Last year, a brand new student and complete beginner, went to change in the locker room.
To everybody's surprise, he reappeared wearing a white jacket, a black belt and a hakama he had no idea how to tie.
Nothing underneath!

After the initial shock and careful questioning, it appeared that he had wanted to buy the proper Aikido uniform in a store in Paris, and the salesperson, out of ignorance or maliciousness, had sold him the complete shodan outfit.
I explained the proper way to dress, and he became slightly embarrassed, but we were so amused by the whole thing that it did not last long.

This is a story from my early days.

I was a big early morning class attendee when I first began training. There were only a few of us who were regulars, and we got used to the quirks and antics we each brought with us in our early morning personalities.

One person I enjoyed working with was a guy who owned a pizza parlor down the street from my apartment. He was a Deadhead from way back, and always talked about the shows he would try to catch while the Grateful Dead were on tour. He had a habit of singing in the morning when we were working through techniques.

One morning, during a chorus of "Sugar Magnolia" (kaiten-nage), he accidentally threw me through a shoji screen at the edge of the mat.

As you know, when you are asked to do a demonstration you wonder if you should.

Several years ago, the Aikido Center of Atlanta was asked to do a demo.
When we arrived at the site we were expecting the usual small to medium crowd.
To our surprise we were greeted by a standing room only group.
One of the people there brought us a copy of the item in the newspaper telling of our demo.
When we read it we understood the crowd.
The article said we were going to do a demonstration of Japanese Marital Arts.

I have only been an Aikido student for about a month and about the 4th class, Sensei Elisabeth was showing a technique of ura.
The senior student and I were beginning our practice and I said, "What's this called...Ohura?"
He just looked at me slightly puzzled and with utmost respect said "Ura", nodded and we continued.

A Language Lesson For Two

In the mid-70's, shortly after Kawahara-Sensei moved from Japan to our dojo in Montreal, he was teaching kata tori-menuchi shihonage. I was having trouble and Sensei came over to help, taking the role of uke. When it came time for me to do my part I was lost in confusion.

"Hit", Sensei said emphatically, "Barry, HIT!!!"
So I punched him in the stomach.
A hush feel over the class as everyone stopped training and held their breath. For evey inch my fist sank deeper into his belly, Sensei's eyes grew proportionately wider and wider.

For a moment we stood frozen face to face and eye to eye.
I knew I was a dead man.
Then Sensei started muttering to himself, "Hit, head... head, hit..." and then to me, "No, no, Barry, not hit ... HEAD!", indicating that I must connect head and hands to go under uke's arm.

In about 1960-61, I was doing a demonstration of Aikido at a USMC "Smoker" boxing match. I think I was a san-kyu at the time. I had a partner for my demonstration who was a really big guy. We had practiced for a couple of weeks so he would not get hurt and I taught him basic falling techniques.

My wife Linda and I often had dojo parties at our house. One night, a bunch of us sat on the floor with Sensei, drinking beer, talking and laughing. He was having a good time playing a game with Cleo, my pet Boxer.

They sat facing each other, only 2 feet apart. Sensei would hold up a rice cracker in front of Cleo's face until she would start drooling and licking her chops and then flick it at her. Quicker than the eye could see, she would snap it out of mid-air, mere inches from his hand. It was as though it had disappeared into thin air. Sensei, along with the rest of us, was quite amused by this phenomenon and repeated it over and over.

The game lasted about 10 minutes until Sensei absent-mindedly tossed a cracker backward into his own mouth. At this point something became obvious ... something that every Star Trek fan knows and takes for granted. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

Chomp!!! As Sensei's mouth closed on the rice cracker, Cleo's mouth closed on his. For a nano-second that seemed to last an eternity they sat like statues, eye to eye and muzzle to nose ... Sensei's lower lip locked in Cleo's front teeth.

In a blur of crackers, and a yelp from one or both of them, they sprang about 6 feet apart. The look of shock on Sensei's face was total. Immediately, blood welled on his lip and ran down his chin. Half a dozen of us sprang at Sensei with cocktail napkins to stem the flow of blood, while another half dozen leaped in front of Cleo, taking fantastic defensive postures like in some bad Kung Fu movie. "Evil assassin! You have wounded Teacher ... Now you must fight us all ... TO THE DEATH!!!"

Linda immediately took charge, calmed us all down and escorted Sensei to the bathroom. When they returned, Sensei's lip was very purple and very swollen but they were both laughing. Sensei, ever shy, was embarassed at being the center of attention but handled it with good humor. He smiled at Cleo and kept talking to her in Japanese. I have no idea what he was saying, but Ishiyama was NOT translating.

Although I love kids and they seem to like me, my experience with kids classes always seems like a scene out of "Kindergarden Kop". They can apparently smell the fear rolling off me and I find myself talking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

One day, in Atlanta, I was on the mats helping with the kids class. I told a small group that if they had any questions, feel free to call me over and I would be happy to answer them. Shortly after, I noticed one 11-year old girl waving for me.

"Katherine, do you have a question?" I said to her.

Life is funny. You never know who's life you touch and how you affect them... or they, you.

