an idea of something that will probably never happen to you?

LM: How important is it for students to be involved with weapons, in order to progress in freehand technique?

I think suburi is important. My weapons training isn't extensive, simply because I've indulged myself, I've had so much fun and good times just doing the body work. Some days, some times, I start to teach a class and I'll think, 'Oh, I'll do weapons today, and then when everybody has such a special time moving, with just the techniques, I hesitate to stop it and do the weapons. But I think it's a very important connection if you use it right, if you use it correctly. I don't mean kata, just collecting kata so much. I mean just taking the bokken or the jo and learn from one of the Shihan, somebody who knows how to line yourself up with it, how to extend yourself through it, how to relate it to all of the techniques. Used that way, it becomes a guide. Rather than an instrument. Instead of something that you use, it becomes something that extends you. It's like an antenna.

PB: This is different from your other weapons training because you've done Iaido for many years. So it sounds like what you do with weapons in Aikido is very different than the way that you practice Iaido.

I practiced Iaido for 10 years and I enjoyed it. I loved it. I benefited quite a bit from it, in terms of posture. It was a great, pleasurable thing to do it. But it's hard to say why I stopped I just didn't have the time to pursue it. I kind of let it go. I turned my time over to the painting, which is my primary vocation and Aikido. When I stopped Iaido, I forgot a lot of the forms. They kind of got mixed up. But now sometimes I go to the dojo, and somebody asks me about it, and I'll try and remember some of the things I learned. It's nice to do Iaido especially in springtime when we open the doors. Just outside the dojo we have kind of a culvert with the water, during the spring and in the fall, that flows past the dojo, it's kind of a unique feeling. It's very special. I still think of things in terms of cutting and thrusting, even though I don't do a lot of weapons work, it's very important to pick up a bokken and do suburi.

PB: Sugano Sensei had said at one time that it wasn't important to memorize a bunch of kata. You learn the basic movements, how to handle a weapon, and then he says you just make up your own kata, you just move, and that's very beneficial to training. But he seemed to be very much against the idea of trying to memorize a large number of specific kata.

I pretty much feel the same way. Maybe it's because I never did like doing that. I've never been a collector. I've been an accumulator, and I've had to get rid of things, that's been my job, my function. I've done literally thousands of paintings, but I haven't sold thousands of paintings, so I've accumulated. Then there's another problem. My wife Patty will say, "Let's get rid of this crap" and I'll say 'Oh, Ok, let's do it.' But then I'll think, "Oh, but this one is beautiful or this one I can re-work". So I have this problem, but I don't agree with collecting things in that sense where you are putting them on the mantle. I'm more in line with the idea of redoing and letting go, and then you'll always have it. What you're doing is you're collecting the essentials. You don't have bric-a-brac. You have something that's like a seedling, and you can grow from these. Things always grow out of it, and you have something that is alive. You don't have to dust it off all the time. And again, it has a function. Iaido was something that was valuable to me when I did it, but I also knew that the kata I learned, if I didn't review them, which is, in a sense, dusting it off, I would just forget them. And that's an obligation, to keep things clear. So, I felt that I couldn't give it the attention that was needed. But also when you practice more with an idea of using the weapon to align yourself, to get to a proper relationship with it, things will grow out of it.

PB: Yeah, sometimes when I'm working on a form that I haven't done for awhile I realize that I mixed up a couple of different forms or the specific movement is out of place. It's like I just made it up.

Well, with a lot of these kata, they make it up, and that's fine. They're masters, that's what they do. Who else is going to make it up? I spent my time in Iaido, where - I didn't describe it, but the people were a pain in the ass. That's what I couldn't stand. I loved Iaido, but the people were a pain in the ass. The thing was that they would argue, they'd nit-pick about this stuff. Just nit-pick. The problem was that it was an art that, unless you dueled and killed each other with the swords, nobody really knew. Especially among the students, and they would criticize each other and most of the time was like criticism, criticism. And had a negative connotation. When Mitsazuka Sensei taught, it was great. It was positive, it was joyous, and I learned. I couldn't do enough. But when some of the other people taught, it was tedious, you were totally at their whim, and you felt it. I was past the point where I wanted to do that. So, what was I getting at?

LM: Collecting kata.

OK, collecting kata, it's fine, I enjoyed it myself, I did. There's really nothing wrong with it. But ultimately that's not what you're left with. Let's say everything goes. You're left with something else, something much more primal.

LM: It's sort of like 'teach a man to fish' ...

Exactly. You can have the fancy tackle, but still, you have to have a know-how and you have to have an understanding and judgement you developed. Not just something that you collected. We do Shihonage over and over and over, and each time, it's different. Because the situation is different. And we know it has to work on a certain level and you feel it every time. It's like a new thing.

LM: I see so many different styles of people relating to you and relating to their Sensei. I see people who treat their Sensei like a god, treat their Sensei like their Fuhrer, like their psychiatrist, they get advice about their love problems. Do you have any sense for you or in general what's the right position to be in relation to your Aikido Sensei.

