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Encounters with O'Sensei

Robert Nadeau

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So I was kind of prepped for him. I had also heard about him a bit since I'd started to do aikido. So when I got there and watched him do his thing, I knew he was something else. It was also strange watch­ing these people go down the way they were going down. I was kind of used to wrestling around, slugging it out; he'd wave his arm and these people would drop pretty good. So I figured he was good. I really wanted to try him, being the competitive fool I was. Finally one day, I don't know how many months went by, there was a class. All the students were sitting around and he looked at me, and he held out his arm and said, "Grab by arm." I'd been waiting for this for ages. I was probably in the best shape of my life; I'd been train­ing every day, so I was up and at him like a shot. He was right in front of me, that arm was right in front of me, and suddenly I'm in a rubbery cloud going deeper and deeper and the rubber is like a rubber band starting to stretch out. And suddenly I'm flying out of this cloud and I catch him out of the corner of my eye—he's stand­ing to the right of me instead of in front of me—I catch him out of the corner of my eye but I'm in the air and going down. I know I hit hard because I slapped hard and everybody started laughing, but my mouth was agape. I was just awe-struck. Now you've got to remember this wasn't the first time I had been thrown down. I'd been hit by judo champions and top-of-the-line karate boys and good aikidoka, you know, but always with them you'd have some sense that "this guy is tough, he's fast, he outsmarted me* he tricked me." But this was like something else. I don't know what kind of world I went into. 

from the book: AIKIDO IN AMERICA page 61
   
Links:
Aikido of mountain view

          Robert Nadeau wikipedia




Kobayashi Yasuo

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Kobayashi and O'Sensei

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