Folks often ask me if being a white man running a martial arts school in a run-down black neighborhood has brought me any negative feedback from the local community. While I've made enemies chasing away all of the local hookers and crack dealers, this surprised me:

Today there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, there stood George, with his crossed eyes and his mouth missing half its teeth, dressed in his usual ragged clothing. He usually can be seen pushing a shopping cart filled with fruit that he gets from the Farmer's Market not far away. He's always trying to sell some to me, or asking for a hand-out. I rarely give money to the local down-and-outers because they will keep coming back forever. I've never bought fruit from him, mostly because it is in bulk and will go bad before I could use it all.

To my surprise he handed me a beautiful watermelon and said, "Have a Merry Xmas!" I was dumbfounded. I ran into the kitchen and brought him out a bottle of very good wine. He pulled back and said, "No, no, I'm giving you a gift. I don't want anything for it." "I know," I said, "This is a present for you. Merry Xmas to you, too, George." We talked for a few minutes about the weather and the dojo, wished each other well, and then he pushed his cart away.

It is through moments like this that I believe God/Higher Power and the "better angels of our nature" reveal themselves to me. I also take it as another sign that running this dojo is my true calling.

The watermelon sits on our kamiza.

One Christmas at my old dojo we threw a party and had everyone out on the mats for pizza and pop. As the night progressed the younger students went home and the older students broke out with the sake and beer.

After a few beers, Dave - a brown belt - had convinced Alan - a black belt - that he could do a jumping breakfall without spilling his beer and he proceeded to prove it right there and then on the mats.

Well, after seeing this, Alan thought "hey I'm a black belt and my break falls are the best in the Dojo, I can do this". So, Alan does his breakfall, head over feet reach for the mat, and beer spills all over his face, mat, clothes. Well, there was beer everywhere. I mean the place stunk ! The rest of us started laughing uncontrolably and helped Alan dry off.

I just started Aikido about 8 weeks ago. Last Thursday another beginner (who I'll call Bob) and I were working on a pinning technique with the help of one of the Sandan in our class. Going rather slowly through each step, Bob had my wrist pinned over my shoulder, and I thought was leading down to the mat. He held on to my wrist (still moving very slowly) and as I leaned straight backward, with my feet still on the mat, Bob decided to let go. I landed on my shoulder blades rather hard, my head wasn't tucked in all the way so I hit that too, and had the wind knocked out of me.

I got up slowly, got my wind back.

Sandan asked me to watch while he went through the move with Bob again.

So Bob and I try it again (Bob's third attempt).

This happened when I was teaching a class at our Dojo on a Wednesday evening. Our dojo is on the 2nd floor, with windows all around, and that particular evening there were 10 or so male students on the mat practicing Kaitenage from Hanmi Handachi.

One of the students was having difficulty with a particular movement, and I suggested that he try a different position with his arm. I could sense his frustration in not being able to feel the technique the way he should. He began to adjust, making the subtle change that I suggested. The next minute or so he asked me "Is this ok Sensei?" My answer, without looking at him or what he was doing was: "Beautiful, Beautiful."

I used to teach a childrens' class, and at the end of each class I would let the kids attack me any way they wanted to, while I sat in seiza. It was good practice for me and I wanted them to get used to a more spontaneous mind-set.

Slowly, each student approached and attacked in their chosen method. Sam, the cutest little guy you ever saw, was a new student and he slowly walked toward me, his hand held in a fist at about chest level. He was wearing the kind of grin that covered his entire face, which held a mix of excitment and slight apprehension as he was about to attack his teacher for the first time.

I think Aikido is the basis of a better life. When I was still studying Aikido we had a rather nice group, except for one fellow. This man thought he could drink before he came to the classes, and Sensei showed him right.

The man had been under the influence before and it irritated sensei a lot, and he told the drunk to sober up or stay away. Well when he showed up drunk again something must have snapped, as it was the most rigorous training we ever had. Warm up was extreme and included a lot of turning and rolling. have you ever tried turning/rolling when you are drunk?

Though we all had a hard time it was funny to see the drunk cope with this. When the warm up was over, he could hardly stand on his feet, and guess who sensei chose to demonstrate the new techniques. Well, as the drunk flew through the dojo we all had a good laugh, and after the demonstration he ran to the toilet, and after that he left. That was the last time I saw him !!

Recently our dojo (along with our sister dojo) was asked to do several demonstrations at our local Japanese Festival. After practicing for weeks to polish our demo the weekend finally arrived. On Saturday as the time neared for our demo the skies opened up. This was quite a problem because we were to demonstrate outdoors and there was no alternative venue. With the whole dojo frantically consulting a higher power, the rain fell harder and harder and was punctuated by thunder and lightning. Obviously we were canceled, but we had one last chance on Sunday. On Sunday the same weather struck. By now everyone was so keyed up that we would have demonstrated for the squirrels. Just as on Saturday, the rain fell harder and harder as the time for our demo approached.

Sensei said that it was up to us. If we wanted to we could do the demo in the middle of the monsoon that had just struck St. Louis. Wiping the mats had no effect. The rain was so hard that people began hydroplaning. As people began to go down the laughter from our group kept getting louder and louder. Our sensei was forced to walk amongst the crowd that had gathered to watch these lunatics do Aikido in the rain because the microphone began to short out. As I sat in seiza, soaked to the bone, waiting to show the next technique I was struck by the fact that this was what Aikido was all about. We were blending with nature and practicing in a joyful manner. All of the nages were protecting their ukes to the best of their abilities and all of the ukes were demonstrating real ukemi. We all had a blast and when it was over one member of the crowd suggested that we rename our art slipkido.