Encounters with O'Sensei
Robert Nadeau
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
from the book: AIKIDO IN AMERICA page 61
Links: Aikido of mountain view
Robert Nadeau wikipedia
Kobayashi Yasuo