That's set up between two different people. I'm not even going to say a teacher and a student. Some people have a need for a certain kind of relationship. Whether they are healthy or not is not my concern. I know the relationship I like to have with people, the example I have from Yamada Sensei. It's always been one of great respect and love, simply because he never imposed anything on any of his students anything but the fact that he is who he is, and to accept him that way. He's an incredibly talented, generous teacher. He doesn't set himself up as somebody you have to kowtow to ... he's a human being. It's enough to respect somebody on that level alone. So, I myself, I know how I like somebody to treat me and I treat others the same way. A lot of my students are smarter than me. They have different talents, more talent. Am I going to set myself up as a god simply because I've done a thing for 35 years and I have a kind of body of knowledge because I've worked on it? That just means that in that area, I can teach. It's also a responsibility on me to be maybe a little different or better than I ordinarily would be because I have this responsibility. Somethings I think twice about doing because I have these responsibilities to all these people. My concern is that I don't want to ruin anything. It's my nature, if something's going good, I don't fix it. And if it's going well, I don't like to see anything interfere with it. I'll try and enhance it if anything. You have respect for your students, students have respect for you , there's nothing you have to do. It sells itself.

LM: Have you seen particular things happen in dojos that you think interferes with everybody's progress?

It's hard for me. There are people who are ... they want a different situation. I'll put it a different way, because I'm not criticizing anyone else's dojo or school because maybe they want a different kind of place. I know what kind of a place I want, I can say in my own school, I have very little of that problem, simply because people seem to really like each other and get along. I see people make progress if they come and the atmosphere is conducive to training and you're not injuring people physically or emotionally.

LM: Sometimes people complain to me ... beginners ... they're working with somebody and they say "they're too rough for me," or "they're too fast for me." What should people do when they have a partner who's just too rough and maybe doesn't respond if they're asked to slow down or soften up.

This is a problem in life ... we try and minimize it as a problem, we try and control it and do something where we can. Obviously, this is something we're not in favor of. That we're dead set against this kind of insensitivity to others. We're supposed to be helping each other advance and in the long run if you don't help the beginners advance, your partners advance, there's only so far you're going to go. So, I mean what should a person who finds themselves being victimized in that kind of situation do? They should tell their partner. I think that that's a very constructive way to deal with it. If that doesn't work, they should excuse themselves they should always tell their instructor. They should be able to approach their instructor. In my school, people are encouraged to approach me with any problem, but for some reason if they are embarrassed and feel they can't, they should be able to approach a senior student and I think a dojo should be set up ... I haven't done it myself but it has been on my mind, other people have done it, so that there are people who are sympathetic and students are encouraged to go to them with any problems.

LM: Like a mediator.

Yes ... sometimes there are misunderstandings - these things happen also, sometimes it's not intentional, people feel a certain way, like they've been slighted, and we have a society, so we have all these problems. Obviously.

LM: Also, you've helped train a lot of women black belts, and more coming, are there special things that you think women have to keep in mind? Or is everybody one?

Everybody is one. If women have specific problems, they have to address it, they have to let me know, but I have no particular idea except for the fact that when I teach I see that some people are less physical, smaller, and I deal with that situation whether they are a man or a woman. If there are other problems involved, emotional, mental problems, and it has be dealt with, and if I can help, I do. People will come up and ask advice, men and women .. that someone was too rough, too strong or they feel overwhelmed, but basically I deal with it just as one. If someone is good, I ask them to teach, doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman.

PB: Along this line a little bit, there was an issue a number years back where they were talking about the status of women in Aikido and there were questions of why there were not so many high ranking women in Aikido, why are there not women Shihan coming out of Japan. Do you have any thoughts on things like that?

I don't know very much about Japan. This is a culture that I only know through Aikido. It doesn't really concern me, what the attitude in Japan is, it's all we can do is work where we are on who we are. This is our own backyard and we are there with everybody. That's all we basically have to be concerned with. This is from my point of view. If other people want to address this situation, they can. But I really think we have to go beyond what's been done before. What do you think about this?

PB: Me? Me? I'm not being interviewed here! (laughter)

Yeah, but this is something we are talking about.

PB: Well, I think that what you said about having to go beyond the past is very true. We have to look at it from where we are now. I imagine what may have been happening in Japan before had something to do with a society that was more male dominated. Certainly at the dojo there were more males than females. I think that because of the social structure women didn't have as much opportunity to practice diligently and move up through the ranks. That's changed a lot over the years, at least here in the US where there are a lot of excellent woman instructors of high rank.

I see the woman's issue kind of like the Shihan issue. You can't really concern yourself with what is happening in Japan, with what and why they are or are not doing something. There's no point in getting consumed with things that you have no control over. All you can do is have the actions in your own life and in your own dojo, of how you treat people, how people are trained, man or woman, be consistent. And if someone is good, recognize that, support them, have them teach classes, whatever. I think that happens a lot in the States and we have a lot of women who are very good and who have risen to as high a rank as the men. That's something that we see here. I think that we just have to do it here first as you were saying. The future will be shaped by the actions we take in the present.

Yes. This is the place where we can correct things. In our own back yard. You know Yamada Sensei was way ahead of his time on this issue. I remember when he first gave Sybila Hahn a class at New York Aikikai. It doesn't seem like much now but back then, 25 years ago there weren't any female instructors, at least not in any of the Shihan dojos. He was the first. I remember him laughing and saying something like, "Let's see how they react to this!" But he was very supportive of Sybila. She was strong, and had clear, clean technique so he gave her a class.

PB: Well, Harvey I think we'll end this here so I can't be asked any more questions. Seriously. Thank you very much. It was a very interesting conversation that made me think about things from a different perspective. And thank you Lowell for your savvy and probing questions